[angdis]

There certainly are more opportunities to learn than ever before, but learning requires effort.

If you want to learn something that _really_ matters you have to give it full attention. That means total focus, not "continuous partial attention", not facebooking on another tab. Whether you use an ipad, a book, or sit across from a table from a professor, learning really does require undivided attention-- when has this ever changed?

[spdionis]

But often in university a good 80% of the material doesn't _really_ matter

[eli_gottlieb]

What the hell are people majoring in that 80% of the material doesn't matter? I'm sitting here post-MSc wishing I'd done 80% more material in undergrad so I'd be properly qualified for the stuff I want to do!

[spdionis]

Computer Science. 80% of the material in each course is useless (except maths courses and a couple theoretical ones). The rest 20% can be learned in a couple of afternoons. If you're American YMMV tho.

[eli_gottlieb]

>80% of the material in each course is useless (except maths courses and a couple theoretical ones).

Soooo what courses were you taking, in which the non-theoretical material was 80% useless? When I think about applied computer-science subjects, I think of operating systems, embedded programming, circuit design with FPGAs, networking, program optimization, compilers... all eminently useful subjects.

[TeMPOraL]

Also a lot of stuff you internalize better when you get your hands dirty in it. That OpenMPI class may not be very practical or relevant on the job market, but it can teach you quite a lot about the problems and approaches in the field of distributed computing.

[spdionis]

OpenMPI classes were actually very interesting. Same with e.g. prolog. I didn't mean that kind of courses.

[spdionis]

First thing that comes to mind is MFC. Also CLIPS, graphics, operating systems (the way it was taught anyway). Most part of the java courses too.

[TeMPOraL]

I had an epiphany about feedback loops one day and since then I wish I paid attention during the 1.5 years of control theory classes I had at university. It also made me finally realize that a lot of this "useless" stuff is actually important, but we may not realize it immediately.