Fish & Chips: A math major in England

If Sting can write a song about coming to the states, I can write a song about coming to the UK. If anyone is familiar with the Sting and the Police song “Englishman in New York” then you are in for a treat! Here is my own rendition of it:

I don’t write essays, I solve math problems

I like my numbers on paper

And you can read it in my essays when I write

I’m a math major in England

See me walking to the classroom

A calculator in one hand

I take it everywhere I go

I’m a math major in England

I’m an alien, I’m a legal alien

I’m a math major in England

I’m an alien, I’m a legal alien

I’m a math major in England

I get many strange looks from my British peers when I tell them what I study. What would someone studying maths (as the British call it) be doing in an archaeology or philosophy class? When I follow it up with, “I’m taking it to fulfill some of my gen. eds,” I get even more strange looks. My favorite, though, is as follows. Before one of my lectures there is a math lecture. One day I got there a little bit early while the math professor and students were packing up. On the table where I usually sit were some math worksheets. What do I do? I pick one up and start looking at it. As some of my peers sit down next to me, they wonder why I have it. As it turns out, a liberal arts degree is more or less a foreign concept to them. As a retired teacher who spoke to our Paideia Capstone class said along these lines, a British student will know a lot about a little, while an American student will know a little about a lot.

In the end I like the idea of a liberal arts education. I have a lot of other interests outside of math and teaching. In the UK it would be difficult for me to study religion and psychology while still studying math and education. There are positives to both sides, as students in the UK can specialize in their education and gain their undergrad in three years. Unless the students decide to go on to grad school, they are ready to enter the real world around the age of 21. Here in the states we go for at least an extra year. In the end, it becomes a personal preference as to which system someone prefers.