Is the Traditional Education System Hindering Our Understanding of Physics?

[1irishman]

Repeating "Intro. Physics."

I am in my late 30's, and I have an exam this Saturday on "intro. physics." What I have found is that I enjoy Physics when I learn at my own pace rather than under the structure and (what I perceive to be) rigid time constraints of the University environment. I find myself asking the question, "who cares if I have to repeat this course?, so that my grades reflect an understanding of the material?!" Yeah, it has been 19 years since I've looked at physics...i had to teach myself trig from scratch...which only took away from my focus on the conceptualization of the concepts. It is more difficult, in my opinion, to learn the concepts of physics if i am simultaneously re-learning trigonometry!
Does education really get in the way of learning?! My ego is taking a real blow here as my grades have suffered as a long time away from school has taken its tole. I believe we all learn differently and at different rates. Shouldn't we all evaluate our own rate of understanding so that we do not all get discouraged by "the system?"

 

[General_Sax]

I used to think I was the smartest kid in the world.

I wondered what the hell I was even doing after taking my Intro Physics final. It was all multiple choice, but in my case it was 1/2 multiple guess.

 

[1irishman]

So whatever became of your results on that final test? I gather you pulled up the ol' bootstraps and moved on to continue learning?

 

[rock.freak667]

In my opinion, while it does matter the time in which you learn something, it matters more that you understand what you are doing. It's good that you learn at your own pace. Where I go to school, I have three years to finish an engineering degree. I had 6 courses to do this year and eventually I realized that while I was at least understanding what I was doing (learning), most of the other students were just memorizing and recalling.

It gets the job done as the point is to get a degree, but what's going to happen down the line when we're faced with a problem that we haven't been given a set example for?

I would suggest that you learn basic calculus and trigonometry and such before heading into a course that will ask you of things you don't know about.