User blog comment:Paarthurnaux/Alteration?????/@comment-3492791-20120916182258

Not all schools of magic are meant to blow somebody up. Alteration is a utilitarian school of magic. The main spells for the school are the skin spells, which increase your armor rating to a varying degree. However there are other spells that have use outside of combat. Such as detect life/death, which allow you to see through walls to where enemies are. Mage/Candle light, which you already know illuminate dungeons and dark areas (however there are nearly zero areas that have totally darkness for it to be useful). Transmute, which allows you to turn iron and silver into gold (which is great for leveling smithing). Equilibrium, which converts health into magicka (which can be extremely useful to a mage if used carefully). And Telekinesis, for...well, ok that one's useless.

Since i'm not a user of alteration on any high level characters, i'm sure i've missed some other spells, but my point is just because it doesn't have use while in combat doesn't make it useless.