“When Am I Ever Going to Use This?” The Real Answer Students Need to Hear

A student asked me this question again this week: “When am I ever going to use this?” It wasn’t sarcastic. It wasn’t meant to challenge me. It was a student trying to figure out the point of the work in front of them.

I used to dodge this question early in my career or try to sell the assignment as something with obvious real-world value and utility. Now I answer it directly and honestly.

The truth is simple: what we learn in school isn’t something you’ll use in a literal, step-by-step way later in life. And I’ve stopped pretending otherwise.

But that doesn’t make the learning meaningless. In fact, it gets at what school is actually for.

Learning content, whether it’s history, math, geography, literature, or science, builds the mind you’ll use in every area of life. Cognitive science makes this pretty clear: the more you know, the better you think. Knowledge gives you more examples to draw from, more context to understand new information, and more mental efficiency because your working memory doesn’t have to do everything from scratch.

You don’t need to “use” every idea directly for it to matter. Background knowledge isn’t a collection of future tasks; it’s the raw material your brain uses to make sense of the world. Students who know more read better, decide better, solve better, and understand more. That’s especially true when life gets complex or unfamiliar, which, for most adults, is often.

There’s also a larger purpose to learning that has nothing to do with personal utility. E.D. Hirsch’s idea of cultural literacy captures this well: societies depend on shared knowledge. People need a common base of facts, references, and concepts in order to communicate, make decisions, understand news, participate in civic life, and avoid being misled. A population without broad knowledge is easier to divide and easier to confuse.

When I explain this to students, I keep it straightforward. I tell them something like:

“You will not directly use this exact information again, and that’s okay. The point isn’t the specific task. The point is the knowledge you’re building. The more you know, the better your brain works, you read faster, understand more, and think more clearly. That’s what this lesson is doing for you.”

And then I add:

“There’s also the bigger picture. A lot of what we learn becomes part of the shared knowledge that lets people make sense of the world together. That’s cultural literacy. It’s what helps you understand news, conversations, arguments, and events happening around you. You use that every day, even if you don’t notice it.”

So the message to them is:

“You’re not learning this for one future moment. You’re learning it because it strengthens your mind and because it helps you participate in the world with everyone else.”

That’s the honest answer. School isn’t a catalog of future tasks; it’s the process of shaping a capable mind and building an educated society. Students handle that truth better than we assume. Most of the time, they aren’t really asking about utility. They’re asking whether the work matters at all.

It does. Not because every lesson shows up again in a specific situation later in life, but because every lesson becomes part of a person’s capacity to navigate life, contribute to their community, and make sense of the world.

That’s what I explain to students when they ask, “When am I ever going to use this?”

So, tell them the truth. Stop with the “Oh, you’ll use this when you balance a checkbook” or “if you want to become a scientist.” Be honest: you won’t use it exactly but the capacity for thinking and knowledge you’re building will shape how you understand the world and participate in it.