Trig is used all the time, especially in construction. Try building a roof or a set of stairs without it. Try estimating the materials required without algebra. I would imagine people who sew use it quite a bit too.
Calculus is rightfully the gateway math into college.>>>>>>
My father never went past eighth grade but he had no problem designing and building a set of stairs or a roof. He could ask you what width of building you wanted to cover with an A frame roof, what slope you wanted and how much overhang and he could pick up a square, cut a rafter and it would fit perfectly. He could build a house with only a floor plan to go by. He probably would have said that he didn't know algebra because he never got that far in school. He also had a job measuring land as a very young man, most college graduates that I meet now have no idea how to measure an acre of land.
All of that perhaps is true, but the fact remains, he used both algebra and trig, though he didn't know it by that name.
Likely, he picked up 'rules of thumb' which were essentially the same thing.
My Uncle Jack graduated from the same institution - University of Hard Knocks.