Academic Choices

Sooner or later, there comes a time when we must choices. Inevitable, career-defining choices. The kind of choices that would shape your life forever and would determine your happiness for the next twenty years.

Now with this in mind, imagine the roller coaster of emotions I went through as I sat through my taster sessions (the education equivalent of pitching products to sceptical punters. Except instead of products, think subjects. And instead of punters, think students).

Just to give some background info, I have come to the stage in my academic life when I must make the agonising choice of what subjects to take for 6th form college. It is mandatory to take four subjects at A-level, and I am taking 11 GCSEs. Therefore it leaves me with much to think about.

For the taster sessions, I had already picked five subjects I was considering: Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and History (spot the odd one out?). So the purpose of today was for me to attend these sessions, listen to their feeble pitch and laugh at their pathetic attempts at convincing me their subject is the best thing since illegal downloads.

So here's my summary of the five tasters:

Biology
Went there. Sat there. Got bored.

Throughout the whole thirty minutes, the teacher couldn't stress enough the fact that people shouldn't take the subject course just for the 3-day ecological expedition.

Would anyone want to go on an expensive trip to Yorkshire (of all places) just so they can spend three nights in a shoddy YMCA and observe ecology? Pu-lease. If I wanted to wade in mud, count grass or stand in the rain I'd simply play football, or roll round in my garden when it's flooded.

Chemistry
The subject itself seemed less appealing than biology although the information given was far more useful. I'll probably end up taking it since I want to do medicine (and go to many tequila fuelled house parties like those in Grey's Anatomy).

When asked how many people in the room wanted to do Medicine, almost everyone indicated that they too shared my alcohol fueled dreams. I eyed up all the competition, and felt concerned all day.

Maths
Trust the maths session to be done by numbers! I was quoted facts, figures and percentage. Just like this paragraph, the teacher was ruthlessly efficient in delivering the details and there was time to spare. I sat for the remaining five minutes pondering my future.

History
I've got no idea why I picked this, I think I did it on impulse. The room was filled with people who had done GCSE History and I was extremely intimidated by the ginger catholic social-sciences freak sitting next to me (Torquer knows who I'm talking about!) ranting on about how the school pressurises people to take sciences.

That's all I can remember from the History taster session, which is probably why I won't take it next year.

Physics
And so we come to the last taster session.

This was the only subject that did not make any attempt to convince us to take it. The teacher said something along the lines of: "If you're not 100% committed to the course then fuck off! This course is oversubscribed as it is so I don't give a shit if you take it or not. Last year we failed a whole class of students. That's more than the number of people who subscribed for Art, failing all them was like a drop in the ocean. A drop in the fucking ocean!"

For some reason that just made me want to take Physics even more.

So that was a summary of my taster sessions. I have another litter-picking session this week-end and an options evening on Monday. Hopefully they'll make more interesting posts than this.