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What are your thoughts on the Higher School Certificate?

PrawnStar

PrawnStar

Bluelighter
Joined
Jul 25, 2002
Messages
101
Location
Sydney, Australia
Yeah yeah, i'm currently breezing through my final year of high school. thank fuck it's almost over..

One thing that makes me wonder though is that pretty much everyone I know, with the exception of family and teachers @ school, have told me that their HSC didn't mean shit for whatever you do later on; if anything a good uai just allows you do get into your preferred uni course faster than say having a lower uai and using other methods to do the courses you want, which can then later be accredited towards courses @ uni..

I am by all means not worried or stressed about it, being smart I am breezing through all my subjects with little effort.

Of course if i knew exactly what courses I wanted to do then it would be the quickest easiest option to enter it;..
At this stage i really have no idea what I'll be heading to when I finish, but I believe that hsc or no hsc I will still find a way to get into whatever I want, if I want it enough.

I'm wondering what the general concensus here is, most of you being the younger generation and would have done it in recent years..
How much has your final result ended up helping you reach your desired career path?

;););)
 
I didnt know how to study at school.. I scraped into uni doing business... so yeah my UAI was very important... now of course it means shit... and well with the new education thing where if u dont get in u can pay to do it, u probably have good chances of getting into anything u want

to use the ministers phrasing... if u cant get on the bus u can get in the traylor that is being pulled along behind.

I didnt know what i wanted to do when i left school... I wanted to do marketing or something... hehehe how things change when u find accounting more interesting than marketing.

Anyway good luck with it all. Make sure u go to as many house parties as u can in year 12... I miss underage drinking

Backo
 
meh!

I finished in 2001,

I didn't study much! 8o

i'm just peachy fucking keen now though 8( ;)
 
Ok as an employer it means absolutely nothing to me as long as you have experience in some related field, and you'd be amazed how unrelated these "related fields" are - like if you worked on front counter or drive through at hungry jacks, to me that considers you for a receptionist or admin job, it shows you have been trained well in customer service skills at the very least.

As a recruitment manager, it all comes down to job stability and contacts in whatever field you're going into.

For Uni your OP, TER, UAI, SACE, HSC (and whatever ones I've missed) scores are pretty important first year out of high school, but you can wait until you're 18-21 (depending on the uni) sit your STAT/s (special tertairy admissions test/s) which is a piece of cake and go from there.

Oh and I forgot to mention all of those alternative pathways like TAFE, OLA etc
 
I've found my HSC to be of not much importance - I'm not even sure where the hell the certificate is hehe.

I think its value lies in it being a stepping stone into further education more than acquiring employment. Having said this, if you are young with no epxerience and only with this under your belt, it will look favourable to an employer than not having it.

I say its better to have than not...
 
PrawnStar said:
I am by all means not worried or stressed about it, being smart I am breezing through all my subjects with little effort.
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I dont mean to be a drag, but unless your doing 3U maths, 3U english and some of the what are presumed 'tougher' subjects (pyschic, chemistry - always the sciences :\) and breezing them i would be wanting to get to top 5 of your classes. Heres how my understanding of it is... (i finished last year). If your in the middle of your classes for everything at a reasonable school you will get a reasonable UAI. I was doing great in 2 subjects, alright in 2 others and shit in my last one (maths... *shudders at memory*), i came out with two band 5's, two 4's and one 3 (maths :(), i got 73.9, now i was happy... happy until the scores for uni came out... bleh regardless of scores you have to remeber how and where your marks come from and marked against.

