| > In both teaching/coursework and research, academia is extremely detail-obsessed, constantly burrowing away from larger, important questions towards small, easily-answerable ones. In the research circles, this is simply because smaller, easily-answerable questions are the ones that fit the short-term grant applications. It's very unfortunate, indeed. In the teaching circles, there is a slightly related case, which manifests through this: > For a good example, look at how many different kinds of differential equations the average engineering major at a really good university is required to learn to solve, and then check how often they actually solve those equations in either original research or in their jobs. This is because the mathematics courses need to reach a compromise between teaching enough fundamentals to be meaningful as math courses, and enough "practical" applications to warrant their presence in an engineering curricula. I was also annoyed by taking math courses for three. Fucking. Semesters. But looking back to it, while I have forgotten much of the actual details they taught me, the type of reasoning they taught me stuck with me, and it's ok. I'm not sure if there's a better way to teach that. > Oh God. You just described my life last year. I hope it gets better. Cheers! |