How long has it been since college, and how much do you remember?

[More Than A Feeling]

I ask so I have some idea of how much I can expect to forget of what i learned in college over time. It worries me when I forget things I learn, because then its like it was a waste of time to learn them in the first place.

[hunter]

1. I've forgotten so much botany it's not even funny...

I used to be able to name hundreds of plants, common names and scientific names, and it's all gone.

But it comes back to me quickly if I need it, and even if I can't pull the name of a plant out of my head I still recognize the plant as one I know. It's not just another plant to me.

When you are are in college you are creating channels for knowledge in your mind. At final exam time these channels are there, and they are full of water. Afterwards the water drains away, but the channels remain. The hard part is in building these channels, not filling them. Once these channels are there it is much easier to fill them with water again.

[bleedingheart]

2. I am one of those few people who actually work in a field that I studied

and even then you forget stuff.

[ProfessorGAC]

5. Me Too, However. . .

. . .if the learning process was good, the things we learn to better understand after college is profoundly greater than what one forgets.

I might forget some of the naming conventions of organic mechanisms, but i understand them better and better all the time. When i was in school, i might be able to get a good grade on an exam because i "knew" the stuff, but now i actually can visualize the mechanism and know where the electrons go, when and why, and how they get there.

Same thing with the math and economics. I knew all the conventional theory of economics when in grad school, but now i actually "see" the cause and effect from years of looking at the data. That's something i couldn't have done in grad school, even though i had a college degree for YEARS at that point.

If the actual learning in school is just rote and facts, that might not happen. But, the internalization is the important part, i think.
The Professor

[bleedingheart]

7. oh I agree, when you start to work you can see the cause and effect

and you develop even better problem solving skills...

Now the math theory behind some of the stats I work with I am rusty with but I can now identify what kind of probability distributions certain types of systems will use based on experience and just a small sampling of data. (although everything is backed up with validation...of course)

I have never been a great fan of memorizing stuff, just to memorize it..that seems like an infinite waste of time. People will memorize those facts that are interesting to them. However learning how to approach problems and honing your problem solving skills ...that is important.

[ProfessorGAC]

8. Then, We're Completely in Sync

However, since i have had to teach the statistical mechanics part of analysis, i remember the stuff you're rusty on. Having to teach it will do that!
The Professor

[leftofthedial]

3. I vaguely remember something about stone tablets

and papyrus scrolls

I have a degree in English (my lame spelling and punctuation here is an artifact of laziness, poor typing skills, lack of respect for the online medium and drain bamage, rather than ignorance). I'm a writer, so I use much of what I learned on a daily basis. I also have a degree in Psychology. The school I went to was infested with behaviorists, so I studied a pastiche of physiological psych, statistics and other arcania. I find that as a communicator (IRL, not so much on DU) and especially as a songwriter and musician, I "use" some of the basics of physiological psychology quite often, although not as my teachers actually intended.

[hunter]

4. I actually think the behaviorists are the only ones who are not clueless

But they can certainly "infest" a place.

Ants are very good at what they do, but they don't write poetry.

[no name no slogan]

6. Fifteen years, and I still use some of it daily

not so much the individual facts or figures, but how to reason, how to think critically, how to solve problems, and how to comprehend things.

My major/degree has nothing to do with what I do for a living, but my education has everything to do with how I do my job.

[leftofthedial]

9. it's the learning-how-to-think "whole" of a college education

that far exceeds the "parts" of the minutiae that academia collects like dust bunnies under a sofa.

That's why a Liberal Arts education usually is of more life value than other kinds of degrees. It exposes one to a broad range of human thought and progress.