You get 100 marks from 'inschool' exams (u prob know all this, just im stressing it along with everyone else so your aware), then you get a mark out of 100 for your actual 'HSC' exam, external one. The first mark of 100 (from school) is compared against other candidates in your subject, in your school, so how well your school does in that subject. They then compare you external mark against everyone in state, and that gets moderated (dont know how... blah department of education make it all so stupidly hard). They put the 2 marks of 100 together to get your 'final' result for that subject, which hopefully wont move to much cos of previous moderations... (just think the chain of moderations, from your grade for each exam, to board of studies across state then put together and fiddled with... ridiculous really) That final mark determines what band your in, and they allocate the bands according to what % of people were at the top of a subject and so on... (i remeber english advanced had like 6% or something of ~20000 kids in band six bout 1200) Its from your 'band' marks that determine your UAI, pretty much. So once you are put through all the bell curves you want to be towards the top or you get slid down to match the bell curve, and then to throw in on top of all that UAC (admission centre, who determines UAI) 'weight' some subjects differently... Now i dont want to sound like im special but i saw the graphs for 2001 HSC (first on new system), and they were shocking... to get 100 for general maths the mark (HSC Mark) had to be like 95.4, not so hard... yeh but then when you looked at what mark u needed to get 99 from UAC and it was like 80... its this gay exponential curve thing... (have a look at attachment for gay drawing i did)... so unless your near top expect to slide... Trust me i know what your thinking... if i could have seen this i would have picked different subjects... oh and for the reverse, say your doing 3U maths... if you got 20 as you final HSC mark, it got scaled by UAC to and eqivalent of 66 UAI... so thats 'difficult' subject rating for you... imagine on graph line getting flatter alot quicker for 3U maths...

That looks like a mouthful and if you bothered to read... well i hope your better off, its just i cant stress enough how important it is to moderately well now... if your average you end up with the short stick in the end which is gay... if your a touch below average well, yeh i wont say... i had a few friends who i thought were quite smart get 60's... and its evil (evil i tell you! :X) watching them mope about for months not knowing what to do.

i hope i havnt scared you... but good luck, and i hope you do good! Remeber to maintain the social life, its the only remedy in the end! ;)

So, yeah... thats the end of my rant, i can see the logic in it all... but fuck if you get people who want to be doctors in 3 years, but didnt get the mark way back then i think that the uni's miss out on students who would do so much work and put so much effort in that it really isnt fair on those people... get me... bleh... to much thinking done after an accounting exam...

-Hyper
 
Backo said:
I didnt know what i wanted to do when i left school... I wanted to do marketing or something... hehehe how things change when u find accounting more interesting than marketing.

Anyway good luck with it all. Make sure u go to as many house parties as u can in year 12... I miss underage drinking

Backo
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god, now thats a bad state to be in! accounting! gah! i did first year and it was all over! but seriously, i'd be hard pushed to remember what UAI i got, and i left in 2000. its more a connection between school and uni as opposed to anything tangible. but yeah, underage drinking was way cool :)
 
Jubas said:
accounting! gah! i did first year and it was all over!
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Just happened right then... Finished my account exam 2 hrs ago... i feel like utter shit, and as usual i think i went alright... But i probably failed... meh im not coming back next semester... Oh and underage drinking rocks, i only just turned 18... and already i feel it takes the fun out of trying to buy it, or sneak into some seedy back water RSL (well walk in the front door.. :\) but underage drinking rocks...

Back to topic... sorry...
 
hehe, accounting always makes you feel like absolute crap, there is no way around it! its one of those "get it out of the way".

but on topic, i seriously got over my hsc in about april. Everyone goes "this is the most important exam of your life!". Its not, there's so much more. Don't stress it, but try hard. What happens happens. If you prepare, chances are you will go better. if you stress chances are you'll go worse, so its good to see you nice and relaxed :)
 
The HSC's a crock of shit.

i did fuck all the entire year, didnt even study for the hsc and i killed it haha, a UAI of 71 worked for me and i didnt even have to try haha %)

But nah do the HSC if u wanna go to uni but if u dont plan on going to uni then fuck it right off.
 
Well I got 74 when I finished my TCE in 1998 in Tasmania. This was bumped up to a UAI of 94 for some of the complex reasons mentioned above.

What has it done for me?

It got me into the course I wanted to do at UNSW where the entrance requirements are pretty tough.

But I ended up switching to uni back in Tassie when my dad got sick and changing courses. At UTAS the entrance requirements for most courses are absolutely minimal (eg. 30 for law). Although the standard of the uni is good the lower population means they have to be more accepting of students to get them enrolled and get funding.

