Any math majors struggle with math in high school?
I suppose struggle is a relative term. I moved around a lot before high school. This meant that I had holes in my math background that made it difficult to grasp things the first time I saw a more advanced concept built on a hole in my background. Nevertheless, I did quite well in Math because I was willing to look repeatedly at what I did not understand till I did.
did math get better or worse in college?
Generally, Math pedagogy is about building up on prior knowledge.
If you have the prerequisite knowledge incorporated into your thinking, then the new things are quite straightforward (and math gets easier going forward). If you don't, then the new ideas can seem like nonsense. But when this happens, a relatively easy remedy is:
1) identifying the missing prerequisites,
2) learning them, and then
3) reviewing the unfamiliar material that was built on top of that.
This does mean, however, that Math class grades (and science or engineering classes that use math) have a largely bimodal distribution. One mode is made of people who had the prerequisites, or were willing and able to shore-up their missing pre-requisites (they pretty much ace the class), and another mode that did not (and they struggle hard).
I'm asking because i want to major in math but i've struggled from 9-11 grade.
My suggestion is that you spend a lot of time thinking of and describing the world in mathematics over the coming year and summer (like an immersion experience for a foreign language). Once the high school prerequisites are part of they way you can describe the world, then taking introductory college math is usually very easy.
It may even be ridiculously easy after this because many others haven't learned the language of mathematics. I'd imagine it is similar to how a native English speaker would feel in a college English Literature class, compared to a class of English as a Second Language students.
Senior year I have a tutor, but I love math and see many benifits to a math degree.
What is it that you love about math? Math is used in a lot of places...science and engineering, finance and economics, puzzles and games, and of course pure and applied mathematics. Depending on what you like, perhaps you can choose a major more suited to that.
Is there a problem with math in high school education, if so what is it?
I think there is a huge problem among the students I see entering college. I am not sure when the problem started, but it came as a shock to me when I had to teach them.
High school doesn't teach math, it seems. It teaches how to manipulate symbols following particular rules...or rather the mechanics of math. The mechanics of math is IMO left better to computational machines. I think the students realize this, so they just don't learn it. Mathematics is the science of patterns. High school students don't seem to understand this because Math is not taught that way.
There is another side to this too. It seems like some people don't want "rote learning" as part of math education. I empathize. However, being able to do two digit addition and subtraction as well as one digit multiplication and division is the least we can ask.
In addition to the above, math was seen in the U.S. as something only "smart and nerdy" people did. This attitude seems to be being exported quite broadly across the globe lately. Even a decade ago, the people I talked to in India didn't connect Math skill with social traits or intelligence. Learning math was treated similarly to learning to read and write their native language or English. This was simply something people did in order to become educated. Now, they talk about "not having to break their heads", in relation to jobs and courses that require mathematics.