I also noticed this story from 21 Aug 2007
University does the sums – maths has to be sexy.

IMHO it is also a casualty of a failed experiment called “The New Maths” that was the standard syllabus for decades in NZ. Luckily it has changed more recently and definitely for the better.

If the university wants more math students they need to start recruiting at 5 years old.
———-news item below——–

Auckland University’s maths department is trying to give its courses livelier names in a bid to attract more students.

A review of the department recorded a drop of about 200 fulltime equivalent students in the past 10 years to just over 700 students last year, and recommended that course names be made more “interesting and informative”.

• Candor
• Urgency
• Timeliness
• Pithiness
• Controvery
•( Utility, maybe, if you want six)”

I rather like the addition of utility as a footnote, don’t you.
I’ve found that most of the new inquiries from prospective clients come from my blog and not my utilitarian (work) website. In many cases the person has told me that they liked the breadth of my interests or found my style amusing. Not that they think I am a strategic genius or creative ubermensch.

I am increasingly fond of the idea that people like simple, human approaches and solutions. Technology that moves in that direction will, most likely, succeed. Issues such as values as well as added value will be a consideration. And, finally, to overcome the imponderability of the unknown, the yet to be iinvented, technologists will find humanising metaphors and storytelling will ease the way for investment and adoption.

By the way. It is seriously concerning that the numbers of students choosing science topics is dropping like an anvil from a rooftop. I was heartened to see on the news a group of Waikato University students developing new tools to teach sciences like physics using visual aids and storytelling. The called themselves Gary’s Lab They took their invention to the Microsoft invention bake-off Imagine in South Korea and caused considerable interest (though did not make the finals).

Richard Dawkins has a new television programme called Enemies of Reason in which he bemoans the decline in scientific thinking and the rise of cockamamy, post-modern ‘spiritualism’. I have posted the first episode on my blog – it is worth watching.