What's the one thing you feel your education lacked?
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Thinking about undergrad, besides the required math (Calculus), chemistry, biochemistry, organic, and various biology courses, I had.
Language - German.
Geography
Economics
Philosophy - lots of it.
Literature
Art History
Something Russian, but I can't remember - literature?And I was able to weasel my way into two quarters of Grad-level music history.
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I think in general statistics and some basic financial knowledge are probably the biggest gaps in US public education relative to how useful both are just to be alive in the 21st century.
I never had stats that I can recall though I went through Advanced Placement BC Calculus in high school.
In college I took a highly mathematical probability class but that’s different.
About two years ago I completed the Coursera Biostatistics program done in conjunction with Johns Hopkins given I was getting involved in therapeutic development.
After that set of courses I knew more than the investigators but of course less than actual biostatisticians.
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I sort of love probabilities and statistics, and I wish I knew more about them. Hopefully someday. I have a vague memory from 25 years ago, where I worked out with pen and paper the probabilities of the birthday paradox. Because on some random night with my friends, we were talking about that. I showed the paper to the rest, and one of them predicted I'd be rich someday.
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@Horace said in What's the one thing you feel your education lacked?:
My math journey was strange. I flunked my first tries in college, not that the word "try" fits with what I actually did. But in my career, I became the go-to guy who knew all about calculations and numbers. Because I was naturally good at it, and because advanced math really never comes up, at least in my experience.
Same with me. Algebra is foul witchcraft, but geometry and pretty much all other non-scientific math is my huckleberry. In a 40 year tech career I never needed higher math. An understanding of user behavior, enterprise needs and processes, and communication skills served me much better.
I did take statistics in college but never had much use for it.
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@Mik said in What's the one thing you feel your education lacked?:
The financial life cycle for most people, and how to build wealth, a rudimentary understanding of one's legal rights and responsibilities. We send kids out into the world with no real clue how it works.
Yes I so agree. I’ll add on taxation. If I were an American, I’d also like to learn to navigate my life & health insurance.
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@Mik said in What's the one thing you feel your education lacked?:
The financial life cycle for most people, and how to build wealth, a rudimentary understanding of one's legal rights and responsibilities. We send kids out into the world with no real clue how it works.
Yeah I was going to say financial literacy and the basics of the legal world. Both a learned on my own after graduating. I guess one could argue that's also something parents should teach their kids, I know I will.
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Some other side notes. I took a Philosophy 101 course in college, and man if that wasn't some really interesting stuff I had no idea about. We had an absolutely great professor, so that makes a big difference. Similar to in high school, I had an amazing history teacher and he had the biggest impact on my education.
Kids, as far as I can remember for myself, at that age really don't give a shit about learning. Looking back, sure kids should learn year after year the the fundamentals reading, writing, and math, until they become proficient... but it seems there should be basic courses taught about all the subjects. I know they try today a little bit, but instead of having courses about "literature" or "trigonometry" or "art", there should be simpler and more basic courses about all of the areas of study. Stuff like geology, statistics, astrophysics, art, legal, finances, taxes, health care (insurance as well as healthy habits), history, computers/coding, philosophy... and so on. Obviously this is not the answer, but imagine if you (as I often have) think, "man... I'd love to know more about geology", what would I learn from reading a two page encyclopedia entry, or a 15-minute youtube overview? Those are the basics that everyone should know. And then in college... pursue what you are passionate about. Not sure if this makes sense... kids were up last night a bit, and I haven't had coffee yet.
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There has always been a huge disconnect between words and actions of adults who consider education to be extremely important. Any of us could just buy a text book about whatever and learn from it. We don't. When adults go out of their way to tell you they believe in education, they are telling you they believe in cultural indoctrination.
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I have a disconnect but it’s the opposite. I don’t run around preaching the importance of education yet I’m a textbook example of an autodidact, whether it’s the
32 languages I learned as an adult (1 didn’t take), the piano which I picked up as an adult, the graduate work in international relations at The New School, the biostatistics program, and of course history and polysci, neither of which I studied formally besides the basic requirements. Economics and philosophy I did study formally as would-be minors (Purdue didn’t recognize minors). My formal education was basically applied math though they called it electrical engineering. -
@89th said in What's the one thing you feel your education lacked?:
We had an absolutely great professor, so that makes a big difference.
Isn't that the case? I took a good many chemistry courses, but I had one guy who was just outstanding. The ability to make the complicated seem easy, is a God-given talent.
Which is why I think universities should place a high premium on people who can really teach.
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My education lacked the 26-32 year old hot female teacher that was bored with her marriage, and was eager to educate an earnest young man..
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That was certainly the biggest gap subjectively in the moment.
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I may be the one person who didn't miss out on statistics. I had classes in it as an undergrad- and the benefit of teaching statistics as an undergrad to other undergrads. That was very helpful for me - as teaching it meant i really had to learn it. This was before calculators were permitted so it was an ugly time. Later in grad school at the U of Chicago, I took statistics classes when the personal computer was being used. This was a joy as rather than spending 85% of the time in the methodology, we now spent 100% of the time in application. I also studied statistical process control - Deming and Juran's work that later was
misappliedmarketed as TQM and Six Sigma. I worked for a time in analytics - which now, is a big thing. AI may obliterate that profession.Things I wish I'd gotten earlier - as in high school level or first semester of college would include personal finance and effective career counseling. Neither existed back then. If I were re-living my life, I probably would also likely diversify my undergraduate studies to include accounting and finance. I got them later - but earlier would have been prudent.
Watching some online videos where people are quizzed on basic facts, I'm amazed at how poorly young adults do with geography and numerical skills - "what countries border the US?" and "if a car is traveling 60 miles per hour, how far would the car travel in one hour?" There are US citizens who I've seen can't name the Capitol of the US - yet seem to be able to dress themselves and have some method of supporting themselves much to my surprise.
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That’s great. In my probability class we would do things like derive the probability mass function of a Poisson distribution. But nothing that’s going to directly help you interpret economic stats, for example.
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The best thing I did in my education - was taking a typing class between middle school and high school. A counselor said that the best advice he could give us - and that none of us would follow-up on, was to take typing.
I remember taking typing during the summer in a stifling hot classroom with 40 high school girls. It was rough - somehow I survived. I then worked on the high school newspaper - typing for 4 years. In college, I got a job working for a sleep researcher typing transcriptions of dream reports. When the PC came along a few years later - I was as proficient at typing as anyone - while most managers were hunting and pecking at the keyboard.
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I took typing too. At my parents insistence. By the time I took it home PCs were at least a hobbyists tool and everyone took an electric typewriter to college. It wasn’t just budding secretaries in the class.
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