I'm in my fourth semester of Ancient Greek right now, reading Herodotus. It's killer. Ach.

Let me check, has been ages since I did all of this.
I won't tire you with all the things we have to study, just focus on the 4 years before getting to university to study a computer engineering career (technical sciences)
- 3 languages, spanish catalan and english. Latin as well, as it's the basis for half the european culture.
- Maths all 4 years. More or less difficult depending if you're going to linguisitcs or technical careers.
- Literature, both spanish, catalan and european/worldwide
- Same for history
- Filosophy (history of philosophy more exactly)
- Biology
- Fisics and Chemistry (2 different subjects)
- Technical drawing (was this or even another year of biology disecting rats)
- Sports (also including basic human fisiology, games and how people interact in group games and the rules of several olimpic sports).
- Religion/history of the religions/ethics

Minimun of two years on each subject, minus latin who only lasted one year.

Last year we have to prepare to enter college and thus is entirely devoted to prepare some nation-wide exams where you need to obtain the minimal grade to enter the career of your choice in public universities (wich happen to be actually the best and oldest of Spain). That means maths, fisics, chemistry, technical drawing, spanish, catalan, english, philosophy, history and text analysis for a person who is going to study a sciences career, and two days of exams, one for each subject. This last year you only do it to enter college, and all the non technical subjects are considered "general culture" and so included in the exams, but I could say a very elevated % of the population at least gets to do 2/3 of those 4 years (besides all the 8 years of the basical education, wich is more generic even)

I can swear after all of this, college was holidays.

Wow they messed up the Curriculum since I did it, I got to pick like 5 of my 13 GCSEs

and as a clarification some of it is a government requirement.

English/English Lit
Maths
Double Science (or Seperate Sciences) are compulsory

then depending on the type of school various other things become compulsory such as

Modern foreign Language (meaning I had to do German as well as Latin)
A Technology Varient (Electronics/Resistant Materials/Graphics Design)

so in most schools thats 7 subjects picked for you. 8 if you do seperate sciences.

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And as a note the new AS/A2 system sucks, they way we did it back in the day made much more sense.

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And for those interested I did
GCSE
----
Maths - A
English - C
English Lit - C
German - B
Latin - A
Economics - B
Geography - B
Biology - B
Physics - A
Chemistry - A*
ICT - A
Religious Studies & Philosophy - B
Electronics - B

A-Level
-------
Chemistry - A
Latin - B
General Studies - B
Maths - C
Physics - D

Degree
------
Chemistry, Resources and The Environment - 2:1

It was just yet more dumbing down. I was in the first year of the new system.. indeed, the guy who took over (shortly after) as the headmaster of my school was the civil servant who had just put the changes in place. He could later be quoted as realising that he'd made a mistake. I just do not understand why the Government implements new policy on the advice of civil servants without practical and varied experience of the infrastructure they legislate for.. anyway. Comparing the A-level exams I did back when I did them to the ones even 4 years before, there was a perceptible difference in difficulty. I have no idea to what extent they have become easier since.. I presume they haven't much..
But the new AS/A2 system -was- a step down. Inevitably, if you allow people to do a qualification in two (or more) distinct stages, rather than doing it all at once.. it's going to be easier.

I'm sittin' pretty this semester. Our schedule is on blocks, which means classes are around an hour and a half.

First block: AP English, the only class I do anything in. And even so, we're doing writing portfolios and I have everything written, so.. Yay, socializing time.
Second: I'm in this Yearbook class.. thing. We don't really do anything. We sell ads in the yearbook and.. actually that's it. Nothing for a good hour and a half.
LUNCH! Might as well be a class, as far as I'm concerned.
Third: Medical Terminology, which is what I'm in right now. Our teacher's not here, so we're just doing busy-work. I just took this class because I have nothing else to take and I'm too lazy to take Chemistry. Plus I thought it'd be cool to be able to watch House and know what they're talking about. It's kind of humbling though, the last word I just "figured out" is proctoplasty, which is.. the surgical repair of the rectum.
Fourth: I have a Co-op class that I give to leave school to go to work for. So basically I leave school every day at 1:30. And work until 3:30 or 4. And that's it.

