Educators acknowledge HSC flaws (2 Viewers)

[sirable1]

I'll probably score a much higher ATAR if I were to pick my subjects right in school. I would have picked all humanities subjects rather than the sciences.

 

[Crobat]

I'll probably score a much higher ATAR if I were to pick my subjects right in school. I would have picked all humanities subjects rather than the sciences.

I was in the same position, but my attitude to HSC in the end (after realising how stupid my subject selections were) quickly became an entrance ticket to university and nothing more, so I stopped caring about the number that was going to inevitably be lower than it should've been and just focussed on getting it high enough for my course - and I succeeded, thankfully. I think that's kind of the right attitude to take to the HSC, given that most of the course work you learn in high school will have minimal relevance if any to university courses and that the ATAR system responds to subject selections more so than it does your effort/results. The problem lies with how shallow the syllabus from the start of high school (I'm talking Year 7) actually is and the enormous jump this creates when anything remotely challenging or has a bit more relevance to anything begins in Year 11. The jump from Year 10 - 11 is way too big, and even then the Year 11/12 work isn't that challenging or advanced enough to provide a substantial base to university subjects, so changing it would create an even larger gulf which shouldn't be there in the first place. Everything enoilgam and Spiritual has said basically covers it, and coincidentally, my friend who got 99.95 who had to write a speech about his "journey" for this start up tutoring thing and I shit you not he actually said that he "saw the HSC as a game."

 

[Lina3]

It's also hard to pick subjects based on what you want to do in the future. Many people change their pathway/course during uni - it's hard to know what you want to be at 15/16.

I agree with this. However, surely by 15/16 years of age an individual knows what their strengths are and what they are interested in; even if it be as vague as realizing whether they are more of a creative or logic-based person. Yes, of course people often change their preferences once in uni but the times I've heard of this happening its been to a similar stream. That is to say, the person transferred from say, an English major in a BA to a History major. This is understandable. Its the cases when someone jumps from one subject to another entirely different discipline is what most of the people on here raise their eyebrows at. If you did all performing arts for the HSC and are doing a dance course in uni, why would you decide to suddenly go and do engineering?

 

[Drongoski]

I agree with this. However, surely by 15/16 years of age an individual knows what their strengths are and what they are interested in; even if it be as vague as realizing whether they are more of a creative or logic-based person. Yes, of course people often change their preferences once in uni but the times I've heard of this happening its been to a similar stream. That is to say, the person transferred from say, an English major in a BA to a History major. This is understandable. Its the cases when someone jumps from one subject to another entirely different discipline is what most of the people on here raise their eyebrows at. If you did all performing arts for the HSC and are doing a dance course in uni, why would you decide to suddenly go and do engineering?

The person may realise belatedly that it is easier to make a living as an engineer than as a dancer.

 

[someth1ng]

Another problem is that your intuition of what you want to do can be very different to what it is actually like. For example, I wanted to do physics - now, not so much. But then again, I wanted to do chemistry and I'm still up for it..

One thing that bothers me is that they always seem to want to dumb everything down. Personally, I feel that the HSC sciences are WAY too easy and are probably should be year 10 level. Really, year 7-10 science is all the same shit. I want to see year 7-10 put into two years (year 7-8), HSC content to be year 9-10 and first year uni to be year 11-12.

We need to actually show them what the field is like, if we want people to specialise in the right field. This problem is very obvious in physics.

 

[isildurrrr1]

The person may realise belatedly that it is easier to make a living as an engineer than as a dancer.

yeah doubt anybody whose a dancer will decide to go to engineering as a career choice. engineering kills hopes and dreams of many lol.

 

[Crobat]

One thing that bothers me is that they always seem to want to dumb everything down. Personally, I feel that the HSC sciences are WAY too easy and are probably should be year 10 level. Really, year 7-10 science is all the same shit. I want to see year 7-10 put into two years (year 7-8), HSC content to be year 9-10 and first year uni to be year 11-12.

We need to actually show them what the field is like, if we want people to specialise in the right field. This problem is very obvious in physics.

Entirely agree here. Maybe not directly 1st year uni stuff but more content that would be covered in 1st year uni or revised in it in more than 2 weeks.

 

[Lina3]

The person may realise belatedly that it is easier to make a living as an engineer than as a dancer.

That was more of a rhetorical question XD but my ultimate point is that why would you do a Uni course for which you have not been prepared in ANY way by your previous education? Also, I am sure it is much easier to make a living as a good dancer than as a bad engineer.

 

[nerdasdasd]

That was more of a rhetorical question XD but my ultimate point is that why would you do a Uni course for which you have not been prepared in ANY way by your previous education? Also, I am sure it is much easier to make a living as a good dancer than as a bad engineer.

The engineer has more options .

 

[unforlornedhope]

The engineer has more options

I agree. You have to be like the best of the best as a dancer in order to survive, but you can be average in engineering and still make a living.

 

[Crobat]

That was more of a rhetorical question XD but my ultimate point is that why would you do a Uni course for which you have not been prepared in ANY way by your previous education? Also, I am sure it is much easier to make a living as a good dancer than as a bad engineer.

Well it's not really unheard of... Lots of people go into law without having done legal studies and lots of people transfer from degrees like Arts and International Studies to Commerce or Sciences because they recognise the limited job prospects of Arts degrees. The way the current HSC system is anyway, everyone practically enters into a degree without prior education or exposure to a uni degree.

 

[nerdasdasd]

The starting salaries of dancers are around 31,200 and they max at 52,000 ..... (Source: open universities)...

Guess what the average is? 43,000.

 

[nerdasdasd]

Most parts of engineering at least have a starting salary > 50 - 60K.

 

[Crobat]

I really don't think it's necessary to go to all that detail about dancers and engineers considering it was a hypothetical example he threw out...

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[DannyBoy33]

dam right they do...this stuffs obvious, for the teachers especially