Profile on Erica Freed
When I first started out at Drexel, I thought I wanted to be an engineer. However, my favorite classes in engineering were math. Basically that is what made me decide to study math instead of engineering. I wasn’t thrilled about the design aspect of engineering but I liked my math classes.
I chose to come to Drexel for two reasons: honestly, they gave me the best financial aid package and of course, the co-op program. I liked that I would have one and a half years of experience upon graduating.
I have only done one co-op because I have decided that I want to teach high school math. My co-op job was at a traffic planning and design transportation engineering firm, but I didn’t do much design. I worked in the studies department. I did statistical projecting, projecting future traffic volume and how traffic would affect the roads, and helped figure out what could be done to mitigate traffic jams.
I haven’t yet done my student teaching, so if I don’t like teaching, I think of that job as something I could fall back on. I know I could always go back to work for them. Even though it was an engineering firm, I liked the studies.
The thing I like best about Drexel is the quarter system. Initially I was scared, but now, I cannot even imagine 16 week semesters. Three ten week terms (like Freshman year) are better than 2 16-week semester. They get so tedious and long. I like that our classes move fast and teachers sometimes count homework, and you have multiple tests during the term, so you don’t just have one midterm and one final that are your only grades.
One of the other nice things about specifically the Math Department at Drexel is that there are not of math majors. Classes are with the same people and you always see people you know in the math lounge. It is pretty friendly. Coming from engineering, where there are literally hundreds of people in the program, this is way more tight-knit.
I chose to get a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mathematics, and a Master of Science degree in education, rather than just getting a B.S. in Math Education, because I know people who do math education, and I feel like they cut off their math classes at the courses you are required to have in order to teach math.
However, I feel that to teach math, you need to know higher level mathematics, even though you won’t be teaching abstract algebra or numerical analysis in high school. You need to deepen your knowledge of mathematics so you understand the background, knowing where the stuff you teach in high school or middle school comes from. Having this background will make you understand math as a whole better. And this will make you a better teacher.
Of course, being a math major isn’t for everyone. Consider what you want to do when you graduate and decide if Math is the best degree for it. Math is pretty broad. If you study engineering for example, you will do engineering when you graduate. If you do math, you can do engineering, or a bunch of other fields. It keeps your options pretty open.
Drexel is a great choice for choosing to major in math, since it is a math and science school. If you decided to change your major, you have a lot of options available to you.
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