IT is a numbers racket, someone once said.
OK, that’s a pun on the fact that there are billions of zeros and ones roaring through data centres and across networks, but there’s more than a bit of truth in it.
Math skills can be a useful tool in information technology, particularly in one’s early years when deciding which way to branch out in the industry.
Writer Brian Bloom argues that it’s time Canadian high schools taught it.
“The logic of Boolean algebra is applicable to many other fields,” he writes, “but nowhere is it as practically important as it is in the world of information technology.”
I barely passed math all through school, so I’m among the millions who shudder at that four letter word. But there are thousands of IT workers across the country who leveraged their math skills to move into computer programming, database analysts and other IT-related careers. If nothing else, Bloom argues, Boolean algebra teaches good problem-solving skills.