Which school subjects are useless in the regular real world?

amigafan2003 said:
? Being a scientist is awesome.

Ok, the money is average, but it's not all about the money.
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It wasn't for me.
In academia (spent time in PhD office for work) it was completely toxic. People got serious gratification over putting others work down. 'my PhD is more important'. 'the Prof found an error in her thesis.. Haha'.

You can't really self train as the kit is too expensive (did my 3rd year project on x-ray crystallography).. That's 300k at least.

There was a lot Of bitterness. One doctor hated the Chinese as they released a paper on what he had been working on for basically his whole career. And beat him by a year.

You often work in a daylight less lab doing same thing over and over.

Im glad I got out I have to say. And yeah. The money is mostly poo!
 
413x said:
I think one of my biggest dissapointments from school is this.

The subjects aren't taught in a way that represents real world jobs.
Science was always interesting, I loved it. So much that I took all of them at A level.
Even did it at uni. Wasn't until during uni I kind of picked up on what the jobs were like. I wish I could have known earlier. Biggest regret in life was doing science at uni. Well. The science I did. Waste of time and money.

Obviously you aren't going to tell a kid in primary school 'this subject is a terrible job' but as you come towards college and uni I wish there was a way (like extended work experience) to understand what the jobs would be like. When I was at school none of this happened.you were basically told to do what you were good at
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I've only ever worked in the sciences as a lab assistant but that was pretty close to what I learnt - spent a lot of time making up solutions of artificial perspiration, shoving things under mercury vapour lamps, tensile testing, etc. lots of time spent with flasks and bunsens, noting results, and so on. (Very little "real" science though - not setting my own work, etc.).

EDIT: I also had some procedural training to deal with pandemics LOL as the lab I worked in back then was equipped to repurpose in a national emergency to whatever biosafety grade it was.

I think my biggest regret is the opposite (though for reasons it wasn't entirely of my choosing) - I wish I'd pursued a career in chemical engineering rather than going into IT which I found I enjoy as a hobby but did not enjoy as a job. But a bit too late really now.
 
FoxEye said:
PE was a joke. The teachers would gather the pupils that showed promise in x,y,z sport, and literally leave the others to play by themselves.

Only the students that would/could play for the school teams were given any tuition or help. The rest were essentially just given a tennis racquet (or whatever) and left to their own devices.

PE is great - I agree - but the PE we got at school was utter crap. How do you expect pupils to get involved or develop if you are only interested in taking the already athletic/strong/fit and **** all the rest.

I hated that aspect. The fact that (being in the small/weak group) the PE teachers couldn't have been less interested AT ALL in what we were doing. **** those PE teachers. **** them.
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It was.
And it put me off sport all way until uni.
But yes. Absolutely identical. If you weren't good you were not worth the time.

I absolutely hate football, absolutely hate it because of school. You were never taught. Unless you were already good. Imagine if they did the same in maths.
 
I think the only two that are a bit pointless would be music and art. If anything I would say they should be optional from year 7.

Everything else, despite some unfavourable subjects such as R.E. will always be beneficial later in life. Afterall the UK is a very diverse country now, and you do need a brief understanding of the individual religions etc.
 
Rroff said:
I've only ever worked in the sciences as a lab assistant but that was pretty close to what I learnt - spent a lot of time making up solutions of artificial perspiration, shoving things under mercury vapour lamps, tensile testing, etc. lots of time spent with flasks and bunsens, noting results, and so on. (Very little "real" science though - not setting my own work, etc.).

EDIT: I also had some procedural training to deal with pandemics LOL as the lab I worked in back then was equipped to repurpose in a national emergency to whatever biosafety grade it was.

I think my biggest regret is the opposite (though for reasons it wasn't entirely of my choosing) - I wish I'd pursued a career in chemical engineering rather than going into IT which I found I enjoy as a hobby but did not enjoy as a job. But a bit too late really now.
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Yes. On chemical engineering I agree. I'm more talking about the bio sciences here. Chemistry is well worth it!

Why didn't anyone tell me geology is the one to go for working for mining/oil companies!
 
Think the worst offender in my experience, was Sociology. Most of what was inside that was what we deem woke stuff these days; very little if any real world application. And more about to be aware of said issues and to identify them more easily.
 
