Meeting Juniors

Met some juniors (younger by one year) some 30 hours ago....

Seeing them "relaxing" after SPM, I remembered the situation I was in exactly one year ago. It's a shame (shame not= malu, go check dictionary) that I didn't erm...utilised my free-time then. Having gone through the HORRIBLE EXPERIENCE of choosing among a few colleges, I thought I could share some of my experience and views on choosing the future courses with juniors.

See, I had studied A-levels before I came back for Form 6. So I think I can tell some of the differences between the two. I always tell people not taking form 6, provided they can afford other routes of study and not wanting to get into public U, DESPITE THE VERY FACT THAT I GAVE UP A-LEVELS AND CAME BACK FOR FORM 6.

I already had some reasons in my mind, but in front of the juniors, I just couldn't speak.

Just to clarify some facts : I came back to study form 6 not because A-levels was TOO challenging for me or anything, nor was it due to the robbery done on me. It's something personal ok. At that time, I thought coming back studying form 6 is the best decision I could make. I HAD at times REGRETTED but I DON'T blame myself for making the decision.

The reason I did not want to stay for form 6 was because I thought staying for form 6 means continuing to be the same person I had been for the past five years. I wanted change! I wanted to become more independent, to become a different person from what I foresaw had I stayed for form 6.

So I went to a college to study A-levels. I won't talk too much about my personal life (no there wasn't, lol) there, but I'd like to talk about how studying was like, the way I remembered it.

1. First, the library is great. You can sleep in the library. There's a lot of books in there, obviously. You get all those thick thick books, WHICH CAN BE BORROWED unlike at our school, you can't. But then, I'm not sure whether it is fair to compare a school to a college.

2. College life means you had more control over your routines. You decide when you want to eat. You decide when you want to sleep. You decide whether you want to skip a class and nobody will be so wu liao to give you a yellow card, although attendance are taken.

3. Spoonfeeding. Studying form 6 at KSAH means continuing to copy notes from the screen when the teachers teach. Teaching is basically very ineffective if you get certain teachers. Despite the teachers, quite a lot of students like to be fed. Classroom participation basically = 0. Few form 6 students would answer questions from the teacher if they don't have to. Classroom discussion is officially discouraged by one chemistry teacher, damn totalitarian kind of teacher. But just to be fair to him : He has the knowledge to teach, but the teaching methodology needs refinement.

The thing that happen when I was in A-levels is that most my classmates always asked questions in class....until it gets very annoying. Everybody tries to get the best out of the lecturers. However, I checked with another friend who's studying A-levels, and it seemed that the case of my class is an extreme. (maybe further maths people are more studious).

4. Degrees of freedom. Well, personally, I dislike the schooling system. I don't like people telling me to cut my hair, cut my nails, cut my pubic hair. And I hate people cutting them for me. Staying in school means having to follow the dress codes and listen to some stupid teachers telling you "kamu pelajar kolej, kamu bukan lagi pelajar mana-mana sekolah, kena ada disiplin etc". Some people will regard this as trivial matters, whereas some (like me) will be greatly disturbed by this. So it really depends on how you think about discipline and conformity.

5. Tuition. Face it -- teachers at school are NOT GOOD ENOUGH. Tuition is necessary for form 6. This can be both a good and bad point. I guess some students need more guidance from the teacher, but....let's put it this way, if the teachers/lecturers are good enough (good in terms of the quality of lecture, quality of notes, quality of giving you exercises to prepare you for exams etc), you don't need tuition, and this would surely save you a lot of time and enables you to spend more time doing self-revision. I'm not too sure about this, maybe those who are already studying at college or those who are studying form 6 and go to tuition for all 5 subjects have more to say on this.

What I've written so far seems to favour courses other than form 6. Now let's take a look at the advantage bright side of studying form 6.

6. Language problem. I had difficulty conversing in English when I was in college. So I didn't mix well with my classmates. No talks = no exchange of ideas = didn't become mature. Being a passive kind of person, I also did not participate actively in cocurricular activities, ALTHOUGH:
(a) I participated once in a mini-jungle trekking (1-hour walk).
(b) I participated in a trip which is about bringing orphans to Zoo Negara. So I helped to take care of one of the kids. His name is (I forgot). He really liked to play with my handphone, and I let him do, although I am really a stingy kind of person. I still have the pictures he took at the zoo.

okok, before everything turns sappy:

After coming back for form 6, I have to take part in cocurricular activities more actively, which I think is GOOD. Language is no longer a problem, as I can converse in Mandarin, so there is more erm...exchange of ideas, and it is through talking that I observe the differences among people. Now I am an AJK of Science and Maths society. In college you have to compete with the geng geng people....in form 6.....erm....people are still geng I guess....but at least there is chance for me. So what I hope is to have fun and carry out my duty seriously and learn some skills in the process.

7. Cibai bureaucrats. I don't know why, it seems like once a student do some bigger-than-the-usual-small mistakes, many teachers will know about it. Like once after I had a verbal conflict with a teacher, another teacher told the whole class that I am arrogant. And I was like WTF?!?! So no need me self-introduce that whole class knows me. >.< I personally feel that, the thing about school teachers is that they are first government servants, second teachers. So sometimes you have to bear with them. (Incidentally in my opinion Mr Kuih makes a good civil servant and I respect him for that.)

The ugly side about schooling system makes me tougher I guess. This is the only thing which I can see that helps me to become more "mature". Maturity to me at the moment means knowing when to give up.

8. The depth of study. PEOPLE ARE RIGHT! Form 6 stuff is no joke. For science subjects, you will study a lot deeper compared to other pre-U programs. However, I know people who did foundation in UTP who studied some sort of IT programs. And Harry and Wenny also did economics for their science foundation at UTAR. So maybe the breadth compensates for the erm....shallowness (LOL)? Not sure about this.

However, although we study deeper, I personally think that the difficulty of scoring is not entirely due to the deep syllabus. Other human (teaching quality) and environmental factors (long tuition time, no time to study if you tuition everyday)have to be taken into consideration. So if you want to do form 6 solely because you want to study more, think twice!

By the way, the lack free time and deep syllabus really test your time management, determination and discipline (to study instead of chatting on line, which I fail miserably, lol).

9. Pengajian Am. And I hate to say this, I think PA is horrible. The way lessons are conducted is horrible, the way the test format is designed is horrible.

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That's all for now. If you're an spm-leaver who came across this post, please don't believe 100% what I wrote withouth checking with others. I may be biased.

Disclaimer : No accuracy of information is guaranteed. The author shall not be liable for any consequence of bad decisions resulting from reading this post. You are the pilot of your own future!