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What you're describing is that you remembered something much better if you have a use for it. It doesn't mean school isn't effective. How can you tell that und
by fhrow4484 8y ago
What you're describing is that you remembered something much better if you have a use for it. It doesn't mean school isn't effective.
How can you tell that undergrad knowledge didn't help you when you "looked up stuff in numerical recipes". In other words: would your younger self in high school be able to understand the stuff in Numerical Recipes, and able to write some C(++?) classes.
I know I wouldn't, and that undergrad education taught me some strong basics that would let me do it now. The end of class stuff where you take a toy example of how to use your learned basics such as calculating the SVD is just an attempt at giving some "real world" example which exercises the basics, and an attempt at grading you on this, and that can of little usefulness long term yeah, but the core concepts are useful if you pursue your education/career in a scientific path that requires those.
- astazangasta 8y ago>In other words: would your younger self in high school be able to understand the stuff in Numerical Recipes, and able to write some C(++?) classes. Yes, because my younger self used to read math books on the side for fun. This is also how I learned C. While it is true that you may absorb some basic stuff from schooling, it is VERY thin. I was by all accounts an exemplary student, and I still retained a small fraction of what I learned. Meanwhile all of the real-world stuff I learned is still mostly there. We would do much better to figure out how to integrate young people into real life earlier, like we used to - apprentice => journeyman => master. But we can't tolerate that, because adults need to be "maximizing productivity" or some garbage, and don't have time to train kids.