I had machine shop class in high school twice. That would have been 1969-70, 1970-71. I still have hobby tools stored in the tool box I cut, bent, and riveted, a center punch I made on a lathe, a tack hammer I cut, smoothed, and hardened, and some other things. Since that time, I have only used a drill press, never having access to any of the tools since. It was a great learning experience. Along with that, I took a year of wood shop and two years of mechanical drawing, yes with a tee-square, triangle, and pencil on vellum. Oh yes; calculations were all made with a slide rule. I used the drawing most in my career in electronics as an electrical designer in the early '80s before they went with CAD. And while we are at it, a lot of my electronics repairs in the early days were on communications equipment with vacuum tubes, not transistors, and certainly not ICs. I guess my experience sounds like it was during medieval times to my young counterparts I left behind when I retired last fall. 
The hands on work was vital I believe.
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