Malevolence said:
Didn't you have two English classes? We had English Lang. and English Lit.
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We did I think

I don't really remember Eng lang it always seemed to be lit.

And honestly English from that long ago isn't modern English so if they want to teach they should split it out into some classics class or something
 
Cleisthenes said:
I think given how the world is these days you should remove car maintenance from there. Particularly with the prevalence of electric cars, people won't even have to check their oil any more!
Electronics I agree with, and cooking too (although is this not already on the syllabus?)

Metal work and wood work are covered by design tech I believe?
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I want to see more of it in the curriculum. Wood work, I want to be able to build a fence or decking and use tools you would actually have at home. Cooking, I want to see a month's worth of healthy and tasty meals in every students repertoire. The car maintenance can include other items then engines, from changing a wheel to suspension repair are the same no matter the power choice. Besides with good electronic education you should be covered there too! Metal work, all I remember is filling down a piece of metal for many lessons and giving me RSI, I think the end result was a bottle opener? I'm not even sure if we saw it to completion...
 
They are all important, to different people for different reasons.
RE for example teaches you about different faiths and beliefs. It essentially teaches you about acceptance and why people believe different things.
They all have a purpose, but the main purpose is to get the student to think. They have a brain, so use it. You do have to make it engaging but again, different for everyone.
You've got to do all subjects to suit all people. Only when you get to the GCSE options should you get a choice.
The only one I think you should make compulsory is a foreign language. That in itself will stimulate a conversation and possibly lead to a more creative student.
 
Trifid said:
I want to see more of it in the curriculum. Wood work, I want to be able to build a fence or decking and use tools you would actually have at home. Cooking, I want to see a month's worth of healthy and tasty meals in every students repertoire. The car maintenance can include other items then engines, from changing a wheel to suspension repair are the same no matter the power choice. Besides with good electronic education you should be covered there too! Metal work, all I remember is filling down a piece of metal for many lessons and giving me RSI, I think the end result was a bottle opener? I'm not even sure if we saw it to completion...
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Car maintenance is exactly that - teaching you what to look for and how to do quick fixes like bulbs to changing wheels. All needed.
 
413x said:
It was.
And it put me off sport all way until uni.
But yes. Absolutely identical. If you weren't good you were not worth the time.

I absolutely hate football, absolutely hate it because of school. You were never taught. Unless you were already good. Imagine if they did the same in maths.
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I guess the key thing here is schools are judged on exam results in Maths for every pupil, but not PE (only those that actively choose to do GCSE PE).
Investing in poor performers at Maths is worth it because they can try to pull them up to a passing grade, or even better a C.
Investing in poor performers at PE is a waste of time because it doesn't impact on the school league tables.
 
413x said:
I think one of my biggest dissapointments from school is this.

The subjects aren't taught in a way that represents real world jobs.
Science was always interesting, I loved it. So much that I took all of them at A level.
Even did it at uni. Wasn't until during uni I kind of picked up on what the jobs were like. I wish I could have known earlier. Biggest regret in life was doing science at uni. Well. The science I did. Waste of time and money.

Obviously you aren't going to tell a kid in primary school 'this subject is a terrible job' but as you come towards college and uni I wish there was a way (like extended work experience) to understand what the jobs would be like. When I was at school none of this happened.you were basically told to do what you were good at
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what kind of career "science" jobs you are referring to, as the possibilities are very broad?
The career that science degrees most prepare you for is to do a PhD and go into research. Research science can be extremely interesting, you will spend a lot of time doing the "practical" side of science you may have enjoyed in school, paired with having to be very creative in terms of designing the experiments. You do need to be very resilient and bright to pursue it however.
 
EdwardTeach said:
I'm not sure what kind of career "science" jobs you are referring to, as the possibilities are very broad?
The career that science degrees most prepare you for is to do a PhD and go into research. Research science can be extremely interesting, you will spend a lot of time doing the "practical" side of science you may have enjoyed in school, paired with having to be very creative in terms of designing the experiments. You do need to be very resilient and bright to pursue it however.
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In my area all. I saw is people working on long term Projects where most of time you do same thing day in and out trying to make micro refinements to methods.
Life's work would be an exaggeration. But years often.

It absolutely wasn't for me. I just saw it as boring and under paid. (life sci


ences, ie biology)
 
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