If you walked around the campus of UTM and asked students what subject they had the most difficulty with, chances are math would be a recurring subject.

While students possess different academic strengths and weaknesses, math seems to be a universal problem. According to the Office of Academic Records four of the top five failed classes at UTM are math courses.

“People have decided that it’s okay to be behind in math.” said Thomas Eskew, interim chair of the Math Department.

Attendance is also crucial to success in math.

“You must have the background from previous lessons or classes,” Eskew said. “If you did poorly in Math 140, then that’s a severe handicap for Math 160.”

With a math lab available to all students and teachers required to be in there offices for several hours each week, the university is doing its part to see that resources are available for this problem. The most commonly failed of these math courses is 080, with a failure rate of 42.38 percent. A distant second would be Math 080 with a failure rate of 29.82 percent. Math 160 and Math 140 have failure rates of 25.17 and 19.05 percent respectively. Math 140 is the most commonly taken of the previously mentioned courses with a headcount of at least twice as much as the other failed courses.

“I wasn’t prepared for the material.” said UTM freshman Shawn Mutters, who failed to pass the course last fall. “I didn’t expect them to throw so much at us so quickly.”

Mutters however, said that he never used the lab or the university’s Supplemental Instruction program.

The fourth most failed course at UTM, Chemistry 121, has a failure rate of 21.89 percent. This course relies heavily on Math skills and, like Math, you build on previous lessons.

Free tutoring is available with an emphasis on all of these courses, but one of the most powerful resources would be the Supplemental Instruction program. Upperclassmen sit in on classes and then lead small tutoring sessions twice a week.

“In my experience, students who take advantage of supplemental instruction score half a point higher in their GPA,” said Dr. George Daniel, director of the Student Success Center. “But people are not taking advantage of this program like they should.”