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  3. What's one thing your learned at college/university that blew your mind?

What's one thing your learned at college/university that blew your mind?

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  • A [email protected]

    That's really interesting. It must be very much dependent on where you are because my first class at uni they literally said the opposite. "Everyone who didn't take xyz class in high school take this sheet with a bunch of extra shit you need to learn before next week. Good luck."

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    wrote last edited by
    #28

    @jordanlund apparently didn't take xyz class.

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    • lumidaub@feddit.orgL [email protected]

      Whether or not an irregular verb retains its irregularity depends largely on how much it is used in everyday life. If it's a common word, it's more likely to stay irregular, because we're frequently reminded of the "correct" form. If it's a rare word, the irregularity tends to disappear over time because we simply forget. That's why "to be" couldn't be more irregular (it's used enough to retain its forms) and the past participle of "to prove" is slowly becoming regular "proved" (it's rare enough to be forgotten).

      yes i like language very much

      Edit: typo

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      wrote last edited by
      #29

      Wait, what's the other option for past tense 'to prove'?

      lumidaub@feddit.orgL baduhai@sopuli.xyzB 2 Replies Last reply
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      • _ [email protected]
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        wrote last edited by
        #30

        We are all pretty much screwed

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        • F [email protected]

          Wait, what's the other option for past tense 'to prove'?

          lumidaub@feddit.orgL This user is from outside of this forum
          lumidaub@feddit.orgL This user is from outside of this forum
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          wrote last edited by
          #31

          "I have proven"

          F B 2 Replies Last reply
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          • G [email protected]

            Can you give an example?

            muntedcrocodile@hilariouschaos.comM This user is from outside of this forum
            muntedcrocodile@hilariouschaos.comM This user is from outside of this forum
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            wrote last edited by [email protected]
            #32

            In control dynamics u have a transfer function and need to determine the Routh-Hurwitz criterion it will sometimes give u division by 0 errors so u sub in a variable and say its almost zero but not quite and continue on like nothing happened.

            Eg determining the stability of a system with characteristic eq of A(s) = 3s^4+6s^3+2s^2+4s+5=0

            If u do a RH array u will end up with a zero which then will give u (4*0βˆ’30)/0 so u sub in πœ€ for 0 giving (4πœ€βˆ’30)/πœ€ and continue on. That eq obviously evaluates to negative infinity. U are essentially just saying πœ€ is an infinity small positive number ie it is the number next to 0 on the positive side.

            EDIT: If the markdown is messed up the eq should be A(s) = 3s**4+6s**3+2s**2+4s+5=0

            When using ** as super notation

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            • _ [email protected]
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              wrote last edited by
              #33

              Shale tastes like mud, yes, but it has the consistency of a chocolate bar if you eat a little.

              Honestly not bad. Great experience.

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              • _ [email protected]
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                wrote last edited by
                #34

                That if you're an international student at a small, struggling school, you can miss half your classes and bullshit your way through most assignments and they'll still give you a degree.

                In other words: I learned nothing.

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                • lumidaub@feddit.orgL [email protected]

                  "I have proven"

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                  wrote last edited by
                  #35

                  Ah, duh. Interesting that it's moving to the more typical "ed" ending

                  lumidaub@feddit.orgL 1 Reply Last reply
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                  • F [email protected]

                    Ah, duh. Interesting that it's moving to the more typical "ed" ending

                    lumidaub@feddit.orgL This user is from outside of this forum
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                    wrote last edited by
                    #36

                    Exactly, that's the expected path: the irregular form disappears as more and more speakers forget it and instead, "on the fly", apply the general rules of word formation in their language. Over time the "regularised" form becomes the accepted, "correct" one.

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                    • _ [email protected]
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                      wrote last edited by
                      #37

                      My highschool friends weren't really friends, just people who'd been temporarily thrown into the same unfortunate position as me.

                      N 1 Reply Last reply
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                      • S [email protected]

                        My highschool friends weren't really friends, just people who'd been temporarily thrown into the same unfortunate position as me.

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                        wrote last edited by
                        #38

                        Relevant: https://youtu.be/rGDBTLT9__s

                        (if I'm honest, this is not his finest work. his videos are usually way funnier than this)

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                          wrote last edited by [email protected]
                          #39

                          Functions on real numbers are incredibly werid.

                          There are continuous but nowhere differentiable functions.

                          There are continuous and monotonically increasing function that goes from 0 to 1 (i.e. surjective function [0,1] β†’[0,1]), that "almost never" increases; specifically, if you pick a point at random, that point will be flat on said function with probablity exactly 1 (not almost 1, but exactly 1, no approximation here).

