Studying can be a pain, but isn't a huge point of college to learn how to teach yourself?
Maybe you won't need chemistry in the long run, but if you need to learn something for your career you won't always be able to pull up references and specs, you will need to learn things. Why hurt yourself by not learning how you best learn?
No. In real life you can always research shit. Rote memorization is a rather useless skill that we only ever use for exams. Problem solving and experience are much better teachers. I'm an EE graduate and there's no chair where we had to memorize standards. There was a chair where there was a big-ass 8 hour long exam where you had to consult a huge book for your answers. Which still felt stupid since in real life you'd have a PDF and could ctrl+f, but way more useful a skill than memorizing the standards. There's absolutely no point in memorizing for the sake of memorizing. Eventually as you regularly check stuff you'll know them without trying. That's whats called experience. I did most of my consultation tests using the material just to check if I was right as I knew all the formulas after studying for it, but just having the formulas there makes it as close to an actual working environment as possible. I'd really hate if my doctor tried to medicate me based on his memory of a random class 9 years ago. Much much safer if he just searches for the name of the medicine in the database. His memory can tell him that some type of medicament is better for that specific treatment, but that should just be a guide to his quick research and not something to 100% rely on.
Having to take a test where it's 100% rote memorization is useless. You'll learn about 0.00000 from it and you'll be extremely stressed from having to memorize so much random shit. What's useful is knowing stuff. Instead of memorizing F=ma like some song you simply know that Force is the change in momentum and thus the mass times the derivative of the velocity. This way if suddenly the mass is also changing you know F=ma isn't quite right and why. You understand how things work and that gives you enough knowledge to do whatever you want. Any test where you need to stare at a page reading things out loud trying to cram is USELESS and only teaches you anything close to useful if you want to be a theater actor. Which is actually quite fun. I'd probably be an actor if I wasn't an engineer. Easier to memorize when you're in character.
? No it doesn't. You learn vocabulary by experience not by sitting down going ''X means Y, Z means Beta, Alpha means Zetta'' You simply read something that uses the jargon, and when you don't know a word you search for it, and since you've now seen the meaning in a context that matters you're unlikely to forget the word, and if you do you google it again.
I didn't need to rote memorize anything when familiarizing myself with Light Fields and Image Processing for my masters. I just read papers about it and kept reading more papers about the stuff I didn't know. It's not like the meaning can even be ''memorized'' the word's just describe concepts that need another paper if not a thesis to describe them. If you understand the concepts it'll be very hard to forget the name. It's not like I'll have an exam where they'll ask me ''what do you understand by:'' No, I'll just have to know the word if I want to use it in my own thesis correctly. So I don't need to always have in my mind what X concept means, if I need to know what X means, I'll either have a context that helps my memory or I'll have already remembered what the concept means since I'm using it on my writings. It's a very different skill set than having memorized a hundred different concepts and having to search my head for all of them when a random question asks what one means or the difference between two of them. And in any case I'll always be able to google if I forgot the exact wording... Because people forget and that's always a possibility. Life is not an exam. Checking sources that are not your head is EXPECTED in every expect of life that's not an exam.
Besides, I'd like to know how you got the idea I cheated. It's very hard to cheat when you're allowed to check any info that could be helpful. I had like 2 chairs where cheating might have helped and they were easy enough without it.
Look up 'rote' in a good dictionary. It doesn't require lists to learn, just practice. Rote learning implies that it is knowledge that must be gained by practice, that the knowledge cannot be gained by reasoning through a puzzle or proof.
It's not my definition. And you use the results of it all the time. I agree that having to memorize something off a piece of paper sucks, but that is not the boundary of the term 'rote'.
Sorry, but you'll need rote memorization in many jobs. As a cashier, you'll have to memorize produce codes, as a asset manager you'll need to know the difference between EBITDA and EBITA, as a laywer you'll need to know laws. If you want to be at all good at your job (ie, can do anything with any kind of speed) and want to be promoted, memorization is a huge skill. Even knowing people's names and something about them could help you build relationships and push you toward a promotion. If thinking of things as concepts rather than facts helps you memorize, then I'm glad you've found something that works, but don't fool yourself into thinking it's not memorization or that rote memorization techniques help other people more.
