how much of the information in college have you retained? I'm a little nervous because I don't think I've retained much so far.

3-5%. If you gave me a differential equations quiz right now I would put up a crisp zero.

College is about learning how to get through college. There are actually some very valuable skill sets to be learned by going through the motions of getting a quality education. I'm convinced that someone that has gone through college is better-prepared in general for life, a career, etc, than the uneducated but not necessarily because they know facts about their majors. I think they are better-prepared because they understand how to solve complex problems, they have shown that they have the will power to overcome serious challenges, and they have a general clue about many topics because they have studied them at length.

You'll retain the stuff that is most interesting to you. For example, I remember astronomy, economics and finance concepts the best (in that order) even though my major was actually finance. I also remember some marketing stuff and this one history of music course. Oh, and my health class was interesting too. I graduated over 12 years ago fyi.

TLDR; Don't worry about rote memorization - that has almost no value in real life. The real value comes from the experience.

Gen eds? Don't worry about it usually.

Your major? You'd be surprised how much you actually remember when prompted.

I can't recall very many theorems in math by name. Some general ideas stick out, but they are hard to describe out of context. If you presented me some problems in math or programming related to the theorems, I'd have a hunch of what the right direction to head is from similar problems I did in classes. I'd then be able to use resources to find the right theorems.

Don't worry about fact memorization. Worry about learning how to ask questions and how to get answers to them. And, as you get answers to questions, learn which answers are/aren't satisfying and why. Use that knowledge to improve your own communication. Then, when you need to teach/present, learn how you collect data, build arguments, write clearly, and accept challenges to your conclusions in good faith.

If you remain intellectually curious and actually listen when people are teaching you, you will be surprised at just how much you have learned. This is in spite of maybe not being able to sit down and list out things you've learned on command.

Doesn't really matter. The stuff you need for you career will come back enough, plus once you start using it on a day in and day out basis will be second nature

I'm currently working on a degree in computer science. I'm not allowed to forget anything.

There are some things that i will retain for the rest of my life because it was so damn interesting to me. There are some things that i can never retain because i did not find it interesting. Also, I used to be a academic tutor in college so i have retained a lot of things in few subjects.

My major required a great deal of first-hand work and producing real product. I've often said that I went to college to develop a viable portfolio, and that's about it. It was a means for me to get a foot in the door of the industry I wanted to work in. The rest of the classes I took were beneficial, and for the most part I enjoyed them. However, they don't factor a whole lot in my day to day life now that I'm over 10 years out of college.

What's important to remember is that education doesn't stop just because you leave school. Your college experience is meant to be a foundation, not a complete body of knowledge. You should always be making and effort to stay sharp in whatever career path you choose. That means you always have to be learning.

So don't get too concerned with remembering everything you learned in college. The most important thing you can take away from your education experience is how to learn in the first place.

I've retained all that I need to. The awesome thing about education is that even if you 'forget' it, having learned it in the first place means you can pick it up quickly when the time comes.

What program are you in? For most schooling, the facts are less important than the skills you develop. The purpose is to have an educated mind, not memorize facts.

I graduated two years ago. I studied politics as well as some economics in my first year. I remember the broad theories of most of what I did, but less of the specifics, like the names of academics, philosophers, some of the more advanced mathematics etc.

I wouldn't worry too much though. I passed most of my exams by cramming and the point is as much about learning methods and developing rigour as it is about any specific knowledge.

what I learned from college that I use is not necessarily the shit that came out of a book. I learned time management, people skills, how to prioritize things, networking and socializing. That is really what college preps you for. Of course there are specific fields where the info form the book you need to learn depending on your major

Edit

Ps fuck the dolphins

It's irrelevant. When you graduate, you should still be learning and seeking every opportunity you can at applying what you've learned or you're just going to get left behind.

That said, you'll retain more than you think.

I don't know. But I haven't used very much of my college education at my actual job

You learn everything onsite pretty much

It is more important that you have seen quite a lot of relevant things as about remembering them on the spot. I think college/university is about throwing handy issues at you so that your brain adapts to a certain way of thinking. E.g. I daily solve quite hard issues at work. I can't remember most details on the spot but I have a general idea and can use my adapted mind to fill-out the gabs. This allows me to get a model about the issue and its surrounding on the spot and I can refine it based on external knowledge and experiments.

