Alyssa, Goshen AddedTuesday, June 3, 2014 at 4:36 PM Is it hard working with math? Hi my name is Alyssa i'm in the 6th grade. I want to be a structural engineer when I grow up. Well since you're an engineer is it cool and hard working with math? Related to Choosing a Degree, Difficult Classes, Math & Science, Special fields and Interdisciplinary Reset Sort By Default Sandra Begay , Sandia National Laboratories Answered Tuesday, June 3, 2014 at 4:36 PM Alyssa, it is both cool to use math but it can be difficult to use math if you don’t practice. Think of math as a language to understand science and engineering. For example, engineers designed car odometers which tell us how far (miles) we have driven; but it is Calculus and math formulas that are used to measure or estimate how an odometer measures the distance we’ve traveled. Structural engineers use linear algebra to solve how buildings might move during an earthquake. So, if you don’t know how to use the language of math or practice solving math problems, you can’t solve engineering problems like building movement from an earthquake. —Sandra Sandra Begay , Sandia National Laboratories Answered Tuesday, June 3, 2014 at 4:36 PM Alyssa, it is both cool to use math but it can be difficult to use math if you don’t practice. Think of math as a language to understand science and engineering. For example, engineers designed car odometers which tell us how far (miles) we have driven; but it is Calculus and math formulas that are used to measure or estimate how an odometer measures the distance we’ve traveled. Structural engineers use linear algebra to solve how buildings might move during an earthquake. So, if you don’t know how to use the language of math or practice solving math problems, you can’t solve engineering problems like building movement from an earthquake. —Sandra