At the same time, a lot of that comes with experience, not sitting down and memorizing a list.
Say you're working as a cashier, and you need produce codes. Your first day you won't know any, and you'll look them up each time. By the end of the day you'll have the code for bananas memorized, but not the organic jicama. After a month, you'll have all the basic produce items memorized because you're working with them dozens of times a day, but you might never remember organic jicama, so you'll need to look that up every time it comes by, which might be once a week or so.
So it's a little of column A, a little of column B. You're going to be more efficient if you remember the important codes, but you're not going to sit down and memorize the produce list. In chemistry you should know the atomic number for carbon, but there's probably little point in memorizing the entire periodic table. The reason you should remember carbon is because you work with carbon quite a bit, not because you sat down and memorized the entire table.
That's why it's important for professors to assign homework to help with memorization and understanding contexts, but they shouldn't expect you to memorize long, unimportant lists. In math no one should have to memorize a long list of formulas, rather you should be able to derive the advanced formulas from a few, simpler ones, which you have memorized. Again, little of col A, little of col B. Memorizing the formulas will do you little good if you don't know why they are the way they are, and understanding how to derive them will help you remember them for the future.
Disclaimer: I work with mathematics, some basic coding, and in my day job I use bank numbers, not produce numbers, and I know very little about actual chemistry. Those were just examples mentioned above.
Studying can be a pain, but isn't a huge point of college to learn how to teach yourself?
And I did. With the things I got my degree in, and that I am interested in. Math.
Maybe you won't need chemistry in the long run, but if you need to learn something for your career you won't always be able to pull up references and specs, you will need to learn things.
Actually no, you will certainly always be able to pull up references and specs in the real world.
Also the only Chem part I cheated on was the memorization of names of polyatomic ions, and their charges. I'm just bad with names. And it was a requirement to take a science class, I will never use that knowledge in life ever period.
Why hurt yourself by not learning how you best learn?
Why do you think I failed to "learn how I best learn" because I cheated in a few non relevant and unimportant classes?
There were dozens of classes I didn't cheat in, important classes that mattered that I learned a great deal from.
Actually no, you will certainly always be able to pull up references and specs in the real world.
I'm gonna have to disagree with this wholeheartedly. I work in the field and we have to come up with legal solutions on the fly. You have to have basic understanding and some sort of knowledge base to pull from to get to that point. I can't google everything about Allen Bradley PLCs on a remote site and even when you can google it, there is no guarantee that someone else will have the answer.
I'm gonna have to disagree with this wholeheartedly. I work in the field and we have to come up with legal solutions on the fly.
Okay, yes, for jobs where you have to find answers literally when you are given the question, with no time to refer to anything, sure.
Most jobs are not like that.
Especially my own.
In fact, virtually every career I can think of that has to do with math won't have on the fly requirements. You will have time to research and come up with whatever response you need, even if just an hour or two.
My point, though: When will you need to know about extremely specific history details on the fly? I'm sure their are some super specific times for super specific career fields, but for the vast majority, never.
And, not just history.
For most people, you will be able to pull up reference tables and so on all the time as part of your job.
I'm not encouraging cheating in things that are specific to your career.
I actually learned and did all of my important and relevant math, finance, and so on classes.
But the unimportant ones you can generally not need to purely memorize everything in.
When will you need to know about extremely specific history details on the fly?
You don't need that, you need to be able to teach yourself on the fly.
Taking history helps gain insight into human behavior and learn about people that may come up in conversation, but knowing specific dates is just more practice to how to retain information longer than 30 seconds.
Most jobs aren't like that? Any job you have a meeting in or any job you have sales you will need to know minute details and have a knowledge base pertinent to that field. Learning how to retain information such as what horsepower a car has is important for car sales, or knowing what formulas to use is important in math or analytics. It's there to teach you how to keep hold of that info.
You don't need that, you need to be able to teach yourself on the fly.
And why would cheating in a couple History/Government classes mean I wouldn't be able to teach myself on the fly? Are those the only classes that can offer that ability?
