Thread: Subjects I Wish I'd Studied (More) Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.


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Posted by LutheranChik (# 9826) on :
 
Do you ever feel as if you have gaps in your education -- subjects you avoided as a younger person, or didn't have access to, that you now wish you'd studied, or classes you skated through that, in retrospect, you wished you'd paid more attention to?

I often wish I'd taken Spanish as a younger person. It's still on my bucket list, but obviously it would have been easier and cheaper to have taken Spanish classes in high school than try to pick up the language in late middle age.

Logic: We only spent a short unit on logic in my mathematics classes, but as I recall it was interesting to me, and I was also interested in classical logic until a fellow student who was struggling with it scared me away from taking a class as an elective in college.

Music: My father was actively opposed to my "wasting time" taking music classes, so despite learning to love and appreciate music of all kinds that's really all I am -- an appreciator, not a creator of. It's one of my real regrets about my upbringing. At this point I'd just be happy to learn how to sight-read music enough to be able to look at musical notation in a more informed way.

If you had to do it all over again -- or if the opportunity presented itself today -- what subject(s) would you study?
 

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Posted by Unreformed (# 17203) on :
 
Oh my yes.

Aside from subjects like math that I just don't have the aptitude for to begin with, I was a history major in college but I didn't take nearly enough courses on classical history. My knowledge of that period is really, really shaky.
 

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Posted by piglet (# 11803) on :
 
If I had my school years over again, I certainly wouldn't have taken the snore-fest that was Scottish Ordinary Grade History in the 1970s; it covered British social and political history from 1793 to 1914 and I doubt if there's anything drier outside of the Sahara. Almost any of the alternatives on the timetable would have been better: biology, geography, physics ... I did take up biology and physics later, but only for a couple of years.

I only did Latin for a year (and I'm very glad I got the chance to do it at all) but another year or two probably wouldn't have hurt.
 

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Posted by Lothlorien (# 4927) on :
 
At the end of my first year in High School, we had an opportunity to add German to the Latin and French the top four classes already took. I had done very well in those and my father suggested concentrating on them, rather than picking up a third. We had to make a choice between German or History/Geography. I have never regretted the extra years spent on History, but I did regret missing German.

When I went to to University I chose Elementary German as a first year subject which brought students to the level of the four years of High School German in one year. However, I still feel I would rather have had the time in school.
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
Music and more languages. A bit of how to in art and automotive wouldnt have hurt either.
 

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Posted by Timothy the Obscure (# 292) on :
 
More languages (I took German--wish I'd also taken Spanish) and economics, just so I could be sure I knew what they're talking about....
 

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Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :
 
piglet, I sat O Grade History in 1980. Was your textbook a red covered book by somebody McPhail?
I thought it was a brilliant subject - I saw my surroundings through new eyes. These streets are arranged like that for a reason; that wall was a by-product of clearing a field of stones; that stand of trees was because somebody decided that trees make good windbreaks. Railways happened because..new agricultural implements were developed because...people moved off the land and the towns grew because...
Every landscape thereafter sang its own song to me, of back-breaking work, and hope, and vision, multi-layered, multi-generational, birth and death and seedtime and harvest; maps became palimpsets of meaning, overlaid and overlaid again, and endlessly fascinating.

O Grade history - best subject in the curriculum!

I wish I'd approached maths differently. I had the idea, which I think my school generally subscribed to, that you were either good at English or good at maths. I wish I hadn't assumed that maths was difficult and not something I could ever really understand.
 

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Posted by The Intrepid Mrs S (# 17002) on :
 
NEQ, I think Maths is the oddest subject as once you lose your footing (so to speak) you will sink forever, or at least that's how I saw it. I did A-level (and got an A when these things still meant something) but the moment I went to university (to do Chemistry) the Maths just made no sense to me at all. Clearly I'd missed a step somewhere and just never really recovered, though I loved Group Theory!

I wish I'd persevered with my violin past Grade 5

Mrs. S, who really wanted to learn the piano
 

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Posted by Arabella Purity Winterbottom (# 3434) on :
 
Woodwork. I did it in my first two years at high school and loved it. Unfortunately, the teacher never got over having girls in his class (I and one other girl were the first ever in the school) and made it unbelievably torturous. Today he'd be held up as a bully.

I loved working with wood. Unfortunately I don't see an opportunity arising for me to try again.

