thoughts on repeating year 12??/know of anyone with a positive experience? (1 Viewer)

[twelfth_holmes]

what level of maths do u take? just curious

i take extension 1 maths and was hoping to drop it but at this point in the year it would be a little difficult (my fault oop)
i saw that the prerequisite at usyd was band 4 in 2unit but I'm honestly not sure if I can meet it. My internal mark is 76 (I flunked 2 assessments), but I don't know if I can get around there in the test.

Maybe put a BSc + BA application towards mq? They don’t have Celtic studies but they do have a strong antiquity department if you’re into the western civilisation side of things.

that's not a bad idea actually, I heard Macquarie is good. do you happen to know what the atar for bachelor of science is there? (likely around 80?)

 

[quickoats]

that's not a bad idea actually, I heard Macquarie is good. do you happen to know what the atar for bachelor of science is there? (likely around 80?)

It’s 75 but MQ are very lenient with their offers especially for generic degrees like that. I know someone who got 66 but got an offer for Commerce (80 cutoff) and is now in actuarial studies.

Be aware that budget cuts mean that they are closing up some majors. However MQ’s western civilisation/antiquity/ancient history department is quite strong so that would probably stay. Same with physics as MQ has electrical engineering which shares the facility pretty sure.

After 1 year you could transfer to USyd BSc Advanced Studies and do the same thing (Physics and Antiquity). But you might end up loving MQ who knows. I’ve heard of students going on archeological digs overseas in the ancient history faculty so that might be of interest.


On a side note, sadly it looks like Celtic studies is being discontinued at USyd and the later units are only available to continuing students. https://www.sydney.edu.au/content/dam/corporate/documents/study/guides/usyd-undergraduate-guide.pdf

 

[idkkdi]

i take extension 1 maths and was hoping to drop it but at this point in the year it would be a little difficult (my fault oop)
i saw that the prerequisite at usyd was band 4 in 2unit but I'm honestly not sure if I can meet it. My internal mark is 76 (I flunked 2 assessments), but I don't know if I can get around there in the test.

that's not a bad idea actually, I heard Macquarie is good. do you happen to know what the atar for bachelor of science is there? (likely around 80?)

physics is maths heavy. consider keeping 3 unit and possibly take up 4 unit. @Drdusk - how much maths is needed in physics for uni? Is it survivable with 2u?

 

[Drdusk]

physics is maths heavy. consider keeping 3 unit and possibly take up 4 unit. @Drdusk - how much maths is needed in physics for uni? Is it survivable with 2u?

At uni your gonna need first year math for first year Physics and it's 4u level. Only thing is they teach it much much faster than you ever would in high school. So having at least a 4u foundation is immensely helpful. Every Physics major I know of in my classes did at least 4u maths.

I would definitely recommend more than just 2u or your gonna have to struggle really hard. Although not impossible to catch up I wouldn't recommend it..

 

[jazz519]

At uni your gonna need first year math for first year Physics and it's 4u level. Only thing is they teach it much much faster than you ever would in high school. So having at least a 4u foundation is immensely helpful. Every Physics major I know of in my classes did at least 4u maths.

I would definitely recommend more than just 2u or your gonna have to struggle really hard. Although not impossible to catch up I wouldn't recommend it..

Yeah just adding onto this I only did 3 unit maths and found the stuff manageable in first year maths but that was cause I had a decent base in 3 unit maths so It was just about spending the time to learn the 4 unit stuff. However, with just 2 unit maths you are going to have a lot of trouble, particularly in a physics or engineering based degree. I used to do a physics minor so i've done a fair few courses in physics and what sums it up is, it is nothing like high school physics which i found pretty weird to begin with as it basically meant year 12 physics was redundant. Like so shocking to the point that someone who did no physics and did 3/4 unit math is more prepared for uni physics than someone who just learnt physics in year 12. There's barely any like "content" in terms of memorising stuff or explaining things like you get in the HSC. The large majority of what you get asked is maths related and involves solving physics calculations using that maths knowledge or deriving equations for certain scenarios. The only place you will really explain things is in the labs and even then it's always related to some maths

I don't want this to deter you from a physics degree but just make sure you understand what you are getting yourself into as high school physics (and any science in general like chem) is nothing like what you do in high school, so based on that you should keep 3 unit maths at least

 

[twelfth_holmes]

It’s 75 but MQ are very lenient with their offers especially for generic degrees like that. I know someone who got 66 but got an offer for Commerce (80 cutoff) and is now in actuarial studies.

