What Was Your Most Useless Required Class in School?

Ladies, who remembers Shorthand? Back in the sexist late 60s, yep, if we were in the business program (for girls, think secretarial) we took shorthand. I never got the hang of it, never learned it.
I liked home ec...but kind of wish I could have taken wood shop.
 

Seeker said:
Algebra for me. I'm sure I learned more than I thought at the time. I just can't really recall ever using Algebra per say.
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The only interest in math for me came with algebra.
Finally I could solve for the unknown when the dumb farmer measured half his field in feet and the other half in yards.
Find the area in square footage.

Side a=100 feet
side b= 100 yards
Let total area = x
Therefore. X=100 x (100x3)
Solving. 100x300=30,000 sq.ft
Formula. A=LxW
Fun
 
Who remembers being taught this in Home Ec? Talk about shorthand being sexist, Marie, I think this one "takes the cake."

Image result for home economics how to please husband

The last advice--"A good wife Always knows her place."
I lost my original copy of this, from the 6th Grade, in Sandy.
 
Camper6 said:
The only interest in math for me came with algebra.
Finally I could solve for the unknown when the dumb farmer measured half his field in feet and the other half in yards.
Find the area in square footage.

Side a=100 feet
side b= 100 yards
Let total area = x
Therefore. X=100 x (100x3)
Solving. 100x300=30,000 sq.ft
Formula. A=LxW
Fun
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Yep I have to retract...I most assuredly used algebra in all those square footage's of glass I had to price and figure.
 
I can't get the sight of the frog's heart beating, when we took off the chest skin with tweezers, from my mind. Luckily, I almost never think about it.
 
Nothing really, because I learned something from everything, but I agree that, I too, had no use for dissecting a frog since I wasn't pre - med.
 
Statistics.
We were offered woodworking in 7 and 8th grade and I took it and loved it. In fact I’ve still got the things I made back then. It was 1971, 1972.
 
College calculus. It was taught by a graduate student who tried to help us solve problems on the back board by facing it so we couldn't hear, then erasing the work he had just performed to get more room to solve the problem.

Bah to Sir Isaac Newton. Never could find a use for it in the real world. Algebra, yes I used it often in my profession but beyond that not much use for mathematics.
 
win231 said:
I had several; some useless & some dangerous.
In 7th grade, a class called "Wood Shop" was required. I had no plans to become a carpenter & I thought it was really dangerous and stupid to allow 12 & 13 year olds to operate power saws & drill presses without much supervision. There were 15 kids in the class & one teacher wandering around. I had to witness one student cutting off four fingers on a band saw & another student losing part of a finger with a manual saw when it slipped. I didn't want to use power tools, so I just accepted a bad grade on projects that didn't turn out right.

In 8th grade "Metal Shop" was required. I'd seen enough mayhem & stupidity in Wood Shop by then, so my parents wrote to the school administrators & I was able to avoid that class, as well as "Electric Shop" that was required in 9th grade.

In 8th grade, an English Literature class was required. I couldn't think of anything more boring than listening to the teacher talk about "Chaucer & Shakespeare." I'm sure they were great, but I had no interest. I spend most of the class staring at the clock & when the bell rang, I'd spring out of the seat like someone shot out of a canon at a circus after 45 minutes of pure misery.
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Holy crap! Did you go to Horror High School?
 
Interesting. Everyone seems to have a class he/she felt was useless. As long as I learned a few things in every class I took, and I did, I never felt any classes were useless. I can still look back at my classes and remember that I liked them, some more than others.
 
I can't remember any useless classes either. Maybe I've just blocked them out. I guess personal health was pretty useless. My buddy and I sat in the back and drew funny pictures.

I loved biology in high school. The teacher was a heavy set red haired woman who kept a fetus in a bottle on her desk. My lab partner was Joanne Daily who was grossed out by dissections. She put on rubber gloves and a face mask and let me do the cutting.

In college, we put a live frog in ice water to watch its heart rate slow. I thought we overdid it and killed it, but the little bugger came back to life.

I enjoy learning things, even if they're useless to me.

Don
 
Gary O' said:
Philosophy

It did help a bit in defining BS, but never found a personal use for it in my world

Oh, and it helped my GPA
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This, I find most interesting, Gary. You, who so often waxes philosophical, in here, who has created posters that comment on the human condition, found your Philosophy class (almost) useless? Hmm........
 
treeguy64 said:
This, I find most interesting, Gary. You, who so often waxes philosophical, in here, who has created posters that comment on the human condition, found your Philosophy class (almost) useless? Hmm........
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Yeah, kind of an enigmatic paradox

Maybe I found it a predicable bore
or
...slept thru it from too many nighttime festivities
 
Religious education was compulsory at one time. This was highly variable depending on which teacher drew the short straw. There was the odd fundamentalist teacher, but most just treated the class as free time. It was just a waste of time as far as we were concerned.
 
treeguy64 said:
Interesting. Everyone seems to have a class he/she felt was useless. As long as I learned a few things in every class I took, and I did, I never felt any classes were useless. I can still look back at my classes and remember that I liked them, some more than others.
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Completely agree with this. I have used algebra and geometry numerous times in my adult life. Also the 3 years of HS German. Biology and chemistry weren't my favorites but I learned foundational information that's been invaluable over the years.

Never took Home Ec. It wasn't required and I wasn't interested. Typing ultimately became one of the more useful classes I took, though I did almost no typing between the end of my schooling and the arrival of my first home computer.
 
Marie5656 said:
Ladies, who remembers Shorthand? Back in the sexist late 60s, yep, if we were in the business program (for girls, think secretarial) we took shorthand. I never got the hang of it, never learned it.
I liked home ec...but kind of wish I could have taken wood shop.
Click to expand...

Shorthand for me opened the door to decent jobs. My first job ever (while everyone else was working at McDonalds or some such) was as a part time secretary while I will still in high school. Shorthand opened many doors, which led to much better jobs.
 
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