I hate high school. When I was still in high school, I was always included in the list of students who got the lowest mark in almost every class that I have. I’m not saying it’s because I’m stupid. Well, maybe that reason applies to some of my classes but the main reason why I always get low grades is because I hate all most of my classes. I have a strong belief that a class should be fun first before the student will learn. Unfortunately, I find all of them to be boring. I even hated my computer class. Back then, I was always looking forward to the day I graduate from high school and enter college because I thought that since I’m going to take a Computer-related course, I’d be motivated to learn and have fun at the same time.
I’m in college now. One thing I noticed is that nothing changed since high school. Well, sure, it improved a bit since most of my classes are related to computer now but it’s still there. I still find most of them to be boring and a waste of my time. On my first semester as a college student, I failed my Algebra class. I’m pretty sure I was going to fail Trigonometry as well since I know that I’m doing bad at those 2 classes but for some reason, I passed it. We only had 2 really computer-related classes during that time and it was only about basic computers, general. We had other classes which I branded as “not interesting” and “not related to computers” like Theology, Psychology, English and Filipino.
As I went through college, I developed a liking to Java and other high-level languages and decided to stick to those exclusively. I also had a lot of technical but boring classes like Computer Architecture, Electronics, File Organization and some more math classes like Analytic Geometry and Physics. There’s also those classes that I knew were somehow relevant but I find boring like Database Management, Data Structures and Algorithms and Systems Analysis and Design. I took most of my classes for granted because of my silly belief that learning anything that I think is irrelevant to my goal is just a waste of time. Heck, I still think that way right now as I write this entry. In all honesty, I still find most of my classes to be irrelevant to my target career and the only things that I really find interesting and enjoyable right now are the things that I’m learning on my own outside of college.
Lately, I’ve been busy with school, my current internship, reading up on blogs and participating in the beta of Programmers.SE (which is why I haven’t posted anything in a while) and I realized one thing: It all makes sense now. For some reason, I just realized how relevant all of them are to my life and career. For example, English and Filipino, even though they’re almost completely unrelated to computers, helped me enhance my reading and writing skills. Public communication class helped me in enhancing my communication skills with other people. Psychology helped me with UI design. Algebra, Trigonometry and other math classes helped my brain to think analytically and critically. C, even though I find it boring because I don’t like low-level languages, helped me understand the basics of programming and it’s also the lingua franca of programmers.
What I’m trying to say is that everything I learned from school had some relevance in my life, be it good or bad. Maybe school doesn’t teach us how we should be doing our jobs in the industry that we want, but they definitely will teach us the things we need to get started.