Missed the boat in 2008 downturn!

[Terri]

@manch

Instead of calculus schools should teach statistics. Orders of magnitude more useful.

And probability.

[manch]

Thinking in terms of probability is hard for most adults.

[Terri]

@manch

Thinking in terms of probability is hard for most adults.

Actually probability requires Calculus when it’s continuous… hrm.

[Elt1]

Calculus is like Latin. Great for learning why and roots. But maybe not needed for 99% of us… all curriculum needs to be re thought

[manch]

You just look up a table. Nobody actually integrates that monster.

[hanera]

@Terri

But it’s still required by a lot of engineering/CS majors anyways.

Universities teach classes as if you want to have your head permanently damaged

[manch]

Instead of spending 50k a year on private school parents should save that up over the years and donate to Harvard. That’d almost guarantee admission.

[BAGB]

I still don’t understand why college students are forced to study things not useful nor enjoyable. Is it a kind of brainwash or humbling to make them obedient?

[hanera]

@BAGB

I still don’t understand why college students are forced to study things not useful or enjoyable.

Ask the professors, they are so eager to pass on their highly focused and advanced knowledge.

[BAGB]

I think it’s used for professors’ selfish needs. They use those useless and hard courses to select a small number of top students to continue the research. By requiring everyone to take some useless courses, it create jobs for professors and their PhD students.

[Terri]

@BAGB

I still don’t understand why college students are forced to study things not useful nor enjoyable. Is it a kind of brainwash or humbling to make them obedient?

That’s a great question regarding the direction colleges should take. Historically, I think there was this idea that you should have a broad knowledge, so required courses cover English, HIstory, Math, and your own subject.

But is that really a good idea anymore? So many jobs require depth, not breadth. Google doesn’t give one iota that you took a history course or a foreign language. (well, maybe the language)

[hanera]

Matrices in linear algebra are used heavily in computer graphics and game development, and graph theory is used in databases and computer program analysis.

Machine learning and AI use tons of probability & statistics, and MVC

[aalj]

@Terri

@hanera

@Elt1

Does anyone ever use calculus. I took it for three years in high school and college. Who actually uses it at work?

For most of us, kindergarten maths is good enough. I doubt SWEs use calculus much too.

Right. Physics simulations and order of growth. So unless you’re developing new algorithms or simulating airflow/bomb blasts/etc., I doubt you actually need it. But it’s still required by a lot of engineering/CS majors anyways.

Yeah - I never use Calculus in daily activity. Let alone linear algebra, DFQ, PDE, tor anything like that. However, Calculus was a prerequisite to really understand what is going on in Physics (as opposed to memorizing equations).

Further, I think there is a lot more to looking at education aside from just “will I use this in my daily life?” Learning things that are tangential to daily life - like philosophy, MVC, history, soccer camp, quantum mechanics, tennis lessons, nuclear engineering, music theory, classical Japanese literature, piano lessons, Renaissance art history, etc etc … I find all of these build an investment in character (as opposed to just spending money for nothing).

Learning all these things is a lifelong investment in inner character. Tangentially, I love going to CCSF in my spare time just to keep on learning new things which I never learned during my years of formal education.

[Terri]

I was looking at a job description that might require calculus. They need algorithms for optimizing 3D models.

[aalj]

@manch

Instead of spending 50k a year on private school parents should save that up over the years and donate to Harvard. That’d almost guarantee admission.

a) Harvard is a good school but I also find it is only as good as what you make of it.
b) Rental income will pay for my child’s college, graduate school, and medical/law/post-doc/whatever education.

[hanera]

May be should include mountain climbing, living in Alaska, volunteering in third world nations, working in refugee camps, etc.

[aalj]

@Terri

@BAGB

I still don’t understand why college students are forced to study things not useful nor enjoyable. Is it a kind of brainwash or humbling to make them obedient?

That’s a great question regarding the direction colleges should take. Historically, I think there was this idea that you should have a broad knowledge, so required courses cover English, HIstory, Math, and your own subject.

But is that really a good idea anymore? So many jobs require depth, not breadth. Google doesn’t give one iota that you took a history course or a foreign language. (well, maybe the language)

What a provocative question! Bravo.

My gut says - having broad knowledge is more important than ever. An employer of course will want specialists in one field. However, there is more to life than working for an employer. What if one branches out and works for oneself in the future? What if one FIREs and decides to create their own company or do a mid-life career change?

A broad education helps open doors and helps develop empathy and EQ.

[Terri]

@hanera

May be should include mountain climbing, living in Alaska, volunteering in third world nations, working in refugee camps, etc.

I believe MIT has a program like that

Research

or

http://gsl.mit.edu/about/

[Terri]

@aalj

My gut says - having broad knowledge is more important than ever. An employer of course will want specialists in one field. However, there is more to life than working for an employer. What if one branches out and works for oneself in the future? What if one FIREs and decides to create their own company or do a mid-life career change?

A broad education helps open doors and helps develop empathy and EQ.

I absolutely would agree with requiring a business/entrepreneur course as a requirement for all majors. Art majors (yes you may have to open your own gallery), English majors (because you should’ve realized you’ll never make the money back teaching), CS majors (because you need to know how to raise VC funds, etc.

[aalj]

@hanera

May be should include mountain climbing, living in Alaska, volunteering in third world nations, working in refugee camps, etc.

One can learn something from any experience. The trap that people fall into is that thinking that character-building-learning (like those experiences that you mention above) are directly translatable to specialist skills that are sought after by employers.

This is often not the case.

However, to assume that there is no value in the above experiences is to limit oneself’s growth.