I'm having a little conflict lately.

Why do we need to study all the things that we studied during undergraduate?

I found out that the lessons are not much used while working. When working we still need to study new things and sometimes only 5% of what we study during undergrad is used to do our work. Even in research, only small part of undergraduate lesson is used to carry out our research. So why spend so much time (4 years at least) and energy to study what we learn during ungrad? And the subjects were so difficult. Why does the lecturers need to teach all those lesson?
Isn't it a waste of time?

What do you think?

I studied pre-primary education. In order to get my degree I had to attend and take exams on 48 modules (pedagogics to history of art and from psychology to management), plus some seminars and labs that I had to attend, without sitting on exams.

I don't feel that it was a waste of time. learned about so many different fields and saw that teaching in a classroom was not my only option.
So now, almost 13 years after graduating, I work in an area of education that I would have never thought of had I not attended a relevant course and I have two Masters in different fields and I am finishing my PhD in an other field that I also met in my undergrad years......

It's definitely not a waste of time. Education is never a waste of time anyway, but it's a massive advantage to be able to draw on information from different disciplines when doing a PhD. It's much easier doing a PhD in a subject you are already knowledgeable about as well. You need to know the basics.

Hi! I have often asked myself that as well. Still, I can't help but agree that to be truly knowledgeable in a subject you need to know all the basics. You can't begin to comprehend one subject if you dive from the deep end. However, I also believe that what you study and how you study it depends strongly on the institution you choose and on your lecturers, too.

My sister and I we have attended two quite different institutions and I must say the courses we attended were quite different, even though we actually chose the same subject.

It may be that only 5% of it is useful to you, but it could be a different 5% that is useful to someone else. Or even 20%. Essentially, all of it is potentially useful but only with hindsight can you figure out which bits were especially useful to one individual.

As to whether it is a 'waste of time' depends on what you wanted to get out of the experience. If you wanted to get a certain level of expertise in a specific subject, then it was probably a successful endeavour. If you wanted training that prepared you for a very specific job, then perhaps it was not the best path and something more vocational/work-based training may have been more appropriate.

Don't be surprised by having to learn new things in a job. This will probably be true throughout your career.