It didn't teach me anything about electronics, I was too young to really grasp what I was doing. It taught me that with sufficient knowledge you can make something out of individually useless bits of electronics.
You're right to be more demanding of your undergrad quant class but this might be just the thing to get your 8 year old niece/nephew interested in science.
And now we've closed the loop on the original debate that kids can't have dangerous chemicals, if they're not going to learn the difference anyway, may as well use perfume instead of carbon tet and koolade powder instead of chromium compounds.
You absolutely can in the UK. I pay £15/mo for the same service my friend pays £34/mo with a phone. He's in a 24month contract instead of my 12 and will end up some £150 down over the course of the contract.
That seems bizarre in the UK. I pay $24/mo and get truly unlimited data, with tethering included, as well as 2000 minutes and 5000 texts (and receiving doesn't come out of your allowance in the UK, the caller pays that fee).
It's absolutely cheaper to buy devices outright here.
Example of Three's One Plan for a 32GB 5s (£):
24 mo contract
Device 99
Plan 46
24 mo total = 1203
12 month contract + BYOD
Device 629
Plan 15
24 mo total = 989