Do I just forget everything I've learned? | Hacker News Reader

Do I just forget everything I've learned?

5 pointshumam_alhusaini1 comment

Hello, I'm a college student pursing a bachelors in computer science.

My degree program requires that I do a "science sequence"; essentially classes 1 and 2 of general chemistry, physics, or biology. I'll be finishing chemistry 2 this semester, which will be the last chemistry class I will ever take with my current degree plan.

I feel quite conflicted about this though. On one hand, it's not a subject I particularly enjoyed, and I'm happy that I am now able to invest the time I once dedicated to chemistry into computer science. On the other hand, I am quite good at chemistry and don't want to just forget everything I learned (even if it's only limited to gen chem 1 and 2).

I feel as if I don't have a reason to know chemistry other than for the sake of knowing it. It might be interesting to code up some projects related to what I've learned, but that's likely the most I will ever be able to engage with chemistry outside of a university. Perhaps getting a minor in chemistry would allow me to do more interesting projects.

Am I just going to have to accept that I'm going to forget a lot of what I learned?

It might be relevant to say that I currently work with interactive theorem provers (ITPs) at a formal methods lab. I'd be especially interested in how formal methods could be useful in chemistry, though that doesn't seem to be the case at first glance.

You are more fortunate than you can possibly understand right now, because you’re asking yourself these critical questions at the perfect time. Almost no one worries about these things until it’s too late; but because you are worrying about them now, you will have a richer life.

I got my B.A. in 1980. Life is full of regrets for everyone, but some of the things I regret the most are skills and knowledge that I allowed to decay and disappear. I used to be able to carry out rudimentary conversations in French, but, from disuse, no more.

Yes, it is absolutely worth knowing chemistry just for the sake of knowing it (and I say this as a physicist who never liked chemistry). As you know, it takes sustained, active effort to really learn anything about a subject, but, without some kind of knowledge maintenance, that knowledge will disappear over time without you even realizing it. Keep your textbooks (do colleges still use textbooks?). Make an outline of the subject and the parts that you don't want to forget. Make flashcards (I use Anki) with facts that you want to keep in active memory. Periodically, for the rest of your life, consult your outline and refresh your understanding of the subject, through your textbooks or any online resources that seem useful. Have conversations with people interested in chemistry or anything else that you want to keep alive in your brain.

The advantages surpass “for the sake of knowing it”. All of human knowledge is connected in a vast web whose nature we can barely see. If you maintain your knowledge of everything you have learned, you’ll eventually able to see some connections that neither you nor anyone else can imagine now. This, increasingly, is where new knowledge is created: at the boundaries between what we believe are separate disciplines.

More fundamentally, it feels good to know things, and to see the connections among things. Do it for this pleasure.

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