I'm not sure I could do long division anymore ...

Mechanical engineer here, energy concentration:

I don't remember too many of the formulas and so forth, but I remember the pitfalls and concerns, and I remember that there ARE formulas, so I can go look them up when necessary.

More than anything, what my degree gave me is an intellectual toolkit that supports analysis of just about anything.

Once you are out of school and the things you heard and learned become applicable, you'll find all sorts of them were quite valuable.

Right now you're deep in the forest wondering which trees are most important, but over time I'd wager you'll be better off having made the trip.

Only items pertaining to my major that I've used. I had some classes in stuff that I've not scene in 15 years. Most everything else I remember enjoy to be able to google successfully.

Actual facts and figures? Very little. If you asked me about the major phonological shifts that occurred in various dialects of American English, I honestly couldn't say.

What I did retain were the skills I developed during college; specifically, time-management, organization, higher-level reading skills (scholarly/scientific journals), etc.

I believe college is more of a place to develop a framework for being a functional adult than it is a repository of information.

I believe most of the info is just filler stuff to give us a "well rounded" education. Unless it applies directly to your major and career path, but even then a lot of it may not be needed in the future.

Very little, but I'm able to relearn such information quickly.

A weirdly high amount. I'm one of those "Did you know blah blah blah" types

Relax. After graduation, there aren't many final exams.

Not bad, like 3/4.

My analytical methods to always remember the basics usually give me the answers I need. It's also why I am always the one to prepare lessons for the tech teams on how to use the new softwares we adopt.

Hopefully quite a bit because I take the PCAT tomorrow. Its been a year out of class, hopefully I have good recall.

Most of it actually. I've always cared more about information than people so it's probably do to me being just passionate about knowing shit, and why I can't remember birthdays.

Almost none. I went to school for film production with a focus on writing and editing but have been out of the business for a good 5 years. I'm not sure I could put together a crappy AMV at this point. I can still write though, but I was never bad at that to begin with.

Edit: Whoops, misread the question, sorry.

a lot actually, but that's because I worked my butt off to learn it for the long run. also helps to be aware of your metacognition - the how you learn. having said that, in my easy theater class i practically read sparknotes of the plays, so remember very little of all except 2 plays

Probably 25%. It really depends on the subject. If you ask me about sections of the Canadian constitution, I will probably just give you a blank stare. But i remember most of the anatomy I was taught because I work with that info almost everyday.

Little. College is just spewing out information you binge memorized

College is much more important for teaching you how to think vs. coming away armed with every fact & figure you learned there, imo...unless you're in med school or something like that

It's not just the information: it's the mental muscle so to speak that you have developed, as well as language/reasoning skills etc. Keep your brain active (reading, exercising), you'll be fine.

Woman here, but very little. I tend to forget about things right after the class ends.

Except for my history classes. I remember a lot of that because history is interesting to me.

I don't remember a lot of the details of the theory, but a quick read could refresh them easily.

I do "remember" a lot of skills, but more in the way of "muscle memory". I can write a press release easily despite not having done it since college.

I studied math. I retained a thought process. The process i acquired was worth everything.

Quite a bit, especially in classes I was truly interested in learning (in my early 30s now).

Technical things that required memorization (orgo or latter half of calc 3) I don't remember, but in these cases I remember the basic concepts of why things work the way they do.

Classes of person interest, both for my major and minor, I remember pretty well. But a lot of that had to do with taking courses I was interested in to begin with.

Some. I studied quantitative social sciences in college many years ago, and frequently neglected my studies to play games and organize events. Five years after I graduated, I unexpectedly found myself in the games business as an event promoter. Little did I know that when I thought I was studying I was actually goofing off, and when I thought I was goofing off I was actually studying.

Some of my formally schooled topics I have stayed on top of because they interest me. I still really dig anthropology, so I read up on it as an amateur and the learnings get reinforced that way. Also, I took physics for non-math majors ("physics for poets"....I think pretty much every university has some equivalent) and found the topics really fascinating. That has stuck with me.

Other topics...differential and integral calculus, linguistics, philosophy....fuggitabbouddit. I barely remember anything.

