Things I had to learn in school that I thought I wouldn't need to know in the real world but surprisingly turned out to be useful

• Typing on the numeric keypad (the numbers keys on the rightmost side of a full keyboard) for data entry
• Typing without looking at my hands (not surprised at this, but I was so annoyed at our teacher for making us do this)
• the Pythagorean theorem, for calculating the size of/amount of space needed for furniture
• "To increase the surface area", the blanket answer given to us by my high school biology teacher for what we should put for the answer to any quiz/exam question we didn't know, since that is the answer to just about anything