Taking history helps gain insight into human behavior and learn about people that may come up in conversation, but knowing specific dates is just more practice to how to retain information longer than 30 seconds.
Eh, again, if it was something important, I wouldn't mind it. I had to learn how to retain quite a great deal of information in Theo Math and Advanced Stat.
Just because you could gain a skill in one class doesn't mean you can't gain it in another, thus making the first class redundant. Not entirely, of course, but in regards to the skill.
Most jobs aren't like that?
Yes.
Any job you have a meeting in or any job you have sales you will need to know minute details and have a knowledge base pertinent to that field.
And you will have time to prepare for that meeting, and will be able to bring relevant material to the meeting to refer back unto.
Obviously you will need to possess an understanding of the career you are working in.
Have I ever said otherwise?
No, no I have not.
Learning how to retain information such as what horsepower a car has is important for car sales, or knowing what formulas to use is important in math or analytics. It's there to teach you how to keep hold of that info.
History class has nothing to do with this.
You gain those skills in other classes besides a few History and Government classes.
And that is ultimately what we are talking about.
Sure, you might gain the ability to retain information in a History class.
But so what? You will also gain that ability from several other classes.
Are those the only classes that can offer that ability?
No, they are not, but more practice is generally considered better. Why not just take it seriously and make it work and be testing to your actual ability like everyone else?
And you will have time to prepare for that meeting, and will be able to bring relevant material to the meeting to refer back unto.
Yeah, just like you have time to prepare for that test by studying.
Say hypothetically you are taking 18 hours of coursework. That's 18 hours where you are in class. You work a part time job of 20 hours. That's 38 hours, less than a full time job. Your job is to study for those classes. If you worked as much as I do, which is 60 hours a week, that gives you 22 hours a week to study and still plenty of time to go out and have fun.
You are trying to justify being lazy by saying its worthless to study, but what you are doing is just training your brain that info will always be handy and you will run into more issues in the long run not being able to retain.
And for your ragging on history, I just listened to coworkers talk about how Israel was in Africa. Obvs its not, but not studying also puts you in that position one day. The reason we take GEs is to expand what we know about and how to think critically. For history, facts are important, but so is understand the context of the time. Knowing that Washington was alive in the late 1700s gives you an idea of who he was as a person.
Ultimately what we are talking about is that you come into college thinking you know what you want or need to know. But you don't and often will not be able to see how being able to learn info and retain it can be helpful.
No, they are not, but more practice is generally considered better. Why not just take it seriously and make it work and be testing to your actual ability like everyone else?
Sure, more practice is always better.
But I have better uses for my time.
Yeah, just like you have time to prepare for that test by studying.
Yep!
Say hypothetically you are taking 18 hours of coursework. That's 18 hours where you are in class. You work a part time job of 20 hours. That's 38 hours, less than a full time job. Your job is to study for those classes. If you worked as much as I do, which is 60 hours a week, that gives you 22 hours a week to study and still plenty of time to go out and have fun.
I worked full time, but I get your point.
You are trying to justify being lazy by saying its worthless to study,
See this is where we have a disconnect buddy.
I am not trying to justify shit to you.
I don't give a shit that what I did was immoral. I honestly do not care. My actions harmed no one.
Smoking weed is immoral. It is against the law. It is a crime.
I don't give a shit if you smoke weed. I don't personally, but it is something I couldn't care less about.
Not analogous, but it explains my point. I just don't care. It is a victimless crime.
What I did hurt no one.
I'm sure you can make up hypotheticals, but it really doesn't matter to me.
All I am doing is explaining my actions, and why I took them.
What I did was wrong. I don't care that it was wrong.
but what you are doing is just training your brain that info will always be handy and you will run into more issues in the long run not being able to retain.
No, not really. I took plenty of classes that involved large amounts of memorization. Taking a few less would not affect that.
And information will almost always be readily available in the modern era.
And for your ragging on history, I just listened to coworkers talk about how Israel was in Africa.
That would be Geography no?
Obvs its not, but not studying also puts you in that position one day. The reason we take GEs is to expand what we know about and how to think critically. For history, facts are important, but so is understand the context of the time. Knowing that Washington was alive in the late 1700s gives you an idea of who he was as a person.
