AI use in college classes

Toyman! said:

In reply to triumph7 :

I never took physics so I'm pretty sure stacking blocks in kindergarten taught me more about stacking boxes than a class I never took. 

Stacking boxes doesn't take much physics knowledge. Knowing how to load a bunch of heavy boxes in a car, trailer, boat, or airplane does.

Useful physics that I use regularly:

• Classical mechanics - inertia
• Understanding force and lever arms; polar moment of inertia
• Safely and efficiently packing heavy loads in a vehicle or trailer
• Heat related physics: thermal mass, transfer of energy, how much energy is in steam vs. liquid water
• Boyle's law of gasses
• Understanding atmospheric pressures
• Ohm's law
• Basic electrical theory
• Darcy's Law of flows through a porous media (this is very job related though)

That's not even getting into all the stuff I use for work that exists at the intersection of physics, biology, and organic chemistry (e.g. the science behind cleaning and sanitizing equipment, particularly with heat).

RevRico said:

In reply to Beer Baron 🍺 :

...There was nothing in grades 1-11(I graduated early) or the 2.5 years of college that followed it, that I didn't already know before I got there or figured out on my own. The only things that even standout were arguing that Shakespeare has nothing to do with computer science, nobody that works in government has ever taken or passed a class on how government is supposed to work, and math teachers berkeleying hate you if you don't do things their specific way, when you'll never be doing it that way ever again. 

Seems like a bit of an over statement.

Your parents taught you how to read, write, and spell?

Certainly possible, but rather unusual.

RevRico said:

In reply to Beer Baron 🍺 :

And all of that can be figured out in situ without sitting through months/years of classes explaining the why and math behind it. 

School is generally useless...

Of course there are other ways to learn all that. There are countless ways to learn anything. The existence of other ways of learning doesn't make one method "useless".

I would agree that if you know you want to learn something particular, a traditional multi-subject academic education is not the most efficient way to learn any one thing. That's not the value. What it does, is give students exposure to a very wide array of topics that they wouldn't choose on their own. It provides an opportunity to discover unexpected areas of interest or aptitude.

I've got unexpectedly valuable information from classes I wouldn't have expected. Like early American literature (like Puritan essays and such). People *really* don't understand Puritanical philosophy and its impact on American culture. It is *not* sexual repression (they were quite sexually open) but rather a belief that material success indicates inherent moral superiority.

Class on the history of 20th century Vietnam was also great. A class on ethics and morality aimed at social workers taught me a LOT. I wouldn't have sought those topics on my own.

Now... I do think that our education system would benefit a LOT from major changes, but it is no more "useless" than an engine with a misfiring cylinder.

Beer Baron 🍺 said:

Toyman! said:

In reply to triumph7 :

I never took physics so I'm pretty sure stacking blocks in kindergarten taught me more about stacking boxes than a class I never took. 

Stacking boxes doesn't take much physics knowledge. Knowing how to load a bunch of heavy boxes in a car, trailer, boat, or airplane does.

Useful physics that I use regularly:

• Classical mechanics - inertia
• Understanding force and lever arms; polar moment of inertia
• Safely and efficiently packing heavy loads in a vehicle or trailer
• Heat related physics: thermal mass, transfer of energy, how much energy is in steam vs. liquid water
• Boyle's law of gasses
• Understanding atmospheric pressures
• Ohm's law
• Basic electrical theory
• Darcy's Law of flows through a porous media (this is very job related though)

That's not even getting into all the stuff I use for work that exists at the intersection of physics, biology, and organic chemistry (e.g. the science behind cleaning and sanitizing equipment, particularly with heat).

I don't know several of these because I've never needed them.

I can't think of any situation where I would need to know Boyle's Law, Darcy's Law, or the math to figure out how much energy is in steam vs a liquid. I would bet that 90% of the population doesn't know any of them or have a care to know. The first two are about subjects that don't interest me so I had to look them up. Boyle's Law reads like common sense to me but I know more than the average bear so maybe not. 

I've met too many engineers who can't load a trailer or balance a plane to think that any class teaches that. While I can do both, I learned them outside of the classroom. I'm sure there's a mathematical formula that explains why a bumper pull trailer needs 10%-15% tongue weight. I don't know it, and I don't want to because it's useless knowledge that isn't needed to properly load a trailer. I've seen too many people leave Lowes without a clue how to load a vehicle so I think you are giving high school physics more credit than it deserves. 

Y'all seem to think I'm saying school is terrible for everyone and a waste. That is not what I'm saying. It was a waste for me. A waste of my time and a waste of the teacher's time. Personally, I think the system is broken. I think it's terribly inefficient. It keeps trying to pound square pegs in round holes but even at that, it's better than nothing. There are enough conformists in the population that the system's successes are enough to keep the leviathan off the chopping block. The rest of us will have to muddle through despite the system.