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Subjects actually helping in real life (3 Viewers)

Chubbeh

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Depends on what you mean by 'real life'.

If it's defined by applicability for future studies, then that depends.

If it's by just overall practicality without the consideration of future studies, then I'd say bits of everything:
- English (skills, not content, learnt via analysing and understanding how media and advertisements work - avoiding being sucked into being scammed pretty much)
- Math+Economics (learning how to interpret mathematical models that are presented in news/future work)
- Sciences+PDHPE (just generally knowing how things work)
- Food Tech (because the basics in cooking is something that seems necessary to learn in life)
- Languages (if you decide to travel or work/live overseas)

There are always some things that you learn in a course that can apply to real life. It's just you have to search hard enough to find some sort of appreciation for it. LOL.
 

Speed6

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Definitely PD/H/PE, has taught me life relevant skills more than any other subject imo.
 

DLMisme

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I've found General Maths to be the most helpful of my subjects in real life. I'm not too fussed on maths, but General is easy and applicable to everyday life.
 

seventhroot

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Feynman

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IMO whether or not you actually use maths you learned in school again, the act of having learned the maths established a wiring in your brain that didn't exist before. and it's the wiring in your brain that makes you a better problem solver
 

emilios

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Doing MX1 and MX2 has greatly improved my problem solving ability, but I'm not quite sure it's seeped into my 'everyday life'.

Content wise, economics is by far the most useful. Lots of the stuff you learn happens in real life around you all the time. Economics is one of the fundamental issues of politics.

Don't think Physics and Chem are too useful tbh. A lot of it is rote, the calculations are all simple manipulations that can basically be memorized and sometimes getting the marks is just a matter of 'giving them what they want'.

English (Adv) is just absolute rubbish. The philosophy behind the course is sound - learning to think critically, analyze and exercise your 'Socrative mind' sound awesome in theory. In practice, how the hell are you meant to produce anything insightful in 40 mins? I did so much analysis on Hamlet and my essay just devolved into "uh action and inaction...". For maximal marks, memorizing essays is king and that's the flaw. To be succinct: they feed you some bullshit about English being compulsory to develop your communication and critical thinking skills, but it's really just there as a technicality so BOSTEST can use it as a benchmark to compare marks across all the other subjects to.
 

RivalryofTroll

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what's so great about economics? pls explain how it is helping irl (unless it's for like comm or something)
You start to think like an economist. :haha:

You can talk about the Federal Budget like a proper person rather than some guy who has no clue on what he is saying.

Things like interest rates or unemployment affect you to an extent so you might as well know something about them.

Of course, its only at a foundation level - however, I think HSC Economics is probably one of the most useful HSC subjects. I mean it doesn't hurt to have a good understanding of the general economy, and as a bonus - it helps you with first year Economics subjects in university if you're doing Commerce or Economics.
 

emilios

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+1000000

The bolded especially irks me. I cannot comprehend the logic with BOSTES using English as a leveller for scaling - that pretty much gives those who excel in the humanities an advantage to attain great marks. As opposed to the maths and science people, if they aren't that good at English and it inevitably brings down their ATAR, then already it is evident that there is a disparity in the ability of students who are forced to take English; you either have it or don't have it.

And sure, learning about what makes us human through the authors interpretation of the movement in it's respective time period is interesting to an extent. But does it teach anything applicable to life?

Emphatically, no.
True but what's the alternative? Make maths compulsory? I'm a maths person and there's no way I'd agree with that.

Not a fan of forcing people to do anything tbh.
 

enigma_1

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what's so great about economics? pls explain how it is helping irl (unless it's for like comm or something)
Economics helps you think about stuff that's happening irl.
Eg the budget (although there is politics involved) - any sane lower-middle class person (sorry for offense) would not vote for Abbott as pm (obv coz he represents the high income earners).
People don't really understand what the reforms and stuff mean (and neither do I). Behind the politics is the economics which many people lack an adequate understanding and hence results in informed decisions which results in people hating Abbott after the release of the budget.
If people would have paid more attention to the reforms and stuff they would have noticed that it is fairly obvious that Abbott is going to cut welfare to low income earners, hence having a regressive effect thus widening the inequality of income in the economy which is not really a government objective tbh so Idk wtf they're actually trying to do.

What does this mean in terms of economic growth? It will reduce because there is lower government expenditure which results in a lower overall aggregate demand, as well as a reduced multiplier effect in the economy.

But Abbott's not stupid, he'll probably increase spending right before the next election (hence giving himself a good image) and might even get elected again because of playing with people's minds - tactics. Economics teaches you to be smart, analyse stuff, and not to accept stuff as it happens, but rather to understand why it happens. Sucks that there's only 5000 people studying it for HSC :(

That was just one example, but yeah.
 

seventhroot

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You start to think like an economist. :haha:

You can talk about the Federal Budget like a proper person rather than some guy who has no clue on what he is saying.

Things like interest rates or unemployment affect you to an extent so you might as well know something about them.

Of course, its only at a foundation level - however, I think HSC Economics is probably one of the most useful HSC subjects. I mean it doesn't hurt to have a good understanding of the general economy, and as a bonus - it helps you with first year Economics subjects in university if you're doing Commerce or Economics.
Economics helps you think about stuff that's happening irl.
Eg the budget (although there is politics involved) - any sane lower-middle class person (sorry for offense) would not vote for Abbott as pm (obv coz he represents the high income earners).
People don't really understand what the reforms and stuff mean (and neither do I). Behind the politics is the economics which many people lack an adequate understanding and hence results in informed decisions which results in people hating Abbott after the release of the budget.
If people would have paid more attention to the reforms and stuff they would have noticed that it is fairly obvious that Abbott is going to cut welfare to low income earners, hence having a regressive effect thus widening the inequality of income in the economy which is not really a government objective tbh so Idk wtf they're actually trying to do.

What does this mean in terms of economic growth? It will reduce because there is lower government expenditure which results in a lower overall aggregate demand, as well as a reduced multiplier effect in the economy.

But Abbott's not stupid, he'll probably increase spending right before the next election (hence giving himself a good image) and might even get elected again because of playing with people's minds - tactics. Economics teaches you to be smart, analyse stuff, and not to accept stuff as it happens, but rather to understand why it happens. Sucks that there's only 5000 people studying it for HSC :(

That was just one example, but yeah.
i c
 

jdennis

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True but what's the alternative? Make maths compulsory? I'm a maths person and there's no way I'd agree with that.

Not a fan of forcing people to do anything tbh.
Yeah I agree. BOSTES should not be giving an advantage to certain types of students just because they need to make their system work. I'm a 'maths' person and I can't stand English, and tbh, it's not my problem that without it being compulsory the system wouldn't work. I couldn't care less. They need to get over it and fix this obvious flaw. Why am I being forced to do a subject I passionately hate because BOSTES couldn't be screwed coming up with a fair system?
 

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