Comment by Ductapemaster

"[Education is] all telling people solutions to problems they don't have yet" — I experienced this exact thing very acutely in college.

In the first year of my EE degree, I had to jump back a quarter in math to relearn some concepts I just hadn't grasped in high school. This complicated the rigorous schedule laid out for the first two years, as it meant I was no longer taking the prerequisite math classes the quarter before the required EE classes — instead I was taking them concurrently.

Despite the troubles I had with the college of engineer's registration process (I wasn't following their rules), taking the classes concurrently with the EE courses that actually applied that knowledge (for example, taking Electricity and Magnetism at the same time as 3D calculus) was a completely different educational experience! Maybe I was lucky in that the classes were paced similarly, but learning theory in math class and then going the next day to a practical application of that knowledge was an amazing experience.

In my senior year, I worked with the professor I was doing research under to give feedback to the engineering and math departments about my experience, but sadly I don't think anything ever came of it. It's really too bad too — it's a pretty small change to make in the scheduling and I think it would help the people who are more practically minded vs. theoretically minded (builders vs. thinkers). My education was much more tailored to the latter, despite me being squarely the former.