Kira was smarter than people realize

There's also a certain level of people ignoring the fact that Kira doesn't necessarily need to understand how theoretically particle physics works to operate machinery and technology in one's day to day life on Bajor. This isn't to say she's stupid but I imagine child soldier or not, she's someone possessed of a lot of practical knowledge.

Like the late Tasha Yar or Cassian Andor on another franchise.

 

I just realised that it was only a few days or weeks before "Emissary" that Kira might have ever put on a proper uniform. I feel like there were probably Starfleet refresher courses to bring her up to speed. Piloting 101 etc.

 

Neither would you expect even the average Starfleet Officer to have need of that level of knowledge. And yet they all seem to know their way around such stuff.

 

O'Brian is the greatest engineer ever because he knows how to fix the plumbing.

 

Like economics, education is Trek is something that works great until subjected to scrutiny. Neuroscience does suggest some ways that learning could be improved, but often what people who try to shape educational policy are looking for shortcuts that only work for a small number of kids"grit" comes to mind. OTOH, kids specializing at early ages makes some sense. Young kids might just be working with objects oriented science tools that let's them play with the concepts of quantum physics without needing to go into depth. At age 12, kids are already able to start specializing in topics related to programming, hacking, Robotics, aviation, etc. If they could clear away their other subjects, they might rival adults in terms of knowledge and ability by 17.

Of course, they lose a lot of non-specialty knowledge, or anything that is not central to their job would get neurally pruned away. I think that this is unwittingly shown in Trek. Everyone took temporal mechanics at the academy, but no one remembers those lessons. Knowledge of biology is limited to a few, and real medical care still relies upon a doctor. Musicianship is limited--I think only Spock, Riker, Sisko, and Kim learned it as a lifelong skill, and only Picard picked up an instrument as an adult (no, I don't buy that O'Brien plays cello). There don't seem to be many readers. And when it come to perspectives on civics and political process, crewmembers often need thr captain's perspective in order to come to appropriate decisions.

I think that a lot of the expertise we see is shown to serve thr drama. When Kira needs to do something to the warp core, we should understand that she has people helping her or, in line with what a lot of technical people do, they open the manual, playback or troubleshooting guide and start working down the checklist. The crew probably spends more time looking up procedures than what is shown in order to keep the pace of the plot moving forward.

 

To be honest, I think I forgot about 90% of the stuff I studied in my master's and Ph.D. education (mathematics). Especially the topics I never really used anymore after completing that particular course. Heck, even my knowledge of the field I am supposed to be specialized in has deteriorated quite a bit after a 15 year gap in a job where which I did very little with math -my new job requires more mathematical knowledge and I find I have to 'repair' quite a bit. I suppose it would be no different in the 24th century.

How many musicians / readers/ people with broad interests on civics and political processes would you find in today's professional military, even among those with a degree? (Not intended as a rhetorical question because I don't know and I think that would be the closest analogy we have, even if Starfleet is not a military).

 

There you go...

 

I see O'Brien holding a cello...

 

We saw O'Brien play the cello a couple times on TNG, and the fact the DS9 writers remembered it in "SHADOWPLAY" by him telling Jake his story on how his dad wanted him to be a musician was a small, but wonderful bit of continuity. (In general, Robert Hewitt Wolfe was really good about such things.)

 

If calculus is nothing in 300 years' time, astrophysics will be just a mild step up. Especially if it's all prepackaged... kinda like the old geezer lambasting the kid for not knowing how to count when the cash register does all the work for them.