I wish my teachers had given me better answers to this question. As a teen I was definitely motivated by practicalities. No one could answer when I was going to

I wish my teachers had given me better answers to this question. As a teen I was definitely motivated by practicalities. No one could answer when I was going to use matrix math in life. The answer, which is glaringly obvious now is in machine learning. I really wish I had done better in math in particular, enabling more advanced programming, machine learning, 3d modeling concepts, DSP programming, etc. But also, things don't have to be practical to be worth learning. I just think some of the subjects I struggled with in retrospect had much better examples of when they'd be used, and a huge opportunity was missed.