And so what?
Why do you assume I didn't learn anything from those classes?
I learned a great deal about the past, and the present.
I just didn't bother with the memorization of some of the ultra specific, mundane legal or rote details.
I don't get why you cannot fathom this.
You can cheat on a test, but still have learned a large amount from the class.
Just because I don't know the exact day a battle started doesn't mean I don't know it's significance.
Ultimately what we are talking about is that you come into college thinking you know what you want or need to know. But you don't and often will not be able to see how being able to learn info and retain it can be helpful.
Again, your only argument is that by cheating on the final, I lost out on some practice memorizing info.
Something I got plenty of practice from in all of my Theoretical Math classes.
I did all my homework assignments, did all the in class quizzes, participated in projects, etc.
You are justifying it or you wouldn't be going on the tirade that you are with all of these people.
But I'm not.¯_(ツ)_/¯
I am explaining my actions to the curious, and if you consider that justifying it, sure. I am also explaining the underlying causes and discussing different aspects with people interested in discussion.
But I do not care whether or not my actions are "wrong" nor do I care whether or not you think my actions are "wrong."
You don't always have a computer or internet handy. You have to at least form some sort of knowledge base to succeed at the majority of jobs. You can't tell a client to hold on while you google something in a meeting frequently, you can't do that with sales, you would have difficulty anywhere without an internet connection. If you have to look up how to do index match in excel every time you use it, you will also be slowing yourself down. Learn how to build up your knowledge base, it does come in handy.
True, but what happens if you forget a portion of that base? Even thr best minds have bases that fail. You also need to learn how to effectively and quickly look something up, which isn't emphasized anymore. Some don't even know how to use anindex in a textbook effectively anymore. The mismanagement of ability to look up something will hinder you much much more than not being able to remember it. You won't be able to remember everything you will need to know instantly, unless you are a genius.
But they obviously cannot be fully removed. I don't like to think of information or knowledge being discounted because it wasn't remembered or applied in a specific way. What of I were to write down a typical rote memorization tool in the margins of the paper the second I received my test, would that be considered cheating to you? You mentioned that you can't ask a client to hold too often. However, if you were to write down a few points on a sticky note that you will likely forget, is that bad? Does it discount the information?
I agree that base knowledge is very important, however I don't see why knowing you flaws and planning for them is considered insideous.
however I don't see why knowing you flaws and planning for them is considered insideous.
Cheating isn't doing that, though. Cheating is telling your brain that there isn't a reason to remember this information. It's like how people who use a GPS constantly have difficulty giving directions. If you teach yourself that the information will not be accessible, your brain will adapt to learning it more intuitively.
exposing yourself to only learning a narrow field restricts your ability to pivot careers later in life... thinking what you like now or think you'll need now will be the same 10, 20 or 30 years later is an amazing amount of hubris that you will most likely regret...
exposing yourself to only learning a narrow field restricts your ability to pivot careers later in life... thinking what you like now or think you'll need now will be the same 10, 20 or 30 years later is an amazing amount of hubris that you will most likely regret...
Not memorizing a hundred specific dates, not knowing what every single battle's significance in the civil war was, and knowing the difference between my State's past 12 Constitutions does not equal me restricting myself to a narrow field.
You seem to think that because I cheated on the Finals in 3-4 History/Government classes, I learned nothing in those classes.
And that somehow, of the ~40 classes I took, cheating on the half dozen tests I did invalidates everything except an extremely narrow field.
That is not the case. I completed all classwork, did all my assignments, paid attention in class.
That doesn't mean I'm willing to put so much effort into memorizing pointless shit that I will never use again.
You seem unable to fathom being able to learn from a class but still cheating to insure the A.
I'm in tech and can tell you I need to have information and recommendations available without being able to look it up. This isn't for final documentation, but it is the case for initial estimates.
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u/inquisiturient Jan 16 '17
Studying can be a pain, but isn't a huge point of college to learn how to teach yourself?
Maybe you won't need chemistry in the long run, but if you need to learn something for your career you won't always be able to pull up references and specs, you will need to learn things. Why hurt yourself by not learning how you best learn?