Originally Posted by
'India-Mike
Increasingly school qualifications don't prepare you for anything - they are simply a currency that allow you to 'buy' a place at uni or the job interview table.
I disagree. Two of my four A-levels were Maths and Further Maths, and I then went on to do a mathematics degree at University before starting with my flight training course. I am finding that the techniques I learned and ability to think mathematically that I developed at GCSE and A-level maths is helping me a great deal with a lot of the flight planning and navigation parts of the PPL and ATPL courses. Sure, my results might have helped impress the FTO but I definitely think I'd be worse off without them in terms of my ability to understand the material put before me.
On the other hand, I'm finding 99% of the "maths" I studied at university absolutely pointless and irrelevant. I spent much of my degree questioning what the point of learning it was and since finishing uni I've not found any use for much of it whatsoever.
While the ATPLs may lack depth as far as their scientific and mathematical content is concerned (certainly some of the explanations given leave much to be desired) I would certainly say that achieving good grades at A-level maths takes off a lot of the pressure when approaching some of the more maths- and physics-based parts of the course.