Yeah… lol!
Do it in your remaining years.
See, maths taught you performance art.
I am on my remaining year.
I recall reading an article in the distant past on how a substantial portion of high school graduates were incompetent at doing something as basic as their groceries (cost) efficiently.
There were a slew of studies and surveys done in the last few years to evaluate financial literacy among high school students. And the results were not very encouraging.
National Financial Literacy Challenge (Admin. by the Treasury Dept) consisted of 35 questions on Personal Financial Issues. 46,000 American high school students took exam (May 2008): average Score was 56%. 2008 Jump Start Survey of Financial Literacy among High School students: average Score was 48%.
Here is a sample of questions:
If you deposit $1,000 in a savings account with a fixed annual interest rate of 5%, how much will you have in your account after two years (assuming you make no additional deposits or withdrawals)?
A. exactly $100
B. exactly $1,100
C. less than $1,100
D. more than $1,100
Person A adds $250 to her mutual fund every year for 10 years. Person B decides to wait 10 years when he knows he will have a lump sum of $2,500 to invest in a mutual fund. If both individuals earn, on average, a 7 percent rate of return, who will have the larger mutual fund balance in 20 years?
A. Person A, because she saved little each year
B. Person B, because his starting amount is bigger than Person A’s savings
C. Person A, because her money has grown for a longer time at compound interest
D. They would have the same amount because they invested the same amount of money
. What is an advantage of a fixed-rate mortgage over a variable-rate mortgage?
A. Fixed-rate mortgages generally have lower interest rates than variable-rate mortgages;
B. Fixed-rate mortgages require lower down payments than variable-rate mortgages;
C. Fixed-rate mortgages have interest rates that stay the same, but variable-rate mortgage payments may increase;
D. Fixed-rate mortgages generally are written for a shorter period of time than variable-rate mortgages;
You have $400 in the bank, and $50 in your wallet. You owe $3,000 on a car that is worth $4,000. Your other personal possessions are worth a total of $2,000. You also take home $800 per week from your job. From this information your wealth – or net worth – currently equals:
A. $3,050; B. $3,450; C. $4,250; D. $7,250.
Shwab’s (a major brokerage house) Teens & Money Survey revealed some attention-grabbing results.
Teenagers believe they are financially savvy. They believe they will be earning “plenty of money.”
But when it comes to specifics: only 51% know how to write a check, only 34% can balance a checkbook, 26% know how credit card fees work.
And probabilities! To make the learning process more palatable (if not down right exciting), an “introduction” to Professor Edward O. Thorp is a must!
And for those academically challenged, but very proficient in sport activities, I would suggest some math-related extracurricular activity:
I would take a financial literacy class if they had one.
I feel like a decent number of people go humanities->science, too. For all the people jumping ship to avoid the academic rigor, as you put it, of science, there are people similarly fleeing the uncertainty of fields in which there is no “right answer” and grading is, removed from the fancy dressings in which it has been decorated, based on a professor’s (or, worse, a TA’s) whim. As someone doing both, I’d honestly say I feel more challenged by my literary than scientific classes. The emphasis put on you, personally, in your own learning (at least, from my perspective) is significantly greater than the more logistically rigorous sciences.
Really, what I’m saying is that studying things based in (vague approximations of) facts is significantly easier in a lot of ways than studying random shit people who think too much made up. It’s easier to read and comprehend Neuroscience papers than Derrida, any day.
Man, if science is so easy, I wonder why we haven’t cured cancer. In the mean time, Derrida has contributed many cheeseburgers to society.
On a more serious note, being a good scientist requires good writing skills. The point to science is not to memorize bullshit, but to communicate information in a manner that doesn’t alter the original idea. Science is as much a language as it is a mass of information. When you get anywhere above undergrad, you have to think your experiments through or they will fail and when they succeed, you need to make sure they were well controlled so you don’t get fucked up the ass by reviewers. Assuming that you covered your bases, you can still get screwed thanks to the subjective whims of some gigantic asshole that’s stuck 20 years in the past and doesn’t like your boss’ face. Happens all the time.
I agree that most people that go into the sciences as undergrads can’t write, however, these people don’t evolve into quality scientists because they are incapable of communicating their ideas properly for scientific journals.
Science is easier to understand than Derrida because it’s logical. Derrida is a big convoluted mess of garbage meant to look pretty and pretentious so only a few elite can get it. If philosophers care about life so much and their ideas, you’d figure they could write their papers in understandable formats.
Sin is right that science is not just memorizing things and punching in numbers, but requires a lot of critical skills as well as strong communication. I think Philosophy and say Chemistry are equally valid courses to take, and both have their challenges and uses in society. In fact it’s probably best if a scientist or philosopher has a good grasp on many fields rather than just being a specialist in one particular field.
*edit: Not trying to devalidate your decision in reading Derrida (or is it just course material), Arac, as he does have some cool things to say… it’s just written strangely.
If the humanities are so easy, I wonder why we don’t live in a pacifist utopia.
I was speaking solely of majour changes in undergrad, where the whims of gigantic assholes are significantly more common as a grading practice in humanities fields than in scientific fields. Yeah, I still have to write papers, but even then, a significantly higher level of detail is paid to raw facts.
I agree entirely, hence my decision to study neuro and lit theory.
