hey guys… as i was watching TV the other day, this thought struck me out of the blue. why should i be caring and dedicating so much of my time to courses that i have absolutely 0 interest in… i only really enjoy studying biology and chem, but other classes like ap world and english to me are wastes of time. i mean so far i have pretty above average grades in all my classes but im really considering just not caring and dedicating my time to just studying bio and chem. really tho… who has time to read 20 pages out of a big ass textbook everyday about stuff that happened hundreds and hundreds of years ago and then just forget everything after a test. do you guys think i should just trudge through to the end of the year or just give up on these courses
I do it to get into a good school. If I end up not getting in anywhere it was a complete waste of my time.
You’ll be taking plenty more classes like history and English in college, almost all of which have general education or distribution requirements.
no way…
wait so college is still like highschool with the eng hist math core class requisites…?? sorry i am totally oblivious as to what the college student schedule is like.
I can understand feeling like there is really no point to learning much about old things that happened long ago-especially if you study just for the test. I felt that way about chemistry in high school. I had not clue why I had to study it except it was required.It seemed like torture to me with no point at all. But now I understand the importance of chemistry for living and I sure wish I had understood those things then. I don’t think we do very good job making sure kids know how various topics are meaningful. We sort of let students figure that out on their own. But that means many go though school feeling like much of their day is spent in pointless activities. As adults, nobody would do tasks at work without understanding why the task was important and how it fit into a bigger picture. I think we should be more considerate towards kids and make sure they understand these things. I know that you, OP can probably articulate what the reasons for studying history are but you really don’t understand it at a level beyond a very superficial one. So spending your time on it seems pointless. And studying just for exams is sort of pointless.
But there are really good reasons for taking these classes. The people you are reading about in history are just like you and me. they just lived a long time ago. What they did paved the way for what you will be able to do in your life. You are connected to all those people in the history books. But that perspective is not the one that is used to teach you about what those people did. Instead you are given a huge textbook, told to memorize the material and then you are tested. In some schools and for some students, everything is reduced to the grades you get on tests. The goal becomes to collect A’s instead of learning about what those people did in their lives and how that is related to what is happening in the world and on your street today. You are right. Education is at a very sad point in its own history. Hopefully things will change. Until then it is you who will have to generate a better perspective for yourself. You don’t have to accept the view that education is a rat race to A’s. It is absurd, from my perspective. Find ways to make the information more meaningful for you.
How similar college is to high school depends upon what college you attend. For some, most of the required courses are in your major. So you choose an area of study that you want to pursue and you have a bunch of classes in that topic but also in related topics that may be necessary to be really knowledgable. So for engineering, you’d take math courses along with other courses related to the type of engineering you were interested in. So maybe you would have 2 engineering courses and 1 math course in a semester. Then, depending upon the school, you may have complete freedom to choose one or two other classes that you can take like, say economics or business. But some colleges have something called distribution requirements. That usually means that before you graduate you have to have taken a certain number of classes in other areas like…yes…history, english and the like. But you usually have a wide choice-like one course in the humanities, another in social science, etc. Some schools have a common core instead. That means that everyone in, say their first year, takes the same course or one of a group of classes. Some schools, like Brown, don’t have requirements outside the ones for the topic you major in. So colleges differ in terms of how many other classes you are required to take outside the area you are interested in focusing on. But you have far more choice in most colleges than you have in high school.
Do good in your English and history classes so you can pass the AP/IB test so that you don’t have to take it again in college.