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Discussion Boards => Off-Topic => Topic started by: moonangel on April 05, 2013, 04:54:35 am
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i have never had a need to use algebra nor has history really been usefull nether has biology
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I would have to say algebra. I've been out of high school for over twenty years and I've never used it.
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Algebra 100%! I have never used this and I don't expect to.
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i have never had a need to use algebra nor has history really been usefull nether has biology
You've never had a need for history?
Outside of college, I don't think I've had any real life need for algebra or calculus. I don't really remember what else I took in high school, which is sad since I graduated in 2008
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I would have to say algebra. :BangHead:
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I enjoyed math but couldn't see any reason anyone would study calculus. I see no uses for it and never understood it. So it would be calculus for me. It stopped me from taking math as my minor when I went to college.
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There was a class on how to care for babies. I had been a babysitter for a long time and already knew more then they were teaching about how to care for babies . I was also a certified junior lifeguard. That was pretty useless for me but they made us all take it.
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some of you do not realize it but you use math like algebra in your rational thinking.
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I can't think of any subjects in high school that I felt was useless (Hmm...math, english, history, sciences, japanese...can't think of anything else at the moment). If anything it'll probably Trigonometry...but even then there are times when it can be applied...just rarely.
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i have never had a need to use algebra nor has history really been usefull nether has biology
i never needed geometry in high school i hate that subject
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None. I think whether or not I can state an absolute use for a particular subject, high school subjects are still useful to have. I think sometimes we say a subject is useless if you can't think of an application to that knowledge. But sometimes it's helpful to have that knowledge when just interacting with others. So you may not have to recite the date for the Battle at Gettysburg at your job, but knowing about the battle (or even the Civil War in general) may enter into a conversation and having such knowledge will allow you to make more rational discussion. Also there may be times when you don't realize you are using knowledge from a particular subject. Like you may be studying how gas prices are fluctuating so that you can try to time which day the price will be the cheapest. And this studying of the rate of change of gas prices is actually using calculus. Finally there may be secondary skills and knowledge that you learn during the course of learning a particular subject. Although the literary knowledge gained when writing a term paper on Shakespeare may not actually be useful in your current job, things like knowing how to search for things in a library, formulating and writing rational arguments, and citing references correctly may all be secondary skills learned from that term paper which may be useful when trying to formulate a presentation at your job as to why a particular course of action may not be the best for the company.
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Sociology.
I consider the most useful subjects to be mathematics, and history. Depending on what you do for a living, English and science are also very useful (but not absolutely necessary.) The reason mathematics is important is that it helps develop rational thinking and reasoning (something that most people are in desperate need of). Whether you realize it or not, you use everything you learn in algebra every day. I actually think we don't go far enough, and should include calculus (a subject that use to be mostly college level, but a lot of high schools have it available) as a required class as well. A logic course would also be really cool to have, but it's still considered a college level only course. History is important for obvious reasons.
English is important if you plan on doing a lot of writing (being that basic English from pre-school to middle school is enough to effectively communicate with others). Science (such as biology and chemistry) are important if you plan on doing anything from psychology to engineering.
The most useless courses I would consider would be sociology, foreign language, and skill-based classes (like shop). The reason I consider foreign language to be useless for most people is that they will probably not use them. In my high school, we had 4 levels of foreign language (the first two where required, the next two where not and where college-level). If you didn't plan on taking all 4, I don't see the point in taking the first two. Anything you learn from learning a foreign language indirectly can be learned from other courses much more effectively (like math). I would learn foreign language only to learn the language itself (either because you want too, or because you think it will be useful). I figure anyone can learn what they need as far as a different language if they absolutely had too without having to take a class. Skill-based classes are only useful if that's what you plan on doing for a living (or even just as a hobby). Sociology was probably the most useless course I took, only because I found it to be based little off science and was full of assumptions not based on reality. I disagreed with many of the conclusion made.
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I enjoyed math but couldn't see any reason anyone would study calculus. I see no uses for it and never understood it. So it would be calculus for me. It stopped me from taking math as my minor when I went to college.
Calculus takes the most complicated aspects of algebra and simplifies it. A problem that would have taken pages of paper to solve with algebra can be solve in only a few lines with calculus. Although it requires a higher understanding of mathematics, the effort it saves is more than worth it.
It also brings your level of reasoning and rationality to a new level, and gives you a better preservative of the world. I understand it is a lot more complex to comprehend, and required classes for it should be taken a lot slower than the college level classes we have, but it is well worth learning.
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Algebra And Chemistry! YUCK I don't think I have ever used them or need them.
