NationStates Jolt Archive


Academic Applications are BS

Nouvembre
23-09-2006, 05:27
Yeah, pretty much. When I ask my teachers when we're going to need to know this (proofs using the segment addition postulate, for example), they always give me some really really specific thing, like, this is one thing I remember:

"Well, if you were a roller coaster technician, working on a wooden roller coaster and you only had 1200 sq. ft of space, then you would need to know this."

It might as well be:

"Well, if you were a black haired, brown eyed, left handed (except when you write), 25 year old, Franco-American roller coaster technician living in Atlanta in year 2021 in the late fall wearing a jean jumpsuit and you had to build (using a workforce of 80 people, half of which had to be over 34) a roller coaster with three archs, two loops, one big drop..."

..You get the point.

What I want to know is if we're EVER going to use anything we learn from 6th grade to senior year in high school. I mean, is someone going to run up to me with a gun and tell me if I couldn't tell him the point-distance formula followed by the most significant contributions the Ottomans made to art he's going to blow my fucking brains out?


...just a rant.
Piratnea
23-09-2006, 05:36
Ok. On a rant scale of one to ten. this falls at about a three. Rants should be long and complicated. The reason they make you learn stuff that you probably won't use in the future is to at least expose you to it so incase you decide you want to follow it as a future job you have at least a general introduction and what excatly its like. Take biology for example. Not a lot of people go into the biology field of study. But think of how many less people would choose a job related in biology if they had never had to take that class in middle or high school?
Laerod
23-09-2006, 05:38
Depending on what you study, you'll be shocked to find out how much of that highschool stuff you'll need in college.
United Chicken Kleptos
23-09-2006, 05:43
Yeah, pretty much. When I ask my teachers when we're going to need to know this (proofs using the segment addition postulate, for example), they always give me some really really specific thing, like, this is one thing I remember:

"Well, if you were a roller coaster technician, working on a wooden roller coaster and you only had 1200 sq. ft of space, then you would need to know this."

It might as well be:

"Well, if you were a black haired, brown eyed, left handed (except when you write), 25 year old, Franco-American roller coaster technician living in Atlanta in year 2021 in the late fall wearing a jean jumpsuit and you had to build (using a workforce of 80 people, half of which had to be over 34) a roller coaster with three archs, two loops, one big drop..."

..You get the point.

What I want to know is if we're EVER going to use anything we learn from 6th grade to senior year in high school. I mean, is someone going to run up to me with a gun and tell me if I couldn't tell him the point-distance formula followed by the most significant contributions the Ottomans made to art he's going to blow my fucking brains out?


...just a rant.

The only signifigant contribution of the Ottomans was making the Lawrence of Arabia famous.
Dissonant Cognition
23-09-2006, 05:46
What I want to know is if we're EVER going to use anything we learn from 6th grade to senior year in high school.


Yes. Any time you need to solve any kind of problem that will inevitably pop up in one's life, the critical thinking, analytical, organizational, deductive, and concentration skills one learns by taking these classes and learning these things will come in handy.

You aren't just learning math, or science, or writing. You're also learning how to think.
Hiemria
23-09-2006, 05:50
Yeah, I went to university to study biology. I'm glad I had those high school classes.

In the same way, I'm really dissapointed that I never took any math courses beyond geometry. So I'm taking physics now and everyone here seems to know all this calculus and trigonometry and I don't even know what calculus is. I've never had a physics class either by the way.

Thank you 'special education' for making my life difficult.
Not bad
23-09-2006, 06:29
Depending on what you study, you'll be shocked to find out how much of that highschool stuff you'll need in college.

Far better to buy a faux diploma and use the money you saved by avoiding college for four years of travelling in order to get an education. Unless you plan to be a surgeon of course.