                          More impressively, you can have function that is continuous, but you cannot find a connected path on it (i.e. not path connected). In plain word, if anyone told you "a function is continuous when you can draw it without lifting your pen". They have lied to you.

                          EDIT: the last one (crossed out) is wrong. Intuitively "topologists' sine curve" contains two parts; you can neither find a distinct seperation for them (i.e. "connected"), nor can you draw a path that connects the two part (i.e. not "path connected"). However, topologist's sine curve is not the graph of a continuous function.

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                          • K [email protected]

                            Physics in general has not caught up to the fact that locality isn't a thing. Nobel prizes were handed out for this in I think 22... And people still think the notion of spacetime can be taken seriously. It can't.

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                            wrote last edited by
                            #40

                            What does that mean?

                            K sasha@lemmy.blahaj.zoneS 2 Replies Last reply
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                              wrote last edited by
                              #41

                              That a diploma doesn't mean shit beside someone being able to say what their teacher want them to say... but that was not really new, it was just a lot more sad to experiment as naive me was hoping for something more.

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                              • muntedcrocodile@hilariouschaos.comM [email protected]

                                In control dynamics u have a transfer function and need to determine the Routh-Hurwitz criterion it will sometimes give u division by 0 errors so u sub in a variable and say its almost zero but not quite and continue on like nothing happened.

                                Eg determining the stability of a system with characteristic eq of A(s) = 3s^4+6s^3+2s^2+4s+5=0

                                If u do a RH array u will end up with a zero which then will give u (4*0βˆ’30)/0 so u sub in πœ€ for 0 giving (4πœ€βˆ’30)/πœ€ and continue on. That eq obviously evaluates to negative infinity. U are essentially just saying πœ€ is an infinity small positive number ie it is the number next to 0 on the positive side.

                                EDIT: If the markdown is messed up the eq should be A(s) = 3s**4+6s**3+2s**2+4s+5=0

                                When using ** as super notation

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                                wrote last edited by
                                #42

                                control dynamics

                                Well, that's a relief! That's a completely different kind of engineering than I studied, so I can stop being worried that there was something I was supposed to have learned but didn't.

                                muntedcrocodile@hilariouschaos.comM 1 Reply Last reply
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                                  wrote last edited by
                                  #43

                                  I learned women actually don't have the same access to higher education as men. That misogyny and rape culture is real and heavily affect people's lives in present day. And that it's about isolated incidents with bad apples, but about the structures around bad incidents, and how they systematically facilitate bad situations, don't help or silence victims.

                                  I genuinely believed it was safe to give my peers the benefit of the doubt and assume that their ironically bigoted jokes weren't their actual views. And it was heartbreaking to realize that that is not an assumption you can make. You don't know people's values unless they tell you, seriously and genuinely, straight from the heart. You cannot infer values from ironic jokes, and you cannot assume that the nice people around you share your core values, that you'd otherwise take for granted that everyone but lunatics agree with. You don't know before you ask.

                                  I learned that humor isn't always innocent. That not everyone who hears you make an "ironically bigoted" joke laughs because of its absurdity - they laugh because they agree. They think you agree with their bigoted views and values, and your joke further cements their worldview, that everyone thinks like them, everyone else is just too scared to say it openly. That jokes can be used as a weapon to create a culture where i.e. overt "ironic" racism is considered normal, and genuine conversations about real racism is taboo.

                                  None of this was in the curriculum. It came from experiencing the social setting and viewing the effects of a broken administrative system at an "elite" engineering college.

                                  I was not a feminist when I walked into my STEM education, and I was when I left.

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                                    wrote last edited by
                                    #44

                                    I know people's experience varies on this but I absolutely hated high school, and only discovered that I enjoyed learning as a process because of uni. And I'd probably still be small minded and somewhat bigoted if I hadn't gone. Simply because it forced me to critically evaluate my own views and also exposed me to a number of types of people I wouldn't have encountered otherwise.

                                    It's a shame it's so expensive in some countries, because I think it's important to have a well-educated society more broadly.

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                                    • lumidaub@feddit.orgL [email protected]

                                      "I have proven"

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                                      wrote last edited by
                                      #45

                                      That would be the past participle wouldn't it?

                                      lumidaub@feddit.orgL 1 Reply Last reply
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                                      • B [email protected]

                                        That would be the past participle wouldn't it?

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                                        wrote last edited by
                                        #46

                                        Yeah, that's what I said earlier.

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                                          wrote last edited by
                                          #47

                                          Being able to communicate effectively is critical in a public speaking role. Sadly, I learned this in the inverse - class was taught by a TA who didn't speak English, professor was never available, whole class failed, no one cared. Still fills me with rage to this day. But, it did make me a better public speaker, so I guess that's something.

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