Algebra is the Most Important Subject Ever

No it isn't.

Go ahead, math teachers worldwide. Send your hate mail and your lists of "Ten Fun Things To Do With Quadratics" to tryan@wpst.com. Knock yourself out.

Was chatting with some of our summer interns, a group of bright college students, and it came up that one of them was taking Algebra. I confessed that I took Algebra in college three times. Basic Algebra. I didn't take it seriously the first time, not the second time, and not really the third time, just got lucky. And all it was was the basic algebra I had learned and aced back in my blue ribbon New Jersey public high school education.

And here's the thing about Algebra that everybody has pondered at one point or another. WHAT IS THE POINT OF HAVING LEARN THIS MUCH ALGEBRA?

(Keep your mouth shut if you are some brainiac rocket scientist who launched from algebra to algorithms... the rest of us just needed the algebra to get our diplomas.)

If I had bothered to place out of the Algebra placement test before I started college, I wouldn't have wasted all that student loan money standing in line at the registrars' nursing a hangover while trying to drop said Algebra class. And no, not even a thorough understanding of x+y would have pointed out the obvious: that the three credits of Algebra I was flushing down the toilet was literally money down the drain. I tended to ignore the losers who would periodically pop up with their impressive calculation of how much each class was costing you -- in dollars -- when you skipped.

So instead of realizing the cost of taking Algebra three times, and simply bothering to place out of it, the cost of getting it out of the way was somewhere between $1500-2000 all told. And it cost $0 for me to learn it in the first place. Sure is dumb math on my part.

And the WORST part... I'm REALLY good at Algebra! I actually liked it! (Thanks Chuck Schaub & Dottie Staats!) Well, actually, I liked it when it was easy. When everything balanced out nicely, and X always equalled a whole number consisting of two digits or less. That was my favorite era of Algebra. None of the hyperbola nonsense or the stuff that requires a graphing calculator.

Which brings me to the answer to the original question. I actually have an answer.

q: WHAT IS THE POINT OF LEARNING THIS MUCH ALGEBRA?

a: There are two reasons. Ya ready?

ONE: So you can answer a basic "If 2X+ Y = 17, then what is the value of Y" question, especially if you are in the throes of some television game show involving random knowledge.

TWO: So you can tutor someone else who is trying to get through Algebra themselves.

That's all. And just for learning your basic algebra to serve those two purposes, you will have proved your worth to all mankind.

Ergo, Algebra is the Most Important Subject Ever. Value of Y my butt.