I didn't study history at school (did sciences, maths and music) but I have rather made up for it by reading widely and coming to my own conclusions more recently. I gather I wouldn't have got much NZ history at school anyway... back in the 1970s.
 

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Posted by Eleanor Jane (# 13102) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Arabella Purity Winterbottom:


I loved working with wood. Unfortunately I don't see an opportunity arising for me to try again.

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Nightclasses? Community Education classes? Even hardwear stores like Bunnings and Mitre10 do free sessions on things like 'how to hang a shelf' or 'how to make a playhouse' etc. Or just get a 'how to' book and some wood and start playing!

I'm very much into lifelong learning. I've done a Masters part-time while working, learnt touch typing at a nightclass (ages ago), taken piano lessons, singing lessons, a music theory exam (hated it!), dabbled in bass guitar in a rock band, yoga (partly learning, partly exercise). I'm currently in a very good (new to me) choir so I'm learning a lot from that.

At some point in my life I will go back and do bits of another BA, focussing more on history and anything else that seems fun that I didn't cover the first time (there are SO MANY potential subjects and so little time...). Both my parents in law have gained degrees in their 50's and 60's.


I will also dabble in dance, the one artform that I've never done anything with. Belly dance classes appeal.

I may turn into a counsellor at some point in my life (I did half the training then decided I was too bossy... I may mature into someone who's more tolerant of people going their own way).

For work, I'd really like to do a certificate with our professional body and it looks quite likely that I'll get to.

We'll see. The only barriers are time and money!

PS - sorry about the code.
[Edit: fixed]

[ 18. July 2012, 21:11: Message edited by: Zappa ]
 

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Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
 
Pottery, it was my main subject at uni - and I had it on hold 'till I retire. Now my thumb is bad with arthritis, so I'll never throw a pot again.

I was good too.

Ho hum, pig's bum.
 

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Posted by Moo (# 107) on :
 
I wish I had studied public speaking. I was terrified to speak in front of a group, and my fear held me back.

In retrospect, I'm sure the teachers were accustomed to terrified students and knew how to help them.

Moo
 

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Posted by Caissa (# 16710) on :
 
I wish I had studied Latin.
 

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Posted by Bob Two-Owls (# 9680) on :
 
I did all three sciences at O level but only took Physics at A level and went on to do maths at uni. I would really like to get back into Biology, Chemistry and some more Physics (especially Astronomy & particle stuff) but now the tuition fees are in the thousands even for Open University courses I suppose my student days are over.
 

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Posted by Welease Woderwick (# 10424) on :
 
At age 14, back in the Dark Ages, we had to choose between science 'side' and arts 'side' and I was a natural to go down the science route but I wasn't allowed to do History with it and had to do Geography instead. I learnt a bit that has been useful in geography but really regret not doing history - though I have dabbled a bit in my retirement but it isn't the same.
 

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Posted by ken (# 2460) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Welease Woderwick:
At age 14, back in the Dark Ages, we had to choose between science 'side' and arts 'side' and I was a natural to go down the science route but I wasn't allowed to do History with it and had to do Geography instead. I learnt a bit that has been useful in geography but really regret not doing history - though I have dabbled a bit in my retirement but it isn't the same.

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quote:

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Originally posted by North East Quine:
piglet, I sat O Grade History in 1980. Was your textbook a red covered book by somebody McPhail?

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I don't think so - I'm vaguely remembering a blue-and-white sort of photo-montage cover, and I've no idea who it was by. I sat mine in 1978; it's possible that either the syllabus had changed in between or there were "alternatives". There was quite a lot of messing about with alternative syllabi around then IIRC - I know that the people who did O Grade music a year or two after I did it had a completely different syllabus and examination (and it didn't prepare them nearly so well for their Highers either).

Then again, maybe you just had a better teacher - it wouldn't have been hard ...
 

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Posted by no_prophet (# 15560) on :
 
I echo languages. They frame how you think. French and German are in my endless line up and I do learn some, and can read moderately in both. it is listening and talking that trouble.

Probably choir in school would have been fun. Or at least a good place to meet girls.
 

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Posted by PeteC (# 10422) on :
 
I took what I had to to get out of school; at University I blossomed, and by the last term of my professional degree, I was in full flower.

I have no regrets beyond a niggling wish that I had studied at least beginning philosophy. But I scratch it, and then I forget about it.
 

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Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by piglet:

quote:

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Originally posted by North East Quine:
piglet, I sat O Grade History in 1980. Was your textbook a red covered book by somebody McPhail?

