[skhunted]

To know something includes speed of regurgitation. Consider a trauma surgeon. You want them to know, off the top of their head, lots of stuff. You don’t want them taking their time and looking things up. You don’t want them redefining everything from first principles each time they perform surgery.

Knowing a topic includes instant recall of a key body of knowledge.

[1659447091]

I would say knowing and understanding is not necessarily the same. In this example the surgeon having both understanding and memory/knowing is best/required. If I had to pick between the two, I want the one that understands my particular trauma, even if that means they have give instructions for someone else or a machine to performing it.

I think an example closer to the above posts would be: If I needed cpr or defibrillation, I would much prefer a paramedic be next to me and make that call and performance than a med student or a defibrillator manufacture's electrical engineer.

[westurner]

Maybe survey engineers with a first order derivative question and a PDE question n years after graduation with credential?

CAS and automated tests wins again.

A robosurgeon tech that knows to stop and read the docs and write test assertions may have more total impact.

[skhunted]

I’m ABD in math. It was 30 years ago that I decided to not get a Ph.D. because I realized that I was never going to be decent at research. In the last 30 years I have forgotten a great of mathematics. It is no longer true that I know Galois Theory. I used to know it and I know the basic idea behind and I believe I can fairly easily relearn it. But right now I don’t know it.

[westurner]

That's wild, we all use AES cipers w/ TLS/HTTPS everyday - and Galois fields are essential to AES - but few people understand how HTTPS works.

The field is probably onto post-AES, PQ algos where Galois Theory is less relevant; but back then, it seemed like everyone needed to learn Galois Theory, which is or isn't prerequisite to future study.

The problem-solving skills are what's still useful.

Perhaps problem-solving skills cannot be developed without such rote exercises; and perhaps the content of such rote exercises is not relevant to predicting career success.