<p>A lot of that comes down to standardized curricula, and the methods they use to teach math in high school. The pre-calc topics have the potential to be very fascinating topics. Trig is awesome, and college algebra topics like exponential and logarithmic functions can be used to model all kinds of stuff in the real world. High schools are required to teach courses that ensure students know a certain array of things…but it could be done much more efficiently. I do a lot of math tutoring, and it never ceases to amaze me how many fresh out of high school students have to go back to elementary/intermediate algebra once they get to college, because they don’t really understand the math. Math gets a lot cooler in college because they explain the theory behind it, rather than just throw a list of formulas at you and tell you to memorize them.</p>
<p>edit-You’ll never really stop “solving for x,” but it’s a lot cooler when “x” represents something, rather than just being an arbitrary variable.</p>