How much do you remember from college?

• ZWICK 4 PREZ

  

  How much did you retain from college? I'd imagine stuff you use on a semi regular basis for your work, you might remember, but the majority of it probably not? A high school physics teacher I've kept in contact with asked me if I'd come in and do a lab experiment on circuitry for his class. I agreed but quickly realized I had to brush up on forgotten formulas you learned in college. Even though you remember doing it, I had completely forgotten all the steps of circuit analysis. It seemed at the time it was so important and you'd need to know this for a daily basis. I can't remember the last time I had to troubleshoot an electronic circuit and use circuit analysis.
  
  So do you remember any of your core college material. Do you use it? I can honestly say no i do not.
• Ironman92

  

  My education stuff a good bit (general education, health/PE)...the general classes of the first two years, not a ton but retained the weird stuff and stuff I already knew. Western Civilization, Fine Arts, Calculus....nope none at all. I've also been out for about 20 years.
• ZWICK 4 PREZ

  

  You had to take calculus for a PE major?
• Automatik

  

  I honed my writing skills in college. I use it everyday.
  
  Other than that....not much. I think I retained more from going to "DJ school" a few years ago. :laugh:
• sportchampps

  Instead of a foreign language in college I did a focus on Southeastern Asia and I actually still remember a ton. Other then my major Marketing and some of my business classes I don't remember much else.
• ZWICK 4 PREZ

  

  Automatik;1793671 wrote:I honed my writing skills in college. I use it everyday.
  
  Other than that....not much. I think I retained more from going to "DJ school" a few years ago. :laugh:

  Hopefully you didnt go to BGSU. That's where Belly honed his writing skills
• Ironman92

  

  ZWICK 4 PREZ;1793670 wrote:You had to take calculus for a PE major?

  I was in pre pharmacy for a quarter before I turned to education. It was the most ridiculous math class ever. I didn't learn a single thing and got a B in the class. It was a joke.
• GOONx19

  

  Undergrad: 0%.
• Ironman92

  

  GOONx19;1793679 wrote:Undergrad: 0%.

  I'm interested...how much of the grad school pharmacy stuff do you use everyday? Any of it worthless material?
• gut

  The stuff I've used, even occasionally....yeah I remember it quite well (so well I skipped the basic curriculum in grad school).
  
  But...Diffy Q's was one of the easiest classes I had in college - don't use it and don't remember a damn thing. Other classes I had to actually work and study I remember at least something.
• GOONx19

  

  Ironman92;1793682 wrote:I'm interested...how much of the grad school pharmacy stuff do you use everyday? Any of it worthless material?

  Medicinal chemistry was pretty useless IMO. Very few pharmacists would ever use it unless they were involved in drug design and discovery. The rest of it has been pretty relevant in one regard or another. The therapeutics courses are definitely the meat and potatoes.
• QuakerOats

  Automatik;1793671 wrote:I honed my writing skills in college. I use it everyday.
  
  Other than that....not much. I think I retained more from going to "DJ school" a few years ago. :laugh:

  
  I am with you on the writing part; for a business/accounting/finance guy I have found that writing and negotiation skills have been a big difference maker. Cannot discount its importance. [I couldn't begin to solve a calculus equation at this stage of the game , but it matters not]
• sleeper

  

  Quite a bit honestly. I regularly engage in conversation on a lot of things I learned in my core business classes. I use more accounting than I ever imagined and more excel than I ever imagined but thankfully I learned those in school.
  
  Not a perfect memory but better than most I imagine.
• Commander of Awesome

  

  When I think about the thousands my university forced me to pay to take a foreign lang class, I get pretty pissed. Such a waste of time/resources. I had to take 2 full yrs of Spanish and I remember nothing of it. Completely useless.
• Automatik

  

  Yes, such bullshit regarding a foreign language.
  
  Looking back, I wish I took it more seriously in high school and pursued it all the way.
  
  I changed my major halfway through undergrad and my new one required 4 quarters of a language. I took ASL. lol
• jmog

  I can honestly say I remember how to do most of the calculus series and Diff Eq. I believe that is ONLY because I TA'd those classes many semesters in a row after I took them. As long as it isn't any of the series solutions/integral parts. I couldn't do that right now if you had a gun to my head.
  