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I don't think so - I'm vaguely remembering a blue-and-white sort of photo-montage cover, and I've no idea who it was by. I sat mine in 1978; it's possible that either the syllabus had changed in between or there were "alternatives". There was quite a lot of messing about with alternative syllabi around then IIRC - I know that the people who did O Grade music a year or two after I did it had a completely different syllabus and examination (and it didn't prepare them nearly so well for their Highers either).

Then again, maybe you just had a better teacher - it wouldn't have been hard ...

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McPhail was an ancient textbook, from well before the days of photo montage! Our syllabus covered things like agricultural changes, industrial changes, coal-mining, population movement. Then for Higher we did the Russian Revolution, and more Scottish history, and CSYS was European History from the Treaty of Versailles to 1945.

All my history teachers were wonderful
.
 

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Posted by Flausa (# 3466) on :
 
I was definitely pushed down the arts/literature side of things, because girls weren't really encouraged in other things. I mean, we were either going to be teachers or mothers, so why would we need to learn anything else. So I wish that I'd had the opportunity to invest myself more in maths and sciences just to see where my career path could have gone. However, that being said, with the accessability of learning, there's absolutely no reason that I can't study whatever I want now. And if I study for fun rather than for school, I don't even have to bother with tests!
 

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Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :
 
I enjoyed languages and did French and Latin for the Leaving Certificate. I would have liked to have done Ancient Greek as well, but it was not then offered at school. Had I gone to the school my mother preferred, I could have done it. Instead, I went to my father's choice of school and my mother's of church. At the same time, I don't know what I would have liked to drop to allow time for the Greek.
 

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Posted by Sighthound (# 15185) on :
 
I hated school for a number of reasons. To be honest I wish I'd gone to one with fewer nutters and bullies - and that was just the staff!

I wish I'd worked harder at French. Amazing as it may seem in the modern world, at the time (late 60s) it seemed irrelevant. I also wish I'd chosen Latin over German, but again, at the time, couldn't see much point in Latin, and now I can. I also wish I'd worked harder generally, but I was in rebel mode most of the time.

Somehow I managed to win the top school prize in Upper Sixth Arts. I don't know who was the more amazed, the Headmaster or myself!
 

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Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on :
 
This thread is one of many things inspiring me to Do Something About™ the thing I wish I was better at. While I play the cello more than averagely well, I am convinced I would play it much better if my teachers in my teens hadn't been tyrants and dictators. (In my head, cello lesson = sit down and get told off for an hour and possibly )

So am I going to find a cello teacher. I've seen an ad for one quite nearby me who looks like a phenomenal teacher - he's taught in various eminent music programmes/conservatoires - and actually not that expensive. From the comments on his teaching style it sounds like he's also quite kind and patient and unlikely to reduce me to tears (this is a kind of novel idea to me). I have drafted an email to enquire about lessons, now I just have to take my courage in my two hands and press "send"...
 

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Posted by Arabella Purity Winterbottom (# 3434) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Eleanor Jane:
Nightclasses? Community Education classes? Even hardwear stores like Bunnings and Mitre10 do free sessions on things like 'how to hang a shelf' or 'how to make a playhouse' etc. Or just get a 'how to' book and some wood and start playing!

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Oh, I know. Unfortunately my job is not conducive to regular night time classes - I'm on call 24/7. I have managed to clock up 2 and a half degrees while working fulltime over the last 10 years, but all by distance so I could do study in the corners of the day.

Every now and then I think I'd like to improve my maths. I passed my Year 13 exams in maths 30 mumble years ago but not by much - brilliant at anything involving logic, like algebra, terrible at anything involving calculations. Now I know lots more about what maths is used for, I wouldn't mind having a go and seeing if I could crack the calculations.
 

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Posted by Yerevan (# 10383) on :
 
Music is probably my big regret. Now that I'm surrounded by very middle class English people it can feel like I'm the only person in the universe who can't read music or play at least one instrument.
 

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Posted by Nenya (# 16427) on :
 
History. I took geography O level instead of it because the geography teacher was brilliant and the history teacher was a terrifying nutcase. But my knowledge of history is embarrassingly minimal.

And theology. I know you can read up on these things in later life, but it's knowing where to begin.

