Reply #4: I have a quarrel with one of the statistics

[nuxvomica]

"The amount of new technical information is doubling every 2 years. For students starting a 4-year technical degree this means that... half of what they learn in their first year of study will be outdated by their third year of study."

Well it doesn't necessarily mean that at all. In their first year of study they would be learning fundamentals and most of those probably won't change. I concede that the rate of technical information obsolescence could be as high as they say but it doesn't follow directly from the first statistic.