What is math?

Upon asking a few of my friends what they think of when they hear the word  "math",  their responses were mostly the same. They replied with answers such as  "a subject we studied in school involving numbers, graphs, charts, and shapes", some of them mentioned liking math, (especially a few of my friends who are pursuing business degrees with a concentration in accounting, and those of which are studying engineering and other mathematical areas) but I also got some responses which expressed a distaste for mathematics.

After a couple of informal interviews, I decided it would be fun to look for definitions myself. My first "go to" site was, of course, Google!! I typed "define mathematics" and it brought me to a Wikipedia page. Now, I understand that Wikipedia isn't exactly a credible source, but it is interesting to navigate, nonetheless, and provided me with some great answers! According to Wikipedia,  "Mathematics is the abstract study of topics such as quantity (numbers), structure, space, and change." I should note, that what I love most about Wikipedia, is that it has to ability to take you anywhere! Each "quantity, structure, space, and change" were all linked so that I could be directed to the page for each of these. The Wikipedia page also boasted words such as patterns as a means of forming conjectures, pure math, abstractions, logic, etc.

What we need to remind ourselves, whether or not we are fans of it, is the practicality of math. Practices such as problem solving is an important concept for everyone to grasp as it can be applied to many situations in life. We use math every single day. From the moment we wake up, perhaps even before that, we need to know what time to set our alarm in order to have sufficient time to get ready for work or school. We use it when telling time, we use it when we cook, and we use it when we buy things. Mathematics surrounds us, therefore, it is a very important subject to be taught in schools.