"Oddly enough, my professor didn't tell me what it was for. Or I didn't hear. Or something. So I didn't pay very close attention: just enough to pass the course and forget this hateful topic forever, because I didn't think it had anything to do with programming. That happened in quite a few of my comp sci courses in college, maybe as many as 25% of them. Poor me! I had to figure out what was important on my own, later, the hard way.
I think it would be nice if every math course spent a full week just introducing you to the subject, in the most fun way possible, so you know why the heck you're learning it. Heck, that's probably true for every course."
Stevey on Math for Programmers