[ 11. July 2012, 15:31: Message edited by: Nenya ]
 

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Posted by Martha (# 185) on :
 
I've never regretted dropping History for GCSE (which was going to be WWII again) because it is so easy to find books to read about it. I am currently working my way through The Decline and Fall of the British Empire which is hard work due to the density of the text and the sheer number of atrocities covered, but has really given me a feel for "when Britain was great". As lighter reading I've just finished The Red Queen by Philippa Gregory, which is a novel about the Wars of the Roses - very readable and expanded my knowledge of the period from nil to at least something. The problem with history is there's just so much of it!

I'd like to learn graphic design. And take up piano lessons again.
 

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Posted by Graven Image (# 8755) on :
 
Cultural Anthropology just because I knew nothing about it until my later years. Now I find it fascinating. As a child I wish my mother had sent me to music lessons rather then dance. I think I would still be enjoying the benefits, as alas my ballet days are long gone.
 

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Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :
 
If only I had had the courage to take social anthropology as an undergrad, iirc it was available but I did not believe it could be for the likes of such as me. I can remember sitting in the class room for lectures either on theology or logic and metaphysics and thinking how cool it would be to be studying that.

Given that I am now doing a doctorate partly in that tradition, it might well have been useful but I am so into it now I half suspect I would never have become a statistician.

Jengie

[ 11. July 2012, 19:59: Message edited by: Jengie Jon ]
 

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Posted by monkeylizard (# 952) on :
 
For me, it's not so much school subjects as it is general skills. I wish I had learned to:

fly airplanes when I had cheap access to them on US Air Force bases.

SCUBA dive (I may still do that one).

play piano or guitar (but not combined in a keytar)

hunt and fish. Both have been hard to get into later in life.

Throw a baseball and football properly.
 

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Posted by Full Circle (# 15398) on :
 
Maths: I'm working hard to catch up now
Art & Theology although a part of me is delighted that they were not a school subject for me & I have been able to develop my own ideosyncratic interests in the topic (but a more structured background would have been helpful)
 

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Posted by Stejjie (# 13941) on :
 
Wish I'd done GCSE history instead of geography. I did fine at geography, but I think I'd have much preferred history; nothing's really "stuck" from my geography lessons.

More recently, I wish I'd had the opportunity to learn some NT Greek during my ministerial training. It was just never an option; the only Greek classes on offer were in my final year and were for those who already had some knowledge of it. I've got "The Elements of New Testament Greek", but without having a class or something similar to prepare for, I find it harder to sit down and learn it properly. Kind of feel I'm missing out a bit without it at present...
 

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Posted by Deputy Verger (# 15876) on :
 
I'm with Sighthound - I wish I had applied myself more to coursework and less to rebellion. What stuck is definitely a tribute to my best teachers - English, French, Latin (also only one year, but I am sure the first one is the most important!) - and what didn't is an indictment of the worst - sadly that means maths and art, weirdly. I am the only person I know who failed O level art.

Geography was random - we learned about Ecuador, Bolivia and Australia. I still remember lots of trivia about South America but I have never had a desire to go there.

Music. I quit piano for reasons of laziness, I suspect. Also I had an awful teacher who basically told me I had no talent, when the fact was I had no self-discipline. And I believed her. And so it came to pass. One day I will try again.
 

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Posted by Eigon (# 4917) on :
 
I wish I'd gone for O level RE, followed by A level RE. I did one RE course at university, and the tutor was surprised that I hadn't done anything to exam level before.
If I had combined RE and the history that I did take, I would have got better A level results by not taking Maths and Chemistry (I was good at O level chemistry, but taking it further was not such a good idea). I would probably have taken German at A level too - and I would have struggled, but not so badly as I did with the Maths.

In an alternate universe, I would have been able to study some Hebrew, too (I was always annoyed that only the Jewish girls studied that, with the rabbi who came in to teach it), and learned an instrument, maybe a clarinet - something woodwind, anyway.
 

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Posted by WhateverTheySay (# 16598) on :
 
I wish I had done A level art. I did it at GCSE, but when it came to choosing A level subjects I didn't have any confidence in my artistic talent.
 

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Posted by mark_in_manchester (# 15978) on :
 
I was forced to take a rather large number of O-levels - it's been downhill all the way since then - but they offered me two options, and I chose German over ancient Greek and Electronics over Music, both because I felt they'd be more 'useful'.

Of course, they were not, and though interesting enough, the other choice would have ended up a lot more handy in both cases. But I'm 41, and my brain is no longer remotely plastic.
 

