I suspect a lot of people on HN have similar stories. College is always in conflict between rote memorization (easiest to grade, therefore cheaper) and actual understanding (best outcome, therefore increases college ranking).

Rote memorization often gets a bad wrap.

It shouldn’t be the sole purpose of a class, but sometimes you have to drill people to memorize a bunch of stuff so they’re able to deal with the higher level material.

Imagine doing math if you never had somebody force you to learn multiplication tables. Or if you were doing medical programs but hadn’t been forced to learn the names of all the bones/organs.

Also in admissions, between quality and quantity.