What Did It Get You?

[dcan]

I think part of the issue is your age and basic lack of real-world experience to see how what you are learning is applicable. Because let's face it, what you learn in school is largely NOT applicable to a typical teenager's life. There is brain science to back this up -- when you learn a concept your brain tries to tie it to existing concepts, which is why analogies work so well for teaching. But if you are learning a new concept then you have little or no prior learning to tie it to, so you are learning new ideas "in the air" so to speak with nothing to tie them to. Once you have something to tie them to they start making a lot more sense. Unfortunately at this point in your life you have a lot of little islands of knowledge floating around in your skull but only limited ties between them, so it's hard for you to see the "use" sometimes. Most of us here have years of real life under our belts and we (a) can see the value of the knowledge we gain and (b) have an incentive to just "suck it up" and get through it in order to get ahead.

Regarding your general line of questioning, it sounds cliche but it's true: education opens doors for you that you never knew existed. The saying is "you don't know what you don't know" is completely accurate. With more education you see more possibilities open up in your everyday life. For example, I'm taking a business law course right now, and I'm just now coming to understand the amount of negligence that occurred in a couple of previous accidents I was involved in. I had more options for suing than I thought, but my options were limited because I didn't know what my options were.

I think that last part really sums everything up, actually.