A Shout Out

I want to take a moment to give a little shout out to Algebra teachers everywhere. I don't remember who taught me Algebra, but I owe him or her a lot! This may sound really random coming from soemone who considers herself devoted to music, the arts, and literature, but algebra is so incredibly essential to my career. It's actually, surprisingly, one of my favorite parts of my job.
The first time a client asked me for a net amount with various percentages of federal and state withholding I didn't even think of using algebra. I did a straight line equation like so: $5,000 for the net distribution, 15% is $750 for federal tax, 5% is $250 for state tax, equals total distribution of $6,000. But this isn't a straight line equation. What I was missing was the algebra!
When I put in a $6,000 gross distribution withholding 15% federal and 5% state, the computer told me that the net distribution to the client would only be $4,800, I was a little confused. Until I realized I had a need to solve for x. And I needed fractions to do this too!
So the equation became:
x - 3x/20 (which is 15%x) - x/20 (which is 5%) = $5,000
multiply both sides by 20 to get:
20x - 3x - x = $100,000 OR 16x = $100,000
divide both sides by 16 to get:
x = $6,250
So my first gross distribution of $6,000 would have fallen short and not given the client the desired $5,000 net distribution. And now I can't tell you how many times in a day I'm called to solve for x.
I know this is a weird blog post, but it just occured to me how wonderful it is to have a good, well-rounded education. And just because you're interested in one area (like literature or music), doesn't mean you can neglect other areas (like math, science or history). You never know when you're going to need to use knowledge from any subject you study. (And you never know if you're going to spend your life studying English and end up with a job in finance or when you're going to study theology your whole life only to work in computers)!
Thanks to my Algebra teacher and to all my other teachers over the years who prepared me for real life. If my little Claire ever looks at me and asks when she's going to use something in real life, I intend to tell her about my experience with Algebra.