Exam rants

Exams... what are they good for... really?

I realize that the academic world uses the exam process as a measure for how much information was squeezed into your brain in the last X period of time.

So they sit you down, give you a piece of paper that you quietly download your cranium onto in the hopes that in brief period of time that you are given a grade that means you know or you don't.

The problem is that.

Lets say you're like me, that sometimes a subject is interesting and that you find it invigorating to learn about it, and hence your grey matter soaks it up like a sponge to a puddle of water.
But - the person next to me finds it totally the opposite, dreary and mind numbingly aweful, and hence their brain refuses.. no matter how much they try.. to accept that this is going to be useful, and therefor prehaps you should learn it.
So - exam comes.. me.. i do really well, thats great.. person next to me does... ok - still manages to pass.

10 years pass by... (watch the tumble weeds go by)...
We both go for the same job, ohh look says mr employer... i see that you sat a course on molecular biophysics, just what we need, can you comment on ....
And here is my problem, i haven't used molecular biophysics in 10 years, i've been a truck driver... but yet - it says on my paper.. i sat an exam - and i got an X for it. At this point, i feel my knowledge is about the same as that person who was next to me....

I know - the argument here is that i was going for a job that needed that.. blah blah blah, but that aside, you see my point.

I bet for most of us, 6 months down the track - the information retained in the membrane isn't at the same level that it was during the 3 hrs that you were hurriedly scratching at a piece of paper for.

So while i can see that an exam is a measure of performance, it just sucks... esp when we get to the real world, and work in fricken TEAMS!

oh well...