I agree that that is how many people see it. Possibly even your professors.
Fortunately I went to a place where the professors understood the real goals and made decisions as such.
For example (and this is my history, not advice) I took a couple electives for pure interest sake (I didn't need them to graduate. ) I went to all the lectures. I wrote all the exams and tests.
But I skipped all the prac work. I didn't do any of the weekly assignments. Nominally that meant I couldn't write the final exam. (They don't like people writing and failing, and prac work is correlated to that.)
But I went to see both professors. Both knew me (at least by sight, not name.) I explained why the prac work was not important to me (it covered the same process as I'd learned in other courses and the minutiae of the material was irrelevant to me.) My test scores showed I would pass. Both gave me an exemption snd let me write (and I passed.)
I don't recommend this. YMMV. But I hindsight I think maybe they understood I was there to learn process, not material. I was there to add to my big picture, not because I was going to be an oceanographer or astronomer.
I can't even say that I used anything from those courses in my career, although I did write a system for a marine company once, so maybe :)
I agree that that is how many people see it. Possibly even your professors.
Fortunately I went to a place where the professors understood the real goals and made decisions as such.
For example (and this is my history, not advice) I took a couple electives for pure interest sake (I didn't need them to graduate. ) I went to all the lectures. I wrote all the exams and tests.
But I skipped all the prac work. I didn't do any of the weekly assignments. Nominally that meant I couldn't write the final exam. (They don't like people writing and failing, and prac work is correlated to that.)
But I went to see both professors. Both knew me (at least by sight, not name.) I explained why the prac work was not important to me (it covered the same process as I'd learned in other courses and the minutiae of the material was irrelevant to me.) My test scores showed I would pass. Both gave me an exemption snd let me write (and I passed.)
I don't recommend this. YMMV. But I hindsight I think maybe they understood I was there to learn process, not material. I was there to add to my big picture, not because I was going to be an oceanographer or astronomer.
I can't even say that I used anything from those courses in my career, although I did write a system for a marine company once, so maybe :)