  General Chemistry probably remember 80%
  Organic chemistry maybe 20%
  Physical Chemistry-30% (all of the thermodynamics stuff, none of the molecular dynamics stuff)
  
  Engineering-
  Fluid Flows-80%, I do this a lot in my work, so as long as it isn't a heavy "solve the Navier-Stokes equation" and more simple heat transfer or fluid flow/pressure calculations I am good.
  Thermodynamics-40%, simple stuff yes, any of the complex stuff wouldn't have a clue. And I do this for a living. The 40% I remember are all the stuff I do now, heat transfer, property calculations, etc.
  Reaction Engineering-10%, the 10% I 'remember' are only directly tied to combustion emission reactions.
  Process Design-5%
  Mass Transfer Operations-5%, chemical separation equipment...I remember enough to talk intelligently about it, but not do any design work.
  
  Higher Level Math Classes (PDEs, programming, etc)-near 0%, maybe 5% tops
  
  If you asked me about 8 years ago I would have said much higher percentages in most of those classes, not because I was 'closer' to college but because I was working in R&D and doing front line research for industrial combustion emission control/processes. Now I work more with customers and help them change their systems to meet emission standards.
• friendfromlowry

  Working in healthcare, I remember/utilize a lot from college. Except microbiology. Fuck that shit.
• iclfan2

  

  Pretty much nothing but some of my core business and accounting classes. If I weren't still in business, I am not sure how much I would still remember. I was already good at math and english prior to college, so learned nothing new. The random things I DO remember are one off items from the dumb classes I had to take like music, Geology, and weather (I will randomly remember like 1 thing).
  
  As for a language, I took 3 years of German in high school, and then 2 semesters in college, so I have no idea if the small amounts I do remember are from HS or college, but probably HS. And yes, a language for 2 semesters is a complete waste of time.
• QuakerOats

  iclfan2;1793772 wrote:As for a language, I took 3 years of German in high school, and then 2 semesters in college, so I have no idea if the small amounts I do remember are from HS or college, but probably HS. And yes, a language for 2 semesters is a complete waste of time.

  Funny; I had 3 years of German too, then took beginning German for a quarter or two for the easy A, because we had to have a foreign language. Basically a complete waste of time and money. Guten tag!
• MontyBrunswick

  

  embarrassing how little people in this country care about education and this thread is proof of it
• 4cards

  

  ...I'm happy I never had to take any foreign languages in college (4yrs in high school--- (2)Latin & (2)Spanish.)
  
  I was a Transportation/Logistics Major in college and honestly I could have taught some of the core courses with the experience I already had from work,but the electives I wasted my money on still piss me off (Astronomy/Geology/Biology)
• FatHobbit

  

  MontyBrunswick;1794023 wrote:embarrassing how little people in this country care about education and this thread is proof of it

  Lol I agree that people don't care about education. I'm not sure everyone needs a 4 year degree but companies want employees who went to an institution that helped to make them well rounded. (If they don't want that, they should be hiring from a tech school instead of somewhere that helps produce well rounded individuals) It's not much of a measuring stick but apparently it's the only one we have.
• iclfan2

  

  MontyBrunswick;1794023 wrote:embarrassing how little people in this country care about education and this thread is proof of it

  The education "problem" is shitty parents. And I'm no proponent of whiny teachers, but we all went to school, and it was fine.
• FatHobbit

  

  iclfan2;1794076 wrote:The education "problem" is shitty parents. And I'm no proponent of whiny teachers, but we all went to school, and it was fine.

  I think his point is that some people only want to know what they need to get and keep a job. They (some/most?) don't give a shit about education. This thread is full of people complaining about their useless education.
• gut

  iclfan2;1794076 wrote:The education "problem" is shitty parents. And I'm no proponent of whiny teachers, but we all went to school, and it was fine.

  Yeah, plenty of smart people in this thread talking about how little they remember from many of their classes (and not that long after graduation).
  
  I think that illustrates what many in academia (quietly) and business will admit - a 4-yr degree is primarily a screening/signaling tool (hell, same even with an MBA). I don't have to guess at your work ethic or brains - the GPA is a decent indicator (adjusted for major/school).
  
  In many cases, it DOES provide a solid foundation for contributing early on in entry-level jobs. The company is not starting with a blank slate - you've already invested some degree of training you got out of that 4-yr degree. But try cramming some of that "well-rounded" shit down your boss's throat with book learning from college that you barely scratched the surface on and barely understood...and see how long you last.