Are students losing basic calculation skills? Students generally are losing basic calculation skills which they need to function in their math and science courses. This has come about, in my opinion, because students are now so over-reliant on calculators and computers. For instance, computers in one form or another perform a variety of tasks and functions that students used to do themselves in their research and study. For example, students nowadays are accustomed to use the software called matlab to find solutions to equations and use calculators to do arithmetic for their homework. As a result, students cannot do complicated even simple calculations by themselves without calculators, which in turn makes them more depend on computers and calculators.