I like the strange wording, honestly. I like to read Derrida, and I think it’s kind of meant to be read, as much as literature as philosophy; the actual language is as or more important than what it’s saying, both to Derrida and in his writing. It’s kind of like if somebody let James Joyce write a criticism of philosophy, linguistics, and society. Or how if you read the first part of Phaedrus without knowing the subtext and allusions in what Socrates is saying, it just seems totally stupid. Translations of Derrida lose a lot of the power and appeal, though, because they lose a lot of the life and humour of the original text (puns, especially).
Teach your students just how worthless they really are. That’ll show them!
We don’t live in a pacifist utopia because the humanities led to more cheeseburgers than the spreading and teaching of social responsibilities.
Overall, I think its pointless to discuss undergrads because undergraduate degrees serve no purpose, beyond being stepping stones for gaining necessary background knowledge. You learn only few practical things, barring very few disciplines. Either you have to do work study programs or you need additional training afterwards. Graduate programs in science can count for experience and are therefore relevant. It is worth emphasizing that a PhD is a Doctor of Philosophy
I thought he did :booster:
True. It’s like if somebody let James Joyce write a criticism of philosophy, linguistics, and society without disguising it as a novel.
We haven’t found a cure for cancer because the sciences, with regard to medicine, led to more profiteering drug companies and lazy physicians than actual attempts to help people, by the same logic.
I mean, I was only responding to your statement about people switching undergraduate majours. I think talking about institutionalized education in any way is fairly useless. It proliferates the diseases already inherent in society, and cannot be used to cure them.
Pharmaceutical companies aren’t run by scientists but business people (ie MBA types) jsyk. Scientists are low on the totem pole. If you want to blame the lack of progress on pharma, then you’re laying the blame at the wrong door. Blaming physicians is silly because its not their job. Its like blaming your car mechanic because Toyota sold you shitty mats that got stuck in your gas pedal. Lazy physicians are responsible for a lot of problems, but this isn’t one :P. Its also like blaming physicians because people are getting fat fromy being fed too many cheeseburgers by humanities graduates. THAT’S IT! You’re just trying to make people too fat to fight! Its a long term strategy.
The problem with institutionalization isn’t institutionalization in itself, but intellectual laziness by the people inside. The problem is with the people and not the system. Institutionalization is unavoidable for large scale production. What’s the solution to the people problem? The hell if I know.
Maybe those scientists should have gotten humanities degrees, also, so that they could actually get in charge of things, then. Oh, wait, that’s what I’m doing. Meanwhile, scientists flip metaphorical burgers over a bunsen burner while letting those in charge of them make everything shitty. All I’m saying is that science is pretty much as totally fucked by society and capitalism as the humanities are.
The people inside are taught to be intellectually lazy from a young age. The institution perpetuates itself. The solution is to start flinging molotov cocktails like buildings were birthday candles and putting motherfuckers up against walls. That way, we’ll get a new, equally shitty institution based on our crazed and misguided principles. If I win, everyone will have to alliterate a little on occasion or be killed; if you win, body hair will be a capital offense.
The problem here is that you don’t dissociate science, which is a method, from the people. Scientists are in all intents and purposes tools for applying the method. The problem has to do with the fact that scientists are at the mercy of shitty administrators, either in industry or in the government if they’re in academia applying for grants. Different governments will have different interests and shape what gets done by selecting who gets how much. This is a reflection of what society demands from scientists, like how to prevent people from dying prematurely from eating too many cheeseburgers.
The people aren’t taught to be lazy, they are allowed to be by ever more permissive standards and a lack of expectations. Its an important nuance. My solution is more akin to putting bullets in people’s heads as they are dysfunctional from a very young age. Waste of ressources. And razor blades. And cheeseburgers. Oh the tragedy.
I meant to refer to science as a field of academia. Basically, my point is that whatever kind of degree one gets, one will more likely end up doing something stupid to detrimental than something useful.
Hey, I said up against the wall. We’re on the same page, here. I just want there to be epic flaming backgrounds while it happens.
The problem with scientists then getting humanities degrees is a matter of resources. They have a limited lifespan and limited money and to make a meaningful contribution to any scientific field, they’re going to have to spend a lot of it just accumulating scientific degrees. Usually this will leave people in a position where they can’t afford to spend any more money or time getting another degree to be able to run their company too. Which sucks.
Of course I’m also just bitter because of how utterly, utterly buttfucked my country is now. God I hate this.
Damn you, now I want a cheeseburger >:(
I liked humanities in back in High school, but they had. No. PRACTICAL USE. Unless you wanted to teach those subjects (or draw ‘cool stuff’ for an internet forum, it was awesome, I think it was called rpgclassics). I liked to write about facts. So I checked out the University of Helsinki. It had journalism. The road to studying journalism was full of terminology which I hadn’t even heard of before the exam. I left the exam exactly at the time it was allowed. If I wanted to be a journalist, I could just write. Who needs a degree to write? Heck, I knew of the paperless future. I KNEW INTERNETS!
Which is why I stuck my head in a university of applied sciences. I failed all math and physics on my first way through. “This is more than just memorization of facts and tidbits. This makes sense. Eventually.” Eventually I passed everything and learned about how things work in this world of ours through the scientific method. I’m now an editing assitant for the next two months, internship over, grade work on color definition starts. Get name in credits. Become Engineer. Start pounding on sentry gun with wrench. “What did I need that math and physics for again?”, I ask myself. “They’re just theory put into practice.”
But they work now. Maybe some day, someone gets a better theory. Maybe we’ll go back to fearing mother nature again. But for now, science will pay for my daily bread. Or cheeseburger. Damn you, cheeseburger.
I see you are already prepared for Arac’s regime becoming a reality.