<p>Stats for me. I’m sure it’s useful… for someone. Somewhere. Eventually. My teacher is an incredibly annoying person (she ends every sentence with “blah blah blah, yeah?”) and assigns busy work that ends up taking over an hour which is checked every single day without fail. I just don’t find it very interesting. It’s an easy GPA booster at my school more than anything o.o Unfortunately I took AP Calc last year and this is the only thing offered other than Linear Algebra, which I’m also taking (it’s utter mind-destruction; I’d advise against taking it unless you REALLY REALLY like matrices and summation notation).</p>
<p>Interestingly enough, we haven’t really learned any formulas or anything in Stats and we’re on Chapter 6. We just use our calculators for everything.</p>
<p>I’m taking Stats and English Lit this year, which have both been mentioned a lot on this thread. School hasn’t started for me yet, but now I’m worried.</p>
<p>Yeah, I love reading though, so I hope it’s at least somewhat enjoyable. And both of the teachers for AP Lit are pretty cool guys, so it shouldn’t be too bad. Stats should be somewhat related to my future career, but I think a teacher who is new to my school will be teaching it and that’s never very promising.</p>
<p>A perfectly valid point IF we are excepting that lit teaches you critical thinking skills through close reading and developing an argument and hones your ability to communicate your ideas clearly, concisely, and perceptively. Never mind the fact that some of us value learning for learning’s sake, appreciate the connection to humanity we get from reading a great book, and value exposure to the creative works of some of the most brilliant minds in history.</p>
<p>Before any memorization takes place, the stats concept for each operation should be explained fully…you gotcha approach your teacher if she isn’t efficient in helping you understand …</p>
<p>This is funny because me and my friends were talking about how our teacher is making AP US history a complete joke! My teacher won’t stop talking! And he talks about nothing. Like literally we’re already a month behind the schools in the states (I live on a Japanese military base) and we’re getting even more behind by the day. We’ve spent two weeks on the Native Americans. From our knowledge there will be only about 6 questions on the subject. We should’ve just read the chapter, discussed it, and taken a small quiz on it. It’s been 2 weeks and we’re still in chapter 1! We have 31 chapters to learn. </p>
<p>Now think about how long it’s going to take us to go through the 1920’s!!!</p>
<p>And it’s funny because my AP Language class is amazing and we move fast but we learn so much! </p>
<p>But oh man don’t get me started on AP Environmental. That’s another post on it’s own…</p>
A perfectly valid point IF we are assuming that Lit does in fact improve critical thinking and communication skills. In my experience, this is not a safe assumption. A student with acceptable reading and writing skills will likely develop little but a knack for sycophantic mimicry.</p>
<p>The notion of what constitutes a “connection to humanity” or whether such a thing is even desirable is so hopelessly tied down with value judgments that it will not accomplish much in this discussion.</p>
<p>Right now, AP Psychology, but we’ve only had a few weeks of school. I know it’s an AP class, but some of the kids in my class are just… not intelligent. On Friday we were discussing the ethical level of hypothetical experiments, and one girl actually cried out “Cows aren’t animals; they’re mammals!”</p>
<p>Also AP US Gov, but again, it’s the beginning of the year.</p>
<p>Stats class isn’t teaching me anything, but further individual study has taught me a lot. Probability theory is really interesting when you get deep into it.</p>
<p>AP LIt is Shakespeare analysis? I thought it was learning about half-castrated cows! And Frankenfish! Apparently I’m wrong.
Our teacher is very good at going off topic. It’s been one month and I haven’t got anything back, nor have I had a real lecture. The only time we did something that pertained to the curriculum was the first two days of school.</p>