Cultural Challenge: Teaching Mathematics to Non-mathematicians

A “mathematics for non-mathematicians” course, commonly known as a “service” course is an undergraduate mathematics course developed for students who are not (going to become) mathematics majors. Besides calculus, such courses may include linear algebra, mathematical reasoning, differential equations, mathematical programming and modeling, discrete mathematics, mathematics for teachers, and so on. In this article we argue that a good, productive curricular design and teaching of service courses happen through a meaningful collaboration between a mathematics instructor and the department whose students are taking the course. This collaboration ensures that “non-mathematicians” see the relevance of learning mathematics for their discipline (say, by discussing authentic problems and examples), but also appreciate the relevance and benefits which mathematics brings to their overall education and skills set.