I'm a physics major and, when telling strangers this, they feel compelled to
tell me how they took high schools physics and thought it was so hard, or they
remind me that there's a "lot of math" for that major, or how they could never
do that sort of math. Unfortunately, it leads up to the discussion of what I
want to do with the major, which is even more painful especially when the same
conversation is repeated ad nausem. Its gotten to the point where if I meet
someone on a superficial level (people I will never see again, or people whom
I don't really care for) and they ask what I am studying, I tell them
business. Its perfect, there is very little follow up and it usually kills the
conversation right there. I'm just waiting for someone to say, "Business, eh?
So what do you want to do with that" just so I can respond "Fly an airplane.
What the fuck do you think?"

Its interesting, I work in retail store where we sell wine. I overheard a
conversation a couple of weeks ago between the wine department head (an older
lady) and a customer. I forget the exact statistics, but she was saying
something about how she was shocked that, _as a percentage_, more people in
the United States drink wine than the European countries. She was surprised by
this fact, as was the customer, and came to a chillingly incorrect conclusion
- "But then I thought, the population of the US is so much greater than those
European countries individually, that it would make sense that we would have a
higher percentage of wine drinkers." Somewhat ironically, her daughter has a
PhD in Mathematics from University of Arizona.

I guess my point is, people who say that they are bad at math often make
statements like that. Knowing that you are mathematically capable, instead of
shocking you with how little they know or their mathematical ignorance, I
think they try to warn you ahead of time, so their mistakes are excused, and
since they warned you they won't appear to be such an idiot.

Jason