Comments on: More Practice, Less Theory

By: My Entreprenuerial Journey

My Entreprenuerial Journey — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 17:51:37 +0000

[...] As I made my way from Milwaukee, WI to Madison, WI for my freshman year of college in fall 2004, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I’d know for awhile that I liked working for myself: I’d been a soccer referee since I was 12, which allowed me to make my own hours and make more money than any 12 year old should be able to earn. I’d been fairly bored with high school because we learned boring theories instead of practical ideas that would help me later in life. My biggest take away from high school was “more practice, less theory.” [...]

By: Introducing Entrepreneur 101

Introducing Entrepreneur 101 — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 22:04:14 +0000

[...] RSS ← More Practice, Less Theory [...]

By: Nathan

Nathan — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 22:30:12 +0000

@Ellen Thanks for commenting. You bring up a good point about writing intensive classes. I use my writing skills pretty much all day. Having to go through a ton of info, pick out important points and synthesize a response was a really practical, useful skill.

@Forrest That’s an amazing story. I can’t believe someone would really try to dissuade you from taking more practical classes because they viewed them as a potential detriment to your education. I think some in academia aren’t used to having to get things done outside of their bubble and lose track of how things work other places.

By: Nathan

Nathan — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 22:30:00 +0000

By: Les Murphy

Les Murphy — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 20:24:52 +0000

#quickbooks More Practical Lessons, Less Theory http://ow.ly/16vr3T

By: Forrest

Forrest — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 19:15:27 +0000

I agree completely. Coming from the other side campus, Engineering courses are also ridiculously heavy on theory. In engineering in particular, you need to have a very strong foundation in the the theory and basic concepts of what you’re working with, but if you can’t apply those concepts to real world situations, they’re completely worthless.

I wanted to take 2 design lab courses, but my advisor didn’t want me to take more than one. He almost wouldn’t approve it and I had to convince him that taking 2 wouldn’t harm my education. He said that I would “learn teamwork” and “the design process” from the first design lab and thus by taking 2 design labs (in his mind) I would be repeating the same course, even though they were both based on completely different technologies.

These design lab classes are basically viewed by the administration as another theory class. They teach the “theories” of teamwork and the design process. These ideas shouldn’t be viewed as yet another theory, but more as a necessary step in being able to apply what you know to real world situations. There should definitely be more focus on these kinds of classes.

By: Forrest

Forrest — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 19:15:00 +0000

By: erik weber

erik weber — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 10:08:33 +0000

RT @nathanlustig: new blog post: we need more practical lessons and less theory http://www.nathanlustig.com/2010/02/04/more-practice-less-theory/

By: NewsLine

NewsLine — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 07:10:38 +0000

More Practical Lessons, Less Theory: The test focuses on incredibly abstract game situations that would never happ… http://bit.ly/bmcvQS

By: Ellen

Ellen — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 02:45:08 +0000

Great post, Nathan! I couldn’t agree more. While it might be difficult to take this approach with all subjects, professors should try to do their best to incorporate the practical wherever possible. Accounting 100 and Financial Accounting were both mind-numbing; I got through them, but I feel like I’d have a lot more knowledge that I could actually apply in every day life were I to have spent the time learning to use Quickbooks instead.

The classes that best prepared me for the position I’m in now either 1) focused heavily on writing and research and were taught by professors that didn’t hand out A’s for effort or 2) required us to apply concepts to real life problems. I enjoyed (and learned a lot more) creating a marketing plan for Madison’s Community Car than I did memorizing a zillion pointless articles for Management and Human Resources.

Nicely said.