LogFAQs > #890736595

I use trigonometry sometimes, when building furniture or creating something. And math as a whole is incredibly useful, both in science and in everyday life. They need to teach way more of it at school. The thing is, you're not just learning math, you're also learning problem solving and you're learning how to learn difficult things.
Basic chemistry, like the periodic table is very useful. Not just for my biology study at the university, but also for regular people, so they actually know what CO2 is when watching the news. So they understand what politicians and scientists are actually talking about.
History, including examples from ancient civilizations, is incredibly useful in everyday decision making, and in understanding today's problem, both small scale and large scale.
At school they teach broad sciences and knowledge and problem solving. This is way more useful than a bit of practical knowledge.

- How to mortgage <-wait a decade or two or move to another country and this knowledge is useless. That's why they teach english, math and economics.
- How to budget <-math and economics, and some schools actually teach budgetting
- Basic car maintenance <-some school teach practical technical things. I learned how to repair cars from manuals and trying. Learning English and problem solving in school helped.
- How to invest <-economics and math.
- How to do taxes <-again will be outdated with time or when you move. Luckily you learn math, english and how to fill in forms at school.
- Basic home repairs <-most schools teach this. And again this knowledge will be outdated with time.
- All those numbers and words that come up in car commercials that mean literally nothing to me. <-you mean the words you learn in english class and the technical terms from natural sciences?
- How to maintain a balanced diet <-this is literally learned in biology class.

The most important thing you learn in school is how to learn. After that go to a library or use the internet to learn specific things you personally want to learn. Like cooking, or how to fly an airplane, or how to build a house or whatever.

The only things in highschool that were completely useless were 4 years of french and 3 years of german.