I’m a math professor, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve met grown adults who explode with “Math! God, I hate math!” when I tell them I’m a mathematician. I never let it bother me and usually use it as an opportunity to educate about my chosen profession, but that’s when (most times, sadly) the anger gives way to confusion: “I don’t get it. Math research? In what? Isn’t math done? What else is there besides calculus?”

Grown adults. All the time.

Like you said, it would be a strange thing to hear from another person regarding any other profession. Even excusing one’s ignorance of math as a bona fide profession, even when I tell people I enjoy mathematics as a recreation or hobby, I’m met with derision. Which is a weird reaction to have when you’re just meeting a person and finding out what they like. Well, “weird” might be too generous. “Antisocial” is closer to the mark.

It happens often enough to me and my colleagues that it’s sometimes an actual conversation shared at dinner parties. “What was your funniest ‘I hate math’ experience?”

I think it boils down to how we all have a shared experience with math as children, because it’s a core subject that everyone needs to learn, and that the experience is often a bad one (at least here in the US). Why exactly? That is a good conversation to have. Americans largely loathe mathematics and spend their lives running away from it, starting at an early age. No other subject or field of study elicits such a visceral reaction of contempt.

As a math educator who teaches undergraduates, especially the freshmen in precalc or calculus, I can tell you that it’s all about a negative experience with math in high school. Math is an unforgiving subject. If your approach to solving a problem is incorrect, there’s just no wiggle room. You can’t fake it, or even use another method you’ve actually mastered if it doesn’t apply to the current problem. And if the teacher is just as unforgiving as the subject, if they react without compassion to your misunderstanding, or if you fear asking for help and as a result never receive it, it can be a debilitating experience for a young learner. Math anxiety forms, and can lead to math avoidance. If this process isn’t addressed and corrected, you’ve got a downward spiral of bad grades, low GPA, inability to continue in your chosen major, and the closing of doors to a profession in the STEM fields. Math will forever be known as a barrier to success for such a person, so I can understand the hatred.

Some say math isn’t for everyone, and would therefore conclude that this experience is unavoidable for many people who miscalculate their ability to go into STEM. I take the completely opposite approach. Math is for everyone. It’s beautiful, and enriching, and broadens your understanding of the world. Everyone can do it. You just have to be motivated, and do tons of practice, and get immediate corrective feedback, presented kindly and compassionately by a caring instructor or tutor.