Does anybody know about ESRI/ARC and GIS?

I am grad school right now and was told I needed to take classes in GIS to learn ESRI for my career interest...geography, planning, and demography.


I got to say that I find ESRI and GIS to be an absolutely TERRIBLE subject and system.
This is completely un-user friendly with poor directions, the labs take hours, the book makes all kinds of assumptions about what you should know and skips steps.

The WORST thing is that when you ask others they just say "well yea the system can be this way but you just have to play around," to me ESRI SEEMS to be something designed by people who are EASports rejects.

I was wondering if any of you are familiar with ESRI and GIS and if you have had similar experiences, what you recommend, and if for my field I really need this or this is something I can skip.Hello, here is a personal OPTION,
but one that is held by a growing minority.

Now is not the right time to invest you personal energy in a science that is both hard but lacking in practical use.

Go to a library, maybe not the one at you school, browse around and find out some things. Like maybe:
1.  Why do politicians ignore demographics except if it has something to do with voting?
2. Why do businessmen ignore the needs of people unless there is a profit motive?
3. Why does the planning commission make a new study of something that was obviously wrong years ago?

Where are you? In the a major English speaking country? Visit some other countries. That is an education in itself and one that will lead to doors that academia will never show you. To really understand Demographics you must understand the CULTURE and traditions of other peoples.

BTW. Have you looked at how the Dutch plan their GROWTH?