Academic education doesn't feel right anymore.

[u/No-Lychee-109]

I love maths. Currently in electrical engineering university where I attend math, physics and computer science classes.

Why does everything have to be academic? With textbooks and exams? As if it's going to help you acquire the practical skills needed to be qualified for a job. But it won't, and this is exactly why job recruiters don't want employees with no experience... because they just don't have practical skills. You don't learn your job in university. You learn it after you actually get the job.

I don't like studying alone. Yes, I'm great at maths, but just sitting on your desk alone is so boring. And after long periods of time it triggers chronic isolation. I get stressed just by solving a single math problem. Two days ago I got to know another student in university and he later spotted me in the library. I showed him a problem that I was trying to solve for some time but couldn't. He was also stuck at first. But he sat down, we shared our thoughts, and after an hour of deep conversation we solved it together.

It was so fun that it seemed effortless. Time just flied. Education doesn't have to be tiring. It's supposed to be relaxing, and yet so many students around the world hate school with a burning passion because classrooms are the most counter-productive places known to man.

I don't want to continue sitting for hours in front of a desk solving exercises. I've been doing that for the past two years for hours every day just so that I could enter the university I'm in. But chronic stress has prevailed and I can't do this anymore with this stupid academic system of education that is meant to kill your will to be educated. I love maths, but I hate math textbooks. And I especially hate structured learning. But I simply can't learn the way I want because I absolutely need to get that useless paper that says I'm eligible for a job that I won't have learned until I get recruited. Whose idea was it to make everything fit into books and render it utterly useless... Academia sucks.

[u/YarnTree29]

In order to learn new skills, new information, anything really, fast and well, you need knowledge to build upon. That is what academics are for. It is not to prepare you for a job, it is to give you a foundation to build future skill sets on. The best way to absorb that knowledge is different from person to person, and the way it is often done certainly can be improved, but it is something you need to get through. If you don't, there will be holes in your knowledge, things missing, that will trip you up later on.

Every job is different, and requires a different practical skill set. Universities can't teach you every possible skill you might need to do any job you are qualified for according to your degree. It would be too much, and they wouldn't be able to keep up with changes in the work field anyway. Employers want people with experience, because they have already proven that they are able to build new skills fast and well. Not because the skills learned in the previous job are necessary for the new one, because they seldom are needed, apart from soft skills like managing etc.

If you learn better by working with other students, do so. No one is stopping you.

[u/grumble11]

Universities are academic institutions and not vocational programs. Some of the programs in university honestly should probably be in vocational schools instead.

No one is saying that a university education is complete, and if people are under that impression then they are wrong. University education is a partial education - it gives you the academic facts and contextual background, the general skills and understanding in your field, and prepares you to contribute to academia in that field. It isn't specifically a job training program, though it's been frankensteined that way a bit.

Universities have addressed this in two ways. First is that students are supposed to self-manage applied learning. Build stuff, look stuff up, join the clubs, reach out to mentors, start something yourself. They are also expected to have internships where they are exposed to application in the wider world and learn via apprenticeship. A lot of schools with that focus have good co-op programs. Essentially you have to have the initiative to figure out a lot of the application yourself, take the breaks provided to work on application skills and so on.

Again, you won't be successful if you just get good grades, go to a good program, do okay in that program and then head out to the world. People who want to make money won't be jumping after you unless you have demonstrated both the general background and some ability to monetize a skillset yourself. Too many people think that just going to university is some kind of automatic win button and it isn't. It's one ingredient in the mix - not essential, but very useful. Ignore the other ingredients at your peril.

Education also isn't purely to monetize. Education is also done out of interest, to become a better thinker, citizen and fully realized human being and to contribute to the body of academic knowledge. Isaac Newton didn't invent calculus because he was looking to cash in, he did it because he loved math and wanted to further it. Charles Darwin didn't do biology purely for money, he did it because he wanted to learn about it and to grow the body of biology knowledge. Devolving a university which is there to support and guide thinkers and learners and knowledge creators into a vocational school shrinks the scope of its work and cultural value.

[u/Sacchan6]

I showed him a problem that I was trying to solve for some time but couldn't. He was also stuck at first. But he sat down, we shared our thoughts, and after an hour of deep conversation we solved it together.

It was so fun that it seemed effortless. Time just flied.

There's nothing stopping you from getting a buddy to study with. You could study like this all the time if you want, but it's your responsbility to organise that, not the university's.

Education doesn't have to be tiring. It's supposed to be relaxing, and yet so many students around the world hate school with a burning passion because classrooms are the most counter-productive places known to man.

Don't generalise your own opinions. I would've hated your idea of a good classroom with a burning passion.