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“When are we ever going to use this?”
My middle school algebra teacher had a poster hanging prominently on his classroom wall with the same heading. Whenever he heard the question, he would say nothing. He would point to the poster, which listed what seemed like a hundred jobs that intersected with algebra concepts. I hated it when he did that.
Now that I have started college, I have a new perspective.
My algebra teacher’s poster tried to prove that even rarely used skills still matter. Every bit of learning shapes how we think and how we grow. All education is important, because no time spent learning is wasted.
These days, I hear “when are we ever going to use this?” most often in reference to general education classes. IU’s general education requirements include English composition, math, history, science, world languages and arts and humanities.
I agree that arts and humanities don’t have much to do with say, a science or business major. And vice versa, science doesn’t have a lot of relevance to a voice major.
But studying disciplines outside of our fields of study makes us more well-rounded. It promotes a baseline of knowledge that every student should have. It also helps with general learning skills like critical thinking and problem solving, which are crucial when a student goes into the real world.
Beyond that, general education classes allow us to explore interests outside of our major. They give us chances to learn about things we never would have thought of exploring.
When we set out to pick a major in college, well-meaning family and friends often tell us that picking a field more likely to lead to a well-paying job is most important. This indicates a tendency in our society to value college education for job training rather than the inherent benefits of learning. These societal expectations lead to fear that if you don’t end up using your degree in your future career, your hard work will all be for nothing.
While a college education does function as job training, it is so much more than that. It is a chance to study with a variety of different people. It is a chance to soak up as much knowledge as you can get, to learn from others’ perspectives even within your chosen field of study.
Education is valuable. It is a power that we, as college students, are very privileged to have access to. Educated people gain a great understanding of the world around them, and they develop skills to interpret it.
Any learning contributes to your body of knowledge and helps form your life experience, on which every decision you make is based. It also helps strengthen connections in your brain, improving skills and memory.
As an adult, you are expected to make informed decisions about things as small as which groceries to buy, and as large as which news outlets to follow and what politicians to vote for. All of the skills that an education develops work to make those decisions easier. An education creates context, a process to follow, to allow confidence in those decisions.
Reducing a college education to simply job training ignores the value that it has beyond that.
College is expensive. That is no secret. It is natural to want to get your money’s worth. However, I believe you are paying for experience. You aren’t just learning in the classroom. You are having a “trial run” at adulthood.
On campus, you are learning how to manage your own time and prioritize what you personally value. You are also learning how to grocery shop, how to find a place to live. All will continue to be important for the rest of your life.
You also learn how to act professionally and respectfully during group projects, and how to interact with friends and roommates. Don’t disregard this social learning.
Even a major where a job may be more difficult to find, then, is valuable. There are passionate people in many different fields who should be allowed to study what they are passionate about without being accused of wasting their time. No time spent learning is time wasted. Each experience, lesson learned and mistake made counts.
About this time of the semester, I often get inundated with stress about midterms and piles of assignments. It is important to take a step back and appreciate what college gives us.
In the end, my middle school math teacher was right.
All learning is valuable. Even algebra.
Sasha Burton (she/her) is a sophomore studying elementary education with minors in English and Spanish.