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Algebra And Chemistry! YUCK I don't think I have ever used them or need them.
Ever cook? That's chemistry.
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i have never had a need to use algebra nor has history really been usefull nether has biology
I'd have join everyone in saying Algebra .....I just tolerated the subject , worked pretty hard to pass. :wave:
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Back then I thought the most useless subject for me was typing. First day I walked in the classroom. There were no guys at all. A girl dominant class. I sat in there feeling so embarrassed 'cause all the guys(friends) are going to make fun of me. So the next day, I went to see a counselor so I can change my class to JROTC. But now I reflected back on the choices I've made. It really affected my future. Now, I think about my choices and how I wish that I could stay in that class and learn the proper hand and fingers on the keyboard. Even til this day, I am still typing with my index fingers whereas my son in 8th grade is like a pro at the keyboard. Even after high school, I never took keyboarding in college for that matter, and am suffering the consequences for my choices. Hey typing/keyboarding is just as important for women as it is essential for men. :BangHead:
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French. I liked it at the time, but I haven't used it since, and I don't plan on it!
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I always enjoyed History, Geography (they don't even teach that anymore) and math, actually English was my most unpopular subject (couldn't deal with synonyms and punctuations). I guess the subject I found the most useless was Wood Shop, I never used it after school. Never had an interest in woodworking.
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Yep! Algebra.
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In high school it would have to be Keyboarding only because I already knew how to type. In college it would western civilizations.
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Everyone is saying math, but math is really important. It's not useless at all. Math and science subjects are the important.
In my opinion, I'd say it was health class. It felt useless to me because the teachers had us just copy from the book every other day. Didn't learn a thing. Most of it was about pregnancy prevention and STDs (and it didn't help the other students obviously since a lot of them were still getting pregnant).
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Cooking is home ec
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People usually think that some or most subjects in school are useless, and to a certain extent, they are right. However, even though I can find many examples of how you use that knowledge in real life, the point of going to school is not to apply 'classroom content' in your daily life. Think how many times you've apply specific classroom content in your daily life? My guess is, not very often. The real point of going to school is to exercise your brain. Algebra is based on logic; when you learn it and practice it, you are really learning how to solve logical problems and to think logically. Other subjects will develop or continue development of same or different parts of your brain. How many times have you applied a specific formula with the exact same variables you learned at school in "classroom algebra' in real life? Now, how many times have you made a recipe smaller because you are cooking for less persons than it's designed for? Or how many times while grocery shopping you noticed your favorite product comes in two different sizes, and you've actually figured out the better deal or which is cheaper in a per-ounce basis? For the recipe and which is cheaper situation, you use algebra to solve it, although you don't realize it.
Think of a professional athlete, a basketball player for example, and all the time he spends in the weight room doing bench presses, leg presses, back squats, curls, etc. Of course he practices his drills like dribbling and shooting that help him in the game, but when is he ever going to need to lift heavy objects during a game? probably never (unless a basketball and all of its 22 ounces qualifies as a heavy object and it justifies all the heavy lifting in the weight room). Then why does he still do it? he conditions and builds up his muscles so that he can perform the skills he needs to do during the game, better. Same goes for the material you learn and practice in school, and your brain.
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My most useless subject would have to be Algebra I and II....
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No disrespect intended, but the thinking here blows my mind. You hear this all the time and people just don't get it. We don't learn subjects or anything specific in school so that we will have that knowledge. A college degree does not show that we have learned anything. It shows that we are capable of learning. That is why it is important to have a variety of subjects from which we learn as that will increase our ability to learn.
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i agree with everyone else who has said algebra..useless!
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I don't think any subject has gone unused and that is probably true for those that think they were wasting time in a class like algebra. Algebra teaches some fundamentals like you can do anything in an equation as long as you do the same thing on both sides of it, life has many absolutes similar to this 'law', i.e. whatever you do has consequences somewhere else!! :) And as said before, chemistry is EVERYWHERE even if it is not noticed as such. Even off beat subjects contribute to ones way of thinking and viewing the world around them.
Believe me, I was no scholar, quite the opposite, but I recognize now how things I studied (?) have fit into my life and thinking. To answer the question though, I would say sociology was probably the least useful of all the courses.
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sorry folks but i have to put this in here GYM class.
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I am also going to go against the grain here, and I am going to say the class that was the biggest waste of my time was Art. Some people and I am one, just are not artistically talented and that is not necessarily a bad thing.
