What is their usual motivation for this? Do they find they are running into regular work or life situations that require it?
I think about all the math I took in high school and undergrad, and in my adult life I have not used anything more advanced than basic middle school algebra and occasionally some simple trigonometry. I don't even remember most of what I learned, other than very high-level concepts.
Motivations vary a bit, but most of them are just in it for personal enrichment, and the people who are in it for personal enrichment tend to be the most likely to stick with it. There are definitely jobs that require more math than the things you listed, but even if you have one of them the way I teach is usually more optimized for curiosity than professional goals.
> What is their usual motivation for this? Do they find they are running into regular work or life situations that require it?
I have a chip on my shoulder. In university I was depressed and didn't even bother attending lectures let alone doing the work in the first couple of years, couple that with professors who when contested were off by a 20-40% bc they cba to care for a secondary course in another department...
When looking for thesis advisors, I found one interested in the things I was. They made a comment asking whether I had an issue with mathematics. Over the year I learned enough mathematics to get to what I was interested in and understand the bleeding-edge literature (calc, linalg, vec calc, prob theory, etc). I corrected some of his proofs in his classes by the end of the thesis.
Still, my early grades haunt me, and parts of me wants to get a math degree just to prove that it is not a skill (read, intellect) issue.
What is their usual motivation for this? Do they find they are running into regular work or life situations that require it?
I think about all the math I took in high school and undergrad, and in my adult life I have not used anything more advanced than basic middle school algebra and occasionally some simple trigonometry. I don't even remember most of what I learned, other than very high-level concepts.