Someone who used to dislike it in school and university here.

Having to cram a lot of information and formulas, and then reproduce it without error for an exam. None of it made sense, and I wasn’t even aware it was possible for it to make sense.

Only after many years did I understand it’s all connected, there’s a logic to it. It’s possible to understand rather than just blindly learn.

Btw the notation really doesn’t help.

Because the mathematics literature fucking sucks.

It is written by math nerds for math nerds. Show me all the fucking proof, you just spent 10 pages talking about anything and everything but you can’t expand on how your formula has been transformed because of whatever theorem.

How many god damn time have I read something akin to “the proof is left to the reader. The resulting formula is [something entirely new].”

Like fuck you, show me how it’s done.

I enjoy the concepts and structures of mathematics. Fractal geometry, holomorphic dynamics, computational theory, uncertainty principles and all that are fascinating as hell. Discrete systems dancing with continuous integrals at process limits.

I DO NOT ENJOY working with math. Specifically I cant read complex equations. I don’t have an attention disorder but I swear the moment I try reading anything that looks like this I get overloaded and nope out. If it aint highschool algebra with PEMDAS I cant do it. If you put a bullet to my head and pinned my survival on properly solving a quadratic equation I’d just tell you to shoot me.

The concepts are cool once you can get past the notation to understand the ontology of whats trying to be conveyed. The actual expanded out notations and trying to do work with them is a fuckin nightmare.

Also since im ranting can I just say, across STEM the biggest problem is the naming convention. Math and science would be at least 60% more accessable if we went back and renamed all theorems, hypothesis, proofs, to be what they are about instead of just shouting out the guy who discovered it. “eulers identity” doesnt mean a fucking thing. Neither does scrodingers equations or the riemann hypothesis or turing machines. THESE ARE NOT ACCESSABLE NAMES THEY CONVEY NOTHING INTRINSICALLY BESIDES SOME DEAD GUYS LAST NAME. GET SOME PROGRAMMERS WHO KNOW HOW TO ACTUALLY DECLARE HUMAN READABLE STRINGS FOR YOUR FUCKING ABSTRACTION OBJECTS.

It’s hard for me to remember all of the different formulas and remembering when to use what.

the education system failed them, teaching in a way that’s not enjoyable.

Yeah, pretty much. I had to learn a ton of math, where I never got explained what it could be used for. And when it can be applied in an obvious way, namely physics, most of the complexity lays in memorizing a ton of one-letter-abbreviations and formulas, which feels pointless, too.

I’m a programmer now. That was always easy to me, because the best way to learn that is by gradually solving harder puzzles. You don’t just sit in a classroom and get told all the solutions to all the puzzles…

I’ll offer a different perspective. I’m actually really good at math, and I hated it in school because I didn’t want to do dozens of homework problems because I already knew how to do it and it was pointless work.

And I didn’t, which led to me having to take my tests sitting next to the teacher because she wouldn’t believe I could make > 90% on the tests without doing any practice problems.

It’s just extremely difficult for me to hold a value in my head and perform an operation against another. I do understand the operations though, the concept is fine, the problem is that of numerical values. Numbers. I’m horrible with them. Always had problems remembering important historical dates, my own personal numbers (ids, age, etc). Because it’s such a struggle it becomes very tiring very quickly, and frustrating. That’s what’s hard.

This comes off like a person who has no empathy, or who assumes everyone else thinks like they do. When I was in college, I tutored math to middle school kids, and I can say with certainty that some people’s brains take to it more naturally than others. You can be very smart and still struggle with math.

And putting that aside, “enjoyment” is inherently subjective. It’s like saying most people would enjoy liver and onions if they had it cooked right. No, some people will and some people won’t. It’s okay - people are a diverse lot and it’s fine if some people don’t like what you like.

I don’t think this applies to everyone but the major difference I have found between people who enjoy math and those who don’t lies primarily in how they do math. People who don’t like math usually learn and reproduce the subject by memorizing formulas and using them as tools to solve problems where as people who enjoy mathematics typically seek to understand why those formulas work and often rederive them. For the former who didn’t take the time or was not interested in learning the laws that govern math, the subject is a slog of searching your tool box for the correct tool. Sometimes numerous times until you find the one that works, though often not knowing why it worked and the others did not. For the latter it is like a language they have become fluent in. The indentification of which tool they need has become second nature and they will sometimes design tools specific to their needs.

Edit: I saw all this from my experience as a physics major for most of my undergrad. This primarily comes from what I observed in other physics majors so this could be somewhat skewed info. I’m certain there are people who understood math from the roots up and still hated it. Puzzles like that aren’t for everyone and I certainly got tired of it by the time I reached up level math.

Because I only have a limited amount of dopamine to spend each day, and I rather not waste it on something as boring as math. ADHD does not allow me to pursue things that don’t interest me unless I’m forced to.

Neurotypical people with plenty of dopamine to spare may struggle to understand the concept of their brain physically stopping their body from doing anything that doesn’t feel satisfying, nor rewarding to do. But it’s a real thing that happens.

I like math just fine up until trigonometry and at that point my brain just can’t hold onto it. Failed college calculus three times. There’s something about the formulas and rules and applications that isn’t intuitive for me at that level. I’m much better at the Earth Sciences and had no problems with chemistry.

“Liking” math isn’t really accurate either. I don’t care about math, I care about things that require math. Geometry and algebra are useful in a ton of other disciplines and activities. Playing with numbers doesn’t make me feel smart or accomplished the way a puzzle does.

I have a learning disability which affects my ability to understand math (discalculia). Its really hard to explain how it feels, but any time I do simple math in my head I can’t keep track of the numbers and they are start to blink in and out. Its like having short term memory loss for the duration of the equation? Not sure if that makes sense. I can absolutely do the math, but its an uphill battle and I end up having a lot of anxiety because I think people will judge me for how long it takes. I have a lot of trouble with addition, subtraction and multiplication so, really, the very basics.

I think if I didn’t have this condition I would probably really enjoy math. I didn’t know about this when I was in high school so I don’t know if they could have even helped me. I also had a math teacher for a couple of years who would literally throw a chair at the wall if you did something wrong or he thought you were playing stupid. So that certainly did not help the situation.

Just don’t want to do it

Because my brain had/has enough room to hold diagraming sentences or higher mathematics. And I chose the one that allows for me to insult people in a way where they know I’m insulting them, but are unable to articulate how I’m insulting them.

I like algebra, it’s logical and understandable for me. But calculus just falls out of my head the minute I take my eyes off of it.

I am an accountant, I love numbers and number trivia, little puzzles.

But math math, like beyond algebra? Not as much.

And early math, like arithmetic, was poisoned by bad teachers and bad teaching methods. I didn’t like it before algebra, it was boring.