Information, not much. But I did learn how to be a critical thinker, I learned how to handle group dynamics, I had significant development in my writing skills, I learned how to approach an issue from multiple sides, I learned how to present my ideas properly and how to defend them, and I discovered to to preform under pressure. I learned all this in addition to making a massive improvement in my social and relationship skills. So for me its not the information that was important it was how it shaped my mind that was the real benefit.

none of it. i didnt really expect to retain any of it either, brainspace is too valuable to fill up with useless shit.

A little bit, but most of the information you get doesn't matter.

I didn't think so until I was a few years deep into my career. My memory gets jogged frequently from situations coming up where I need to remember my schooling.

Not a lot. Unless you're in a program where total memorization is the name of the game, consider yourself fine as long as you understand how stuff works and how to use resources to apply the skills you've developed.

depends on what you mean by retained...

If you mean, ask me the factual questions about things I learned... not much.

On the other hand if you mean how have I applied the lessons I learned from college in my life, it has completely transformed me into the man I am today. I may have a 10 minute gap in my life where I am not using something I got from college, but the rest of the 12- 14 hours I am awake in my day I am using what I know to do what ever better.

My dad always told me you go to college to learn how to learn.

You learn to skills to gather the information to solve the problem, not recount the solution off the top of your head. It's the process of finding the solution that matters.

I sure as hell wouldn't pass half of my university courses if I were to take the final exam today. However, give me access to google or a relevant textbook and I would pass with flying colors.

I had a professor in college who let us use our book for exams. His explanation was that in the real world you will have everything at your disposal should you need it.

I don't use my college education or post-graduate education at all. Wouldn't say that I use any particular "thought process" from university either. I've forgotten most of it, but I sometimes have weird dreams about meeting test or homework deadlines. Most of the formal education I use on my job is high-school arithmetic, geometry, and trigonometry. The rest is stuff I learned by working on jobs. I work in the trades; pure learning from books is usually way too abstract to be applicable to real life. There's a lot of "pick up the tool, start doing it, and I'll tell you if it looks wrong". I'll read and follow a schematic if there is one, but again, that requires literacy and basic math, not college education.

I can appreciate how learning the overarching theory of subjects like metallurgy, chemistry, and engineering is better than learning tidbits on site. I don't want surgeons to learn anatomy by renting a refrigerated truck and "experimenting" on lot lizards. It's just I don't need that sort of abstract learning to do my own job right, so I personally don't use my post-high-school formal education at all. It's largely forgotten, except for odd anecdotes that I can bring up while drinking around a fire.

Depends. In economics not as much as I'd like to but the other half of my degree is accounting which I have retained at least 30-50% of. The rest comes back to me if I read it once.

I'm 20 years out of college and I will admit I don't remember very much about the textbooks I read or the class session. What I do remember is how to do research and how to solve problems.

How many of the weights at the gym are still up in the air?

From uni? 15%. From the Masters? Everything

Not much at all, but that's OK, because the point of college isn't to retain information or even to learn -- the main point of a degree or certificate, the thing it actually certifies, is "this person was willing to invest a huge amount of money and time into something, and followed through".

Some people retain knowledge, and the people who are truly smart also retain research and "how to figure stuff out" skills, and the absolutely amazing people even remember how to use apostrophes correctly -- but these people are in a small minority, and the "invested lots of time and money" certificate is the main thing employers really care about.

No and this is making me panic.

Don't sweat it; you never stop learning and you'll continue to learn on the job. The willingness to learn is what will make the difference.

Source: went from doing maintenance tasks and taking out the trash to becoming the excel guru at work and now I'm programming, considering applying for developer position at the same work place.

Very little. But as an engineer you can just look that shit up in a table. The important thing is being able to go through the engineering process with whatever incomplete crap set of data and requirements they throw at you.

Like 4%

What I did learn was how to find information I need, how to write in clear, complete and simple to sentences.

A lot. I majored in Business and I think about it constantly, see evidence where it has and hasn't worked. I know what went wrong, I know why it worked. I continue to study the various business subjects (job design, accounting, finance, economics, etc). Business knowledge is very important, there is a reason why there are MD/MBA or JD/MBA degree programs.