So overall it's done bugger all for me.

Keep in mind that your UAI is likely to be a strong predictor of your results at uni (in most cases). If you get a good UAI then you must know how to study effectively which will help you in later life. My year 12 exams have proven to be the hardest of my life (just finished 3rd year arts/commerce) and the study skills I learnt in high school I am relying on at uni.
 
I did ok in the HSC with 87 UAI whic I managed with absolutey no study at all. However just because I cna do that doesn't mean everybody can- I just happen to be good at shitting my way through exams.

I personally don't think the HSC is a crock of shit. I think it prepares you for things to come in the future- such as further study etc. I look back now and think "jeez, that was so easy, just that little bit more and i could have done better" but the fact is I didn't.

Uni isn't that easy to get into as a mature age. Yeah, you can probably get into a Bachelor of Arts, but I wouldn't go around saying you can get into anything if you go the right way about it. My course (BA Communication UTS) only takes on 20 mature age students a year of the 4000 that apply. There are also courses which don't accept mature age students and some only when you present portfolio's, essays etc etc. What I'm saying, is that it is by no means easier to get into uni without the correct UAI.

good luck to everyone doing their HSC!!
 
mad.. thanks heaps for the replies guys..
I guess if I keep up what i'm doing now, i'll be sweet.. i only attend minimal classes, don't do homework or study, and only put the effort into the exams and assesments thats marks count, which has put me to the top of my classes even though i'm hardly @ school or doing any work..
I wonder why people find it so hard & get so worked up about it..
Anyway good luck with it all. Make sure u go to as many house parties as u can in year 12... I miss underage drinking
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lol.. i miss underage drinking and house parties too! been "18" for a good while now. :\

happy weekend! =D
 
<misc rant>
Frankly I can think of no better way to make yourself look like an egotistical tosspot than to attract attention to how little work you did and how credible your result was. Seems like a common social stigma... "I got xx... but I did no work" (I'm smarter than my marks reflect, and I could have done better).

Well, regardless of your mental capacity, you didn't do better, so what the fuck does it matter?
</misc rant>

Err, anyway... I'm currently repeating my HSC so that I can go to university.

Not all of that is completely correct hyperspeed, I recommend you check out the forums at Bored of Studies.

:)
 
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Sorry to bump it up, but apollo i know some of that isnt right its just what we were fed, and as far as i know that alot of what happens to your marks... the worst when they get to UAC... but yeh thanks for sayin they arnt entirely correct... I wish everyone doing their HSC the best of luck and dont be disheartened when you get the admissions book with required UAI's, they are but a guide!

-Hyper
 
Apollo is correct... just because alot of people say they did fuck all to achieve their UAI doesnt mean that u shouldnt if u are studying.

I got just a good enough mark to get into my course and at the time i did as much study as i could to get it... sure i didnt know how to study but... if u really want to uni... why not put in a hard year of study.. fuck its only a year... and you will def think it was worth it when u dont have to pay as much for your uni course when these new changes come in.

Oh yeah and i got the exact same mark as Whiteboy
 
what hsc ?

*says this after completing hsc last year*

i say if you have a passion for a particular subject or career path your hsc mark shouldnt be stopping you from taking that extra step forward .. your uai will make things easier, but if you are determined to do something you will find the path you need.

my uai marks wernt that high and i could only do shittie courses at shiet uni's, instead i am doing a 1 year multimedia course now which is teaching me more of what i want to learn and next year i am garenuteed a place in maquarie uni 2nd year, or if i maintain a distinction average a high chance of going to UTS or UNSW.

but hey you said your doing well, your half yearlys should indicate how you are going .. dont stress and you should do fine :)
 
No worries hyperspeeding... :) I was going to explain it all here, but it's just so fucking complicated that I don't feel I can word it properly without copying & pasting. Easier just to post a link :)

just because alot of people say they did fuck all to achieve their UAI doesnt mean that u shouldnt if u are studying.
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fuckin oath Backo. There's nothing wrong with studying to get results. Anyone implying that there is, simply because they didn't, can go jump.

:)
 
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