Irrelevant?

Parts of the following are anonymized for what should be obvious reasons.

After class recently, I overheard a classmate loudly complaining that this particular class was “a waste of money” on material that “I’ll never use in [career].” I had other places to be, and better things to do than set this young person straight.

First, the class in question is a prerequisite to the degree program. You can’t even apply for the program until this class is completed with a decent grade — and by the way, many people fail this class. So even if the information does turn out to be “useless,” it has to be learned and learned well.

Second, the follow-on class — also a prerequisite — builds on this material and is extremely relevant to the career path in question. If you don’t understand the first class, there is no point in attempting to take the second class. I hope never to encounter someone in that career that didn’t understand the material in the follow-on class.

And finally, if my dear classmate would pay attention, it would become clear that the only irrelevant thing in the class is the attitude. At least this person does not pose serious competition for the seats in the program.

I had noticed that some of my class materials make an effort to relate classroom material to the real world. Nice, but I would have thought that some things are obvious. Clearly not. It turns out that many young people just can’t see the relationship between “what I am doing now” and “what I want to be doing a decade from now.”

This was reinforced by a pair of items I came across. Apparently there are people who think even the English language is irrelevant, despite the fact that any decent job will require reading and writing at a level far above what  I am seeing in the classroom.

In Closing: inequality; weight loss; personal finance; if it isn’t safe and educational, it doesn’t belong in a school; pay attention to the bottom chart; quack; megacommute; and astronaut wisdom.