School should learn something useless

I used to think that the school taught all the useless things, but now I realize that most of the content taught in the school is useless, but that doesn't mean it's not worth learning, on the contrary. What is "useful"? Help with work? Can make money? If we measure the value of knowledge by "useful or not", it will be very short-sighted, because most of the "useful knowledge" does not know where it can be used in the first place. For example, the neural network architecture, which is the mainstream of AI today, was proposed in the 1950s. However, due to the lack of computer hardware performance and insufficient data, the theory could not be realized. But in the 2010s, after the neural network architecture had powerful hardware and huge amounts of data, it evolved into deep learning and became the existence that dominates the world.

The above argument is still based on "may be useful in the future", but the value of a piece of knowledge has more aspects besides "is it useful?" For me, it is more important to "change thinking". Take my favorite Chinese class as an example: Although Chinese may not establish a certain skill of mine, it will change my thinking mode and enrich the depth of my thinking. This kind of gain is far more cherished than the cultivation of a certain skill.

Just in this way, it seems that all knowledge has value and is worth learning? That's right, even if you find out that it is not suitable for you after learning it, it is also a kind of discovery, which makes you sure that this path will not work. However, there is no limit to learning, and our time is limited. How should we decide which subjects to learn in a limited time?

I am very fortunate to have the opportunity to work in the industry during my studies. Once you start working, you start to measure the opportunity cost of doing everything, and most of what you learn is your major. As if I am an information specialist, learning a new programming language may be more helpful to my career than learning woodworking, so I have no opportunity to learn woodworking that I am very interested in. Gradually, the options in life began to become less and less, tending to be homogenous, and the thinking stopped growing, becoming a dead brain person.

In today's era, learning is too easy. There are many high-quality teaching contents on the Internet, which are taught quickly and well. Why do you need to learn in an inefficient way in school? Learning is hard, however, and it’s not easy to turn off Netflix to learn something new without a lot of motivation or pressure. Even if it is my favorite subjects in school, such as physics and mathematics, I probably will not automatically use my spare time to study. After all, there are many things that are more motivating to study, such as programs and music, and I lose it.” Learning Physics and Mathematics" possible gains.

The most important thing in learning is the opportunity , and this opportunity can be any opportunity that pushes you to learn something new, it could be a school curriculum, it could be a job requirement. When there is an opportunity to learn today, take the opportunity to learn it well and learn it back. Although this opportunity is not necessarily what you like, it is also an opportunity to change yourself. Since it comes, make good use of it.

The place that offers a lot of learning opportunities is the school. The school has a variety of courses, and there are also credits that can give you pressure and opportunities. If you grasp it well, it can become a temple of thought that provides you with nutrients. Work-related skills will still have many opportunities for you to learn even after graduation. During school, you can do more "useless things" without thinking about the value of a knowledge to you.

I used to be eager to start working, but I didn’t see the value of school until I actually entered the workplace. Fortunately, I now have one foot in the workplace and the other in school, which allows me to look at learning with a different mindset. I hope this article can also be an opportunity for you to start changing your view of learning and seize every learning opportunity.

2022-03-27 First published onwancat.cc