I did that once, sorta
Via Glenn, comes what happens when a 35 year old takes the SAT. A bit back, I hired an assistant and she was only just out of school and prepping for the CPA exam. She had various study guides and stuff with sample questions. So, I took one of her guides one day and thumbed through trying to answer questions. And I didn’t do that well on them. Well, let me rephrase that. I did well on anything multiple choice but some of the calculations, I’d get wrong.
Of course, I know why. It’s because in school, you learn all manner of things that you’ll never, ever use in the world. I remember in my intermediate accounting course we spent a two weeks calculating the present value of bonds and annuities. Since leaving school, I’ve done that in the real world exactly never. And if I was going to do it in the real world, I’d just plug it into excel and it would do it for me.
March 23rd, 2012 at 11:24 am
Ironically, in school, the things you need for life. Like managing money, balancing accounts, understanding retirement funds, mortgages, so on and so on.
Are seldom taught.
I took math up to calculus, and have seldom used anything beyond basic geometry, fractions and decimals.
I read far more than I did in school, and usually learned more.
So what was the point of school?
Everything I needed in life I learned outside and after school. The one thing school tried to teach me I failed miserably at, and still struggle with.
“SIT IN A DESK ALL DAY AND DO AS YOU ARE TOLD!”
March 23rd, 2012 at 12:05 pm
We had a class in HS (late 1960s) called “Record Keeping”. Signed up because I thought it would be an easy credit and GF was taking it too. Lost the GF, knowing how to balance a checkbook has helped ever since. There are times I wish I could remember my geometry but Machinery’s Handbook has all that so I can look it up.
March 23rd, 2012 at 12:28 pm
Those who can do do and those who can’t teach…
March 23rd, 2012 at 12:41 pm
I should have saved it, but somewhere I as a picture with the words, “You won’t always have a calculator with you,” on it next to a picture of an iPhone. I guess I could make such a picture, but I’m lazy.
March 23rd, 2012 at 1:43 pm
And this…is why…I have not bothered to prep or take the CPA exam despite 6 years of professional experience.
March 23rd, 2012 at 6:07 pm
That story was the whiniest, most worthless exercise I’ve ever seen Insty link to.