Absolutely not - if I get completely real! However, that is not to say that it is not nice to have that knowledge/skill. I speak from the perspective of someone whose part-time jobs as a sophomore, junior and senior in college were to grade homework (and sometimes tests) for classes in Calculus, Differntial Equations and Statistics. However, I don't use math (beyond arithmetic) in my professional life. To be (embarassingly) honest, I don't think that I remember all that much from Calculus, Differential Equations, Statistics or any of the math courses that I studied although it would be very easy for me to pick up the concepts if I see them again. In my professional life, I see lots of intelligent educated people who are math-phobic and probably unable to recall much of anything from Algebra.