But, I just all around had a problem with my high school my whole senior year. I had all my credits but two at the end of my junior year and was very upset that the school had my schedule written as study hall, Advanced Math, study hall...lunch...Band, study hall, Physics...AAAAAH it killed me!! The main reason was I had an after school job and tried to see with a schedule like that why could I just not get out of school early and get more hours on the clock, but nope.
Oh well, that was my two cents worth. Sorry, I rambled on.
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I would venture a guess that almost everyone saying algebra is useless is actually using it all the time.
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Back then I thought the most useless subject for me was typing. First day I walked in the classroom. There were no guys at all. A girl dominant class. I sat in there feeling so embarrassed 'cause all the guys(friends) are going to make fun of me. So the next day, I went to see a counselor so I can change my class to JROTC. But now I reflected back on the choices I've made. It really affected my future. Now, I think about my choices and how I wish that I could stay in that class and learn the proper hand and fingers on the keyboard. Even til this day, I am still typing with my index fingers whereas my son in 8th grade is like a pro at the keyboard. Even after high school, I never took keyboarding in college for that matter, and am suffering the consequences for my choices. Hey typing/keyboarding is just as important for women as it is essential for men. :BangHead:
Amen to the typing class! Way back when dinosaurs roamed and I was in high school we actually had to have at least two elective courses in our Jr. and Sr. years. My Dad demanded that I take 'Personal Typing' as one of my electives, much to my dislike. His argument was 'Son, believe me that one day you will be very thankful that you have learned the basics of typing. It does not matter how fast you can type, but knowing how is something you will appreciate.' How right he was, that was 18 years before the first home computer was created! Still can't type very well but I cringe when I see folks (usually my age) typing with two fingers!!! I want to shove them out of their chair and do it for them!! :)
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I don't think any subject has gone unused and that is probably true for those that think they were wasting time in a class like algebra. Algebra teaches some fundamentals like you can do anything in an equation as long as you do the same thing on both sides of it, life has many absolutes similar to this 'law', i.e. whatever you do has consequences somewhere else!! :) And as said before, chemistry is EVERYWHERE even if it is not noticed as such. Even off beat subjects contribute to ones way of thinking and viewing the world around them.
Believe me, I was no scholar, quite the opposite, but I recognize now how things I studied (?) have fit into my life and thinking. To answer the question though, I would say sociology was probably the least useful of all the courses.
I'm glad I'm not the only one that holds this view.
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Based on the logic of the subject that I have not used it would have to be Spanish.
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I thought history was useless did not like it then and I still don't.
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i wouls say art.. :bunny:
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Geometry. Never needed it after the course ended. It was just was a requirement for college.
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algebra and trigoniometry ???.
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Mine was shorthand. I had no desire to be a secertary. But had to take an elective and had taken everything else. Loved typing and all the other classes had great teachers who made it fun to learn.
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Do we really have to choose just one? I think I've made my point. :heart:
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I think mine was Biology. While most of biology is pretty much common sense, I have never once before or after Biology class
been asked to dissect a frog and look at its insides
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Shorthand. My parents made me take it, I've never used it in many, many years and I had wanted to take a foreign language in its place. Ugh!
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I would also have to say art (I have no talent can't draw a straight line and dont care to), music ( again no singing ability), and shorthand. Never used that, always hated that subject!
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I thought history was the most useless subject. The reason is that for one thing, I never had a good history teacher. They taught in a manner inconsistent
with the way I learn. They taught by oral instruction with little or no notes and they never really followed the books they handed out. It was all impromptu for the most part.
It almost assumed that you had taken history since you were old enough to read.
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I agree algebra it is headache....I could never get it and have never used it in my adult life....
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Definitely algebra!! Gave me such a headache.
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After reading the posts so far, I think many people are getting the concept of "useless" subject and "least favorite" subject mixed up. Like others have stated, people use mathematics in their everyday lives and just don't realize it. If you look for deals, or try to figure out how many items you can purchase with a set dollar amount - that's algebra and trigonometry folks (trig is simply algebra "light"). Ever re-arranged your room, put groceries away in your cabinet, do landscaping, or packed your car - that's geometry at work. You a fan of fast cars and want to know which has the best acceleration - that's calculus. You may not work the equations on paper, but you are using the concepts all the time. It may have been your least favorite subject, but it's far from a useless subject.
For me I've probably used both actual information learned and/or conceptual thinking learned from every subject I've ever taken. Even classes like the History of the Soviet Union in college. I never took shorthand (which was mentioned above), but that might have been the only one I may have considered useless...but knowing me, I probably would have taken the opportunity of taking the shorthand concepts and created my own "language" from it just for fun.
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gym class
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i would say algebra and history.