It's so freaking great. *relaxes*

Since they made our education system more similar to the european one (they wanted to stereotype it, so we all study the same years, careers can be homologated more easy, stuff like that) the level here is ridiculous. Specially since they made mandatory studies longer, so had to drop the level for those people who just don't want to study to be able to pass them. Or to say we have an average better grade, don't know. Nobody asked the teachers anyway

I could do my brother tests after 4 years without touching those books, for a 9/10 result.

Of course, colleges aren't eating this and aren't lowering their standards so much, so kids have a big bad scare first year at university, when they're faced with old teachers that think it's impossible that a technical student had not studied basic maths (with reason) and fails them.

Yeah I'm forced into an MFL and a tech too, french and food technology

Got my report today, predicted grades are:

English- A
Maths- A
Science (x2)- B
French- A
History- A
Food- A
Religious Studies- A
Music- C/D ()

I reckon it'll be English Lit, Biology, Psychology and French at AS level, then drop French at A level. Then probably Psychology at uni.

Predicted grades...

English: A*
English lit: A
Maths: A*
Chemistry: A*
Biology: A
Physics: A*
ICT: A/B
Philosophy and Ethics: A/B
Geography: A/B
Music: B/C. Just don't try anymore. It used to be my favourite subject.
Drama: A/B

Of course, predicted grades mean so little...

A strategic coma, and your predicted grades could become your real grades.

In Canada you can get into some universities solely based on predicted marks. Well...if you're in some programs anyways (example IB).

I hate IB. I wish I could go back and slap myself to do better in IB before I transferred to save my GPA and to keep myself from doing bodily harm.

Well, maybe I don't hate IB.. just Banneker.

Oh well! The week is over! So did anything interesting happen for anyone?

I rediscovered a social life. My girlfriend, two of my old guy friends, a girl I hung out with in high school, my girlfriend's friend and I all went to dinner last night, and then we grabbed another guy and went to play Mario Kart 64.

Having a social life is a big accomplishment for me, since I have a full time job and a girlfriend.

Edit: Might post some pics in the player pics section once I get them sent to me.

Yeah, I hear that. I'm still a student, but I've got a full load of classes. And a full-time girlfriend, who just started a full-time job, so I've got my work cut out for me takin' care of her when I can, too. I miss getting to hang out with friends...

I wanted to do Psychology for AS/A2 level, but nooo.. No space. Instead it's Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Maths... I'd like to have done Drama, too, because I would have liked to go into acting. But just not good enough, and no space for it. Irritating.

Well I wanna be one, so it's the only one in that group that's guaranteed.

Thing is though, psychology has become really popular, and it's not guaranteed, so English is my fall back. If I don't succeed in psychology then I'll probably try writing. I always intended to submit a bardical, as I'm a reasonable writer, but I never really got round to it.

A boyfriend, an apartment to keep, a new apartment to re-decorate and move to in a few months, full time job, part time hobby job, another part time hobby job, also 3 raids a week in WoW (that's about 5h per raid) plus time with my alts, cinema once a week, dinning out more than thrice a week... And sleepign 8h a day
And I manage a social life away from computers.

I wonder... Richter how many days have your char accumulated this week??

Whee.. C++ is fun.

... Switching from VB.net to my stupid History class before the semester started was not smart though.

You're Lucky

I'm bustin my butt trying to get all my grades up so that I can pass 10th, and make it to 11th grade It's so hard, I shouldn't have slacked off in the beginning of the year

I'm not sure how my classes are yet. Anthropology is boring as anying (today I came to class well rested and fully alert, after 45 minutes I couldn't keep my head up), and my algorithm class seems easy so far, as are most computer science classes to me. I'm most worried about my math courses. One of my classes is a 400 level math course, which alone is enough to worry me, although it doesn't seem too bad so far, makes much more sense then some of my 200 levels classes (such as abstract algebra...). I am a little concerned how my stat teacher said "Good job" to me before handing back that 11/15 quiz. 72% is good...?

Are they working on a curve? How's everyone else doing in the class anyway?