A diploma doesn't make you ready

Congrats grads of 2011! You just proved you could memorize enough stuff, paraphrase SparkNotes, and show up often enough for class to earn some sort of diploma. But there's a surprise waiting for you once the party balloons pop and you burn through the money you got from graduation parties.

You do not know the exact time or the place, but it will hit you: You will need to remember some of the stuff you learned from school.

Before we go further, I'd like to explain that I am not an expert on the subject. I am a college student a semester away from getting a bachelor's degree in journalism.

My knowledge on the subject comes from getting a part-time job at a library. I have learned that I still needed to remember a number of things from high school to function in the real world.

Here three things that every human needs to retain after throwing their caps in the air.

1. Spelling: Even in today's increasingly computerized society, there is not going to be a red squiggly line under every misspelled word. There are going to be power outages and there are going to be times when hand-written notes are easier to spot than e-mails in a work place. If you can't spell a simple word, it doesn't look good.

2. Math: Not that crazy geometry involving logs and powers, just simple cash register math. You may think that is what your cell phone is for, but it will take more time than remembering your multiplication tables.

3. Any random fact you ever learned: Quick story: I found out my boss' granddaughter was born three months premature. I remembered what a premature baby nursery looked like after visiting one as part of a science club field trip. I was able to ask questions to find out what it was like to see her grandbaby wrapped in tubes.

The whole point of school is to get a broad base of knowledge to use at the most random times. This doesn't just apply to school stuff, either. If you can make conversation with someone, you can show competence.

Kristine Starkey can be contacted at starkey.record@live.com.