Study, Leisure, and Politics
I was never, from the elementary stage—which I remember vividly in terms of days and years—nor in Al-Sabah School, nor in university, passing through the Commercial Secondary School (three years) and the General Secondary School (four years), and university (four years), an outstanding student in any subject, except for some creativity in language expression. I relied on the teacher’s explanations during exams and always passed, but “barely,” meaning by securing the minimum passing grades. Generally, our education system, then and now, relied on memorization or solving problems, and I was poor at both. Perhaps I was good at observation and criticism, but that was not allowed, neither then nor today. Teaching critical thinking and opening the door for students to question and criticize was not permitted. When I tried to break that rule at Howaani Evening Secondary School, the school administration had to call in the police to stop the flood of my skeptical questions.
There is no doubt that achieving the highest grades in school and university is important, but it did not mean much after graduation. The reason was often that the study materials had little connection to lived reality, and the curriculum focused on memorization rather than understanding, questioning, doubting, and criticizing, but rather on acceptance, memorization, and silence, in addition to the weakness of the academic subjects.
***
The task of building state facilities falls on the shoulders of engineers, and the degree of a country’s progress can be gauged by the number and quality of its engineers. I used to believe that electrical engineering was the most difficult field, as is the case with most scientific subjects, but it turned out that this is not absolutely true. These subjects mostly rely on understanding equations, and once understood, the ambiguity disappears. This contrasts with literary subjects, which require creativity, such as writing novels and poetry, among others. Therefore, it is not easy to choose a subject and label it as the most difficult, as the matter largely depends on an individual’s strengths and weaknesses.
However, one can judge the relative difficulty of a subject compared to others through specific indicators, such as dropout rates and academic workload. We see, for example, that these are increasing among physics students, especially in quantum mechanics and electromagnetism, due to their reliance on advanced mathematics and abstract concepts that are hard to visualize, requiring calculus, differential equations, and four-dimensional thinking—areas in which I will never excel.
There is also organic chemistry, which cannot be mastered merely by memorizing chemical reactions. It requires three-dimensional spatial thinking, understanding mechanisms, recognizing patterns, and serves as a key tool for filtering out students unqualified for medical studies. Third comes advanced mathematics, which relies on real analysis, abstract algebra, and differential equations, during which the focus shifts from “calculate this” to “prove this from first principles.”
Fourth are subjects such as fundamentals of engineering, thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, and electrical circuits, which involve a vast number of problems and require participation in laboratories and group projects. Finally, not least, come computer science, which relies on algorithms, data structures, and operating systems. These require mathematical logic and building large projects that may take 10 hours just to debug. Those who know programming but lack computational thinking often fail to continue their studies.
The irony lies in the fact that those who run and control the world—politicians, legislators, and top business leaders—have almost no connection to any of the subjects mentioned above.
Ahmed Al-Sarraff
