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Brain Drain: Most College Students Learn Next to Nothing, New Study Says
The report based on the book Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses found that after two years of college, 45% of students learned little to nothing. After four years, 36% of students learned almost nothing.
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You learn things but not much not much of what you learn can be used in the real world.
you learn how to work with people and how to pay your bills on time which are great life skills. That is why you have six months of training when you get hired out of school.
I promise you engineering students learn plenty. This isn't news to anyone though, most of us are woefully unprepared for the real world.
I learned lots of stuff in college, much of which I've already forgotten. Most of which I'll likely never apply to anything I do in the real world.
College is great for obtaining information. Most of the time the information is useless for what you are really going to do in life.
Where college fails is in critical thinking! Most students show up to class, obtain information, accept as fact and move on. We do not learn critical thinking skills, we do not question our reality, we do not question the status quo, we are not independent thinkers and we live in our own little worlds.
All we do is obtain information and accept it for what it is. That is where college has failed us all.
I think I'm one of the minority that actually learned a lot in college.
Not surprising. Like most things in life, you only get out what you put in.
That's what she said.
You learn more from a 6 month internship than you do in 2 years of college.
College is about survival of the fitest.
If there is one thing I've taken away from completing my English degree, it is the ability to think critically. Most of that critical thinking during college was applied to analyzing books, behavior, and ideas in general. While it may seem worthless to some to analyze Flannery O'Conner's Wiseblood, I have been able to apply the same skills to just about anything I do.Quote:
Originally Posted by cycoOJfan89
If you can come out of college with a good understanding of problem solving you are doing well, imho. You won't use most of the specifics you were taught, but you will use HOW to solve problems (how to approach them, use your resources, work in a team, etc.) every day. Loved this about engineering, but I'm sure you can get it with any major.
I've realized the most valuable thing I learned in college is how to use Microsoft Office. It's ridiculous how many people I can blow away with my simple Excel skills. Thank you Mechanical Engineering...
But honestly, I wish there were less classes. I flew through circuits & motors, instrumentation, and controls and hardly learned anything in ME370 and ME421. I would have rather taken 3 semesters to get circuits & motors down pat. The same goes for machine design. I learned what is capable of being calculated in that class, but I would have loved to go more in depth into everything. Very cool class. The thermo 1 and thermo 2 is set up well, but heat transfer just goes too fast to learn and RETAIN much information.
I'm looking forward to starting my masters. Working full time will make it tough, but it will be nice to just focus on one class at a time.
Shocking, if you are expecting to regurgitate most of what you learn into your job, go to a trade school, some place like ITT Tech. This is what they are there for.
Universities are there to lay the foundation for your future. Whether you continue in academia or go out and face the real world.
I'll probably never need to figure out the angular momentum of anything in my life, or know what two quarks in a meson are. But the skills I developed struggling with and solving those problems are what I'll use for the rest of my career.
College is not 100% just job training. It is the best time to take advantage of learning about History, Philosophy, etc. If all you want is job training go to Tech school. I enjoyed the classes I took in Drama and Classical Studies, even though I never intended to be an actor or professor.