And “GAAP is Crap”.
I remember that LIFO and FIFO are different from each other.
*The way they teach math now is so confusing, I don’t understand why they need to change it every few years.
To sell more textbooks*
It’s not just textbooks.
A ( recently disgraced and deceased) superintendent was found to have a connection to the company that owned the company that sold the district * a bill of goods- cough*" required software".
@BunsenBurner - I recently started doing bench chemistry again after spending 8 years out of the lab. At first I thought I’d be a total klutz, but it’s amazing what your brain and muscles remember. Column chromatography? No problem! Interpretation of NMR spectra? Piece of cake! Running NMR samples on the spectrometer? Ummmmm…something I definitely had to re-learn.
And you’re right - just because you know it doesn’t mean you can explain it. Once I relearned Hess’s Law, I still had to find a way to explain it to 11th graders (without making their eyes glaze over).
@scout59 - the fact that you had to relearn how to operate an NMR has nothing to do with you! Those damn software upgrades make everyone pull their hair out! At one company, even the folks who used the instrument daily had to relearn everything when the software got upgraded. 
The most critical thing is to remember that the tube goes into the spinner before it goes into the magnet. 
How is AP Physics going for you? I volunteered to tutor HS students once, and I told them I could help out in any subject. They gave my a young lady who needed help with her math. I think it was Algebra II. I coudln’t do her homework. ummm… what was this thread about?
My kids fault me for not actively teaching them more, but frankly it is very difficult to put things into words.
I can’t * do* and talk at the same time.
It’s more complicated than patting your head and rubbing your stomach, but it feels the same in that it feels very awkward.
I couldn’t even teach them to drive, because I couldn’t give adequate warning for what was coming up next.
Have you tried Khan Academy?
@NJres I’m in AP Physics 1, I find it quite easy
I remember a lot of information from college, but not specifics. The math, physics, and chemistry I learned in college got me my degrees, which got me my first job, which moved me into the career I am in. I now use the concepts I learned, by not the mechanics, on a day to day basis. My kids are much better at math and math-based sciences than I currently am and don’t need my help. So, from a parent’s perspective, it not that I forgot everything I learned, I am beyond it and it just isn’t relevant to my day-to-day life anymore.
I do not remember most of the content from courses, however, those classes made me an engineer. As many will tell me, we engineers tend to analyze things and approach things in a completely different way than most folks. I didn’t take a class in “how to think like an engineer,” rather it happened as a result of all my courses combined - even the ones I don’t remember.
As others have pointed out, info that is lost is easily found and relearned. We just need a re-fresher most of the time.
I distinctly remember learning about the difference between short-term and long-term memory. 
Because if you don’t study you don’t pass your classes, so you don’t get a job where they expect a college degree.
college is essentially nothing but part of a trap that allows colleges to make a lot of money since employers force people to have certification. I already have the analytical and learning skills to succeed at a job, yet i have to waste 4 years and 200,000 thousand on a degree. why? because I can a get a much better job after that.
“Hire a teenager while he still knows everything.”
"High school math is a lot more difficult than it used to be.
Is it? You can test yourself using these on-line placement tests:"
Okay, I don’t think anyone here is going to take an on-line placement test. After getting a root canal and a colonoscopy, taking an on-line placement test to see where I stand is still pretty far down the list.
Perhaps I would have been more precise if I said that my mediocre public high school math classes, taught by teachers who didn’t assign homework or even notice whether you showed up, was far less difficult than my kids top private high school math classes. In fact, I think my classes may have been easier than most of their elementary school classes, also.
There was a joke when I was at CMU that when we graduated we wouldn’t know how to build a toaster. But we’d be able to figure it out if we needed to. I don’t recall a whole lot of technical specifics, but my time there definitely shaped my ability to problem solve, learn, and integrate new knowledge into my existing knowledge base. Exams were always very tough not because they tested material on a rote basis, but because they tested your actual understanding of the material by presenting problems in new ways, but which you could figure out if you had a fundamental understanding of what you had been taught over the past semester.
My CS classes were similar - I remember the first day of my operating systems class when the teacher said, “The first assignment is due in 2 weeks. It’s in C. If you don’t know C, I suggest you learn it.” I didn’t know C, but by then I had a solid understanding of program design and constructs to build on, so learning it on my own wasn’t too tough.
To me, that’s really the value of a college education - learning how to learn, and learning how to figure things out for yourself. Actual facts and knowledge, yeah you obviously need that, but teaching that expanded mindset is what sets apart the really good universities. Books and computers have all the facts, it’s knowing how to use the knowledge in them that’s the hard part.
There are all types of learners. Students who cram for tests typically don’t remember as much. Students who really understand the material tend to remember more of it. Even you, @outlooker, probably don’t remember all the material even from the current semester. That’s why students have to review for finals.
There are also all types of memories. So maybe your dad doesn’t have such a great long term memory.
I think typically, though, when you’ve taken math through at least differential equations, you’ve had algebra and other early math skills pounded into your brain for so many years that you at least remember that! And basic physics should also have been pounded into your head. So most engineers would easily be able to do basic physics and math, although the skills to do multivariate calculus and complicated statics problems may be looooooong gone.
@theanaconda, why such a cynic? The skills I learned in my major were necessary for the jobs I had, and even though I probably thought, like you do, that I already had “analytical and learning skills to succeed at a job”, those meager pre-college skills were honed and supplemented in college. When you’re finished with a degree, look back at some of your high school and early college work, and laugh.
"I already have the analytical and learning skills to succeed at a job, yet i have to waste 4 years and 200,000 thousand on a degree. why? "
Then don’t. Bank the cash and prosper applying your analytical skills. People do it all the time!
My degree was practical (nursing). So yes, I remember a great deal of it. I’ve totally blanked out on labor and delivery because I’ve never used it in real life. But yes, a lot of my nursing education has stuck with me.
And college was more than academic learning. There was a lot of social learning occurring also. It is the first time for most kids to live outside of their parents house and meet people from different backgrounds and geographic locations. I loved my college experience for what I was exposed to, both academic and social. I ended up in a major I had never experienced before college.