HN Explorer

Ask HN: Why Study _____?

13 points by repple ↗ HN
I have had this interesting idea for a while. A Q&A site for passionate educators, enthusiastic teachers, and students in dire need of motivation.

The pain point which I’m trying to alleviate is students’ inability to recognize a real world use case for some theoretical topic in various fields of study. By creating a forum and getting teachers or experts to explain what is so cool and awesome about knowing what the student is about to learn, I’d like to motivate interest in learning the topic at hand. How does knowing it affect the decisionmaking process? With what other challenges does it help? What would they not be able to accomplish if not for the given material?

People learn well when they are interested in a given topic. They are interested because they found a way to relate to it in some way. Sometimes the material is far removed from the actual use-case, or the significance of it is not explained very well by the text or the instructor. Creating a place specifically for this discussion would be pretty interesting, I think.

StackExchange’s Q&A format seemed perfect for validating this idea, but it doesn’t seem to be an option, unfortunately. The new topic proposal is closed: http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/104796/why-study

I’d love to see what you think of the idea. Whether it makes sense, whether it will be useful, and if there are other places for hosting this (aside from making it yourself, for now).

Here are my examples of questions - possibly the reason why it was rejected. I tried to pick different fields and ask something thought provoking. - Why study zeta functions in mathematics? - Why study Utopian literature? - Why study Imperialism and Nation-State Formation? - Why study molecular forces in physics? - Why study type theory in computer science?

8 comments

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johnwheeler
This is a good idea, IMO, for the same reason why I often read book reviews on Amazon. I'm trying to answer, Why read (thing that everyone keeps talking about)?

Here's some for me personally:

Why should I study

Nietzsche?

Zen Buddhism?

Austrian economics?

The R programming language?

RxJS?

Of course I could go to wikipedia for these, but if you've got a better way of dispensing this information, I'd love to know what others are curious about too.

repple
I know! Ironically, I can see myself procrastinating, getting lost in the site just exploring different topics and answers. A site which was supposed to motivate me to study in the first place!
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burfog
Much of the time, "to get your degree" is the best answer you can hope for. I suspect the schools use general education requirements to push low-cost classes. You just have to put up with it.

Heck, I've been doing hard-core OS/embedded/real-time/driver/assembly stuff for almost two decades and I still haven't even found a use for: calculus (3 classes), physics (2 classes), statistics, databases (2 classes), theory of computation, or GUI development. If I can't find a use for those, what chance is there that I'll ever use the "history of western music" and similar? No boss will ever seriously ask for Marxist criticism.

I have my degree though. That is reason enough.

allendoerfer
> If I can't find a use for those, what chance is there that I'll ever use the "history of western music" and similar? No boss will ever seriously ask for Marxist criticism.

Not to sound overly humanist here, but considering who the US just elected president, I think there should be more not less classes like that. Or at least more people taking them. I see education not only as a way to maximize returns for the individual, but also as a drivers license for society.

repple
But maybe answers do exist! I'm using the word 'student' loosely here. While a college student is one example, there are plenty of other people who study outside of school or would study something if they knew why.
auganov
Good idea, but not sure the Q&A format is the best. A compendium/wiki-like site linking theoretical concepts to applications is more fitting.
repple
Yes, a wiki would be ideal, if there was enough of the most interesting and relevant content already available. Actually, StackOverflow questions sometimes turn into a community wiki's when the question gains enough support.

My reasons for a Q&A are: (1) remove barriers from being able to contribute using any format at your disposal (maybe even a tweet?). (2) The site should allow the community to rank the most relevant and interesting answers - this can easily get lost in a long wiki page, (3) Not all answers are relevant nor interesting to everyone, given your education level, background, etc. The experience could be tailored to the visitor ..somehow. (4) Getting a bite-sized motivation while reading through a few short answers can be good enough for some people.