Matt Bonner wrote:
> 
> That's why my old textbooks are right now only 4 feet away from me.
> 
> As both a tech and an engineeer, I see where you're coming from.  But:
> in all my levels of schooling I always placed a high value on the math
> end of education.  In fact, I always tried to stay one level of math
> (calculus, statistics, etc) ahead of the rest of my courses - this aided
> in the comprehension of the other courses (why memorize all those
> equations for an exam when you can derive them on the spot?).  In
> university, my electrical engineering field was communications - not
> because of any great interest, but because it was the most math
> intensive.

Now I can't help myself anymore ;)
I agree here. Most PIClister will agree that the technology 
changes very fast, right? Some of the, ermm, chronologically 
advanced folks on this list probably still played with vacuum 
tubes. So, why waste a few years just to get up to speed when 
the technology changes anyway?

Varsity gives you a foundation to base (and bias) your 
viewpoint of technology. Just knowing that a 10k base resistor 
for a transistor will work ok isn't enough. You have to know why.

Those same graduates that 'know nothing' after graduation, catch 
up sooner or later.

> 
> Take that to another level: calculators in elementary school.  I think
> that general concepts must be learned and understood before tools (like
> calculators or MathCad) are used to speed up the application of those
> concepts.
Exactly. Well put.

<boast mode=shameless> 
I handed my master's thesis in last week, so I *have* to be 
biased in favour of an academic education ;))
</boast>

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