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Posted by Lucia (# 15201) on :
 
One subject I never had the chance to study which interests me is Geology. Whenever I see layers of folded rocks or interesting landscapes etc I wonder how they came to be like that. Not an especailly useful subject, just interesting.

I dropped history before O levels so I feel my knowledge of a lot of history is a bit sketchy, but it is one of those subjects that you can continue to fill in bits of knowledge throughout life.

There are things I wished I had worked harder at. I had no interest in languages but had to study French and German. Little did I know how useful French would be to me later in life, now living where it is one of the main languages to use. I took flute lessons for years but never acheived the standard I probably should have.

Unfortunately I aquired a finely tuned procrastination and avoidance habit at a young age when faced with anything I found difficult or challenging. I was lucky enough to be one of those annoying people who was able to wing it reasonably well on last minute revision and did OK despite it. But it's a habit that even now I struggle to overcome. But if I could overcome it then maybe I could yet fill in some of the gaps.
 

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Posted by Og, King of Bashan (# 9562) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Lucia:
One subject I never had the chance to study which interests me is Geology. Whenever I see layers of folded rocks or interesting landscapes etc I wonder how they came to be like that. Not an especailly useful subject, just interesting.

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quote:

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Originally posted by piglet:
If I had my school years over again, I certainly wouldn't have taken the snore-fest that was Scottish Ordinary Grade History in the 1970s; it covered British social and political history from 1793 to 1914 and I doubt if there's anything drier outside of the Sahara. Almost any of the alternatives on the timetable would have been better: biology, geography, physics ... I did take up biology and physics later, but only for a couple of years. ....

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quote:

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Originally posted by Lucia:
One subject I never had the chance to study which interests me is Geology. Whenever I see layers of folded rocks or interesting landscapes etc I wonder how they came to be like that. Not an especially useful subject, just interesting.

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I never studied geology in college, but I took a class a few summers ago on the geology of the New River Valley, where I live. It was fascinating, and now when I look around, I understand how things came to be as they are.

Moo
 

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Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :
 
Another who wasted two years in a classroom allegedly studying British Constitutional and Economic History 1765-1945, which was essentially the Corn Laws, Representation of the Peoples Acts leavened slightly by Home Rule for Ireland and Chartism.

I showed'em what I thought of it by i) completing no work in the final year and ii) getting an A grade in the exam, by answering the questions for the 1900-1965 option. That was no more than general knowledge.

I should have studied Geography, German, RS, anything.
 

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Posted by art dunce (# 9258) on :
 
Piano. But lessons and access to a piano were impossible when I was growing up and so I made my children play instead.

I wonder how many parents encourage (or force! ) their children to do a thng they wanted but were denied the opportunity to pursue?
 

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Posted by Jack the Lass (# 3415) on :
 
Not subjects that were ever offered at school (to be honest I'd never really heard of either of them until well into adulthood) but I really wish I'd studied sociology and/or anthropology. The research I do/did draws on both disciplines, but I wish I could feel more confident that I knew anything about either.

I'd also love in hindsight to have studied art properly - particularly drawing and painting.
 

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Posted by Zappa (# 8433) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Jack the Lass:
and/or anthropology

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quote:

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Originally posted by Graven Image:
Cultural Anthropology just because I knew nothing about it until my later years. Now I find it fascinating. As a child I wish my mother had sent me to music lessons rather then dance. I think I would still be enjoying the benefits, as alas my ballet days are long gone.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Caissa:
I wish I had studied Latin.

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I did. And failed School Cert (the NZ equivalent of O-levels). I failed French, too. I scraped through maths and then dropped it, with all sciences. I wish I'd learned that there are subjects you actually have to work at, and not relied on the bullshit factor which kept me toppping the school, more or less, in humanities.

I continue to struggle with languages, though I have done koiné Greek and Māori since, and may attempt an aboriginal language soon. I have bullshat my way through life still without learning that lesson.

I have a calculator. In theory that should help me with maths, but basically I still just don't get what those numbers are all about.

[Edit: I also don't get UBB, sometimes!]

[ 18. July 2012, 21:20: Message edited by: Zappa ]
 

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Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :
 
Graven Image

Also look for books under ethnography, not any books but either older ones (reprints) or those that say they are an "ethnography of ". These are anthropological texts, ethnography being a methodology developed quite strongly within the tradition (there is the Chicago School stuff as well which I suspect you will find equally interesting but is technically sociology rather than anthropology).

The really nice thing is that the texts are often deliberately also entertaining.

Jengie
 

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