# "Life 101" -- You set the curriculum **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 30, 2003, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-101-you-set-the-curriculum/165234 "2003-03-30T17:02:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![NinjaChick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71c47a/32.png) [@NinjaChick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinjaChick)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2003, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-101-you-set-the-curriculum/165234/21 "2003-04-01T03:45:44Z")
Mandatory course for all parents/parents-to-be: How to avoid attempting to re-live your wasted life through your children and thus become an overcontrolling pain in the patootie. Alternately: How to behave as the parent of a teenager in a store/at a school function/performance/college visit/teacher conference/etc. ---
**Author:** ![j.c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/73ab20/32.png) [@j.c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j.c)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2003, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-101-you-set-the-curriculum/165234/22 "2003-04-01T08:01:29Z")
All Americans should go to featherlou U! I’ll add that you should learn how to FAKE IT. It’s such a big part of life. However, I’d scrap these: > [@](#): > > nancial > Reconciling a checkbook register > Budgeting / Living within your means > Credit Cards, Loans & interest basics Basic math should suffice. (As noted in LifeOnWry’s post about the value of algebra.) ---
**Author:** ![B.Serum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/b.serum/32/14266_2.png) [@B.Serum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/B.Serum)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2003, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-101-you-set-the-curriculum/165234/23 "2003-04-01T18:00:39Z")
Perspective: I think youths are prone to percieving that “life” is supposed to be something that resembles an episode of E!'s Wild On, an action-adventure movie, “reality” program, or sitcom where everybody is wealthy and beautiful and fortunate. A counter to this may be field trips to where you can take a good hard look at the worst life has to offer and meet the people who live their life in a ghetto, homeless shelter, undeveloped third-world country, stroke / burn ward, etc. Maybe that sounds too harsh. Or maybe that sounds just about right. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2003, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-101-you-set-the-curriculum/165234/24 "2003-04-01T18:13:13Z")
Couponing. Grief. Why that outfit “isn’t” you. Community service. How to break up with a kid without ruining his/her life. Take a chance…it won’t kill ya. Ungrateful teenagers and how much we hate them. I’m sure there’s more… ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2003, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-101-you-set-the-curriculum/165234/25 "2003-04-01T18:37:12Z")
Excellent thread, I agree with all of the above and add my own: How to argue & How to eat crow Body maintence (charmingly entitled: Waist Management. 🙂 ) Evils of Fast Food 101-701. \*This is your lungs after 5,10,20,30 years of smoking \*Class. \*A day with a junkie \* Tour. Feild trips to crack houses, flop houses and the county jails. Ooooh, **Mephisto** and I are on the same wave length. Basic house plant survival. ( It’s not that hard.) Basic outdoor plant maintenence. ( if you plant it, you got to maintain it.) Surviving without the TV & learning how to converse without talking about reality TV shows. Basic luggage packing 101 - 401. Chess 101-501 (I’m still in the short bus program) Card playing (these last two are basic fundamental social skills that are slowly dying off because of the scourge of video games. Yes, I said \*scourge \*) \*This is imperative \* How to dance. (Basic ballroom stuff) Yoga and meditation for relaxation and stress management. Letter writing skills ( not for business, for personal stuff, including Thank you notes, which is a dying art.) How to buy a house. How the advertising industry runs your life and controls your pocket book. (what? this isn’t a newsflash?) The art of constructive criticism ( 101-900) The art of taking contructive criticism (101-900) ---
**Author:** ![Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2003, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-101-you-set-the-curriculum/165234/26 "2003-04-01T18:43:02Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mephisto \* > \*\*And here’s the biggest one as far as I’m concerned: how to empty a trash can (maybe you’d need to know some of the barbarians I have to associate with to appreciate this one). \*\* I still say defenestration into the apartment across the alley is a perfectly viable solution to the problem at hand. As for my class, it would be entitled “Why paying rent is a _good_ thing,” with an extra seminar on the conspiracy that is the modern automobile. ---
**Author:** ![peepthis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9d8465/32.png) [@peepthis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peepthis)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2003, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-101-you-set-the-curriculum/165234/27 "2003-04-01T19:34:15Z")
Make everyone work in food service or customer service for a minimum of 2 weeks. Then I bet you’d see people treat waiters/waitresses, store employess, customer service representatives, etc, with a much better attitude. A lot of people are complete jerkoffs in their interactions with people serving them. ---
**Author:** ![j.c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/73ab20/32.png) [@j.c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j.c)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2003, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-101-you-set-the-curriculum/165234/28 "2003-04-02T00:36:19Z")
I’m going to peepthis u! Another one: “Not everyone is like you class” Students are beaten for uttering phrases like: “It would help if you just smiled more” “There’s no reason to be afraid of spiders” “Just keep your eye on the ball, and swing” “Algebra is easy if you concentrate” “I don’t think it’s cold in here” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-101-you-set-the-curriculum/165234.md?page=1)