Throughout college we take a wide variety of classes, some
that are directed towards our major and some that are general education. No matter the class I think
we can all recall someone in the class asking the question, “why is this important”.
Many teachers respond by saying “you will use this in your future”, but
honestly we won’t. I would say 75% of the material taught in school we will not
use or we already know about it. So why are we forced to take meaningless
classes? I am still looking for the answer to that question, but in the
meantime there have been a few good classes I have taken while in college.
Since 75% of classes are pointless, what about the remaining 25%? Well
this can be seen differently by people in different majors and career paths
than myself. I have learned the most from two classes,
Economics 101 and Decision Sciences 412. If you have forgotten, I am a finance major and
I did not list a finance course. I think this is a good indication that there
is a flaw in the school system.
My economics class taught me great fundamental principles
that can be used throughout life and for my career. I think it is important for
everyone to know about supply and demand, especially if you are a business
major. Other good concepts to learn are consumer surplus, perfect competition, monopolies
and price discrimination. These are all key topics that can help you
throughout your career. My decision sciences class taught me more in depth and
hands on concepts. Supply chain management and forecasting are techniques
used to manage and stock your business properly. These really interested me and I feel like I could pursue a career in them.
So what makes a class so appealing to students? One reason
for sure is whether you have a good teacher. A good teacher is someone that knowledgeable
about the subject, and can answer almost any question in regards to the subject. They are someone who can keep the class entertained and be understanding. This really isn’t asking for much, but many
teachers lack these abilities. When they do lack these abilities the class can
be torturous. Ultimately we lose interest and do not want to continue learning. A good
teacher will stimulate a student to learn. I have taken 2 classes that have
been just awful. I am currently taking a investments class, and yes I am very
interested in investments and I want to learn, but my teacher just does not
know how to teach. He is knowledgeable about investments, but a student has asked him a basic question about a math problem and he simply stated, “I cannot answer that
right now”. I have never seen a teacher do that before. He is hard to
understand as well. He talks low and unclear. Another bad class I took was international
business. This was an online class, and all the teacher did was read slides. He was very monotone and restated the same ideas over and over. I think slides help
a class, but they should not be the class. There needs to be teaching involved,
or else I could basically teach myself.
It is sad to think that so much of our time being spent at
school is wasted. We pay to be educated so we should demand good
curricula. We need good teachers who are enthusiastic and classes that will
teach us what we need to know to succeed in our fields.