Be aware that budget cuts mean that they are closing up some majors. However MQ’s western civilisation/antiquity/ancient history department is quite strong so that would probably stay. Same with physics as MQ has electrical engineering which shares the facility pretty sure.

After 1 year you could transfer to USyd BSc Advanced Studies and do the same thing (Physics and Antiquity). But you might end up loving MQ who knows. I’ve heard of students going on archeological digs overseas in the ancient history faculty so that might be of interest.


On a side note, sadly it looks like Celtic studies is being discontinued at USyd and the later units are only available to continuing students. https://www.sydney.edu.au/content/dam/corporate/documents/study/guides/usyd-undergraduate-guide.pdf

that's awesome!! As soon as I read that I literally went straight to UAC to add that to my preferences but I can't change them until 22nd October, on that day I will add it. Also yeah I saw about Celtic Studies :/ It's literally my dream to study something like that, I'm kinda obsessed with that type of history haha. I don't know if it's possible that uni's might bring back minors/majors after discontinuing them or if I can find those similar units in other minors, but in a year I guess we'll see. I'll keep checking usyd and might find a way to call and ask if they bring back upon popular request.

Yeah just adding onto this I only did 3 unit maths and found the stuff manageable in first year maths but that was cause I had a decent base in 3 unit maths so It was just about spending the time to learn the 4 unit stuff. However, with just 2 unit maths you are going to have a lot of trouble, particularly in a physics or engineering based degree. I used to do a physics minor so i've done a fair few courses in physics and what sums it up is, it is nothing like high school physics which i found pretty weird to begin with as it basically meant year 12 physics was redundant. Like so shocking to the point that someone who did no physics and did 3/4 unit math is more prepared for uni physics than someone who just learnt physics in year 12. There's barely any like "content" in terms of memorising stuff or explaining things like you get in the HSC. The large majority of what you get asked is maths related and involves solving physics calculations using that maths knowledge or deriving equations for certain scenarios. The only place you will really explain things is in the labs and even then it's always related to some maths

I don't want this to deter you from a physics degree but just make sure you understand what you are getting yourself into as high school physics (and any science in general like chem) is nothing like what you do in high school, so based on that you should keep 3 unit maths at least

this is actually something I had no idea about, you really need 3/4unit maths to do physics at uni?? Damn... I do genuinely like 3unit but I fell behind with work and have poor time management. I'm not sure if I could do it at a uni level tho. With physics, that's kinda hard to hear because high school physics I really am passionate about (haha I don't know what my internal of 80 or trial mark of 54% tells you otherwise...), but seriously I'm not great at it but I was hoping uni physics would be similar and honestly I'd do it just for enjoyment. It seems that's maybe not the case tho?

On a side note, I'm not sure if anyone would know this but I've been thinking about how my timetable would likely clash with the year below me and with the people who know people who've repeated, how did the school get around this? Did the timetable just happen to very luckily work out alright or did they have to maneuver around somehow?

 

[idkkdi]

that's awesome!! As soon as I read that I literally went straight to UAC to add that to my preferences but I can't change them until 22nd October, on that day I will add it. Also yeah I saw about Celtic Studies :/ It's literally my dream to study something like that, I'm kinda obsessed with that type of history haha. I don't know if it's possible that uni's might bring back minors/majors after discontinuing them or if I can find those similar units in other minors, but in a year I guess we'll see. I'll keep checking usyd and might find a way to call and ask if they bring back upon popular request.

this is actually something I had no idea about, you really need 3/4unit maths to do physics at uni?? Damn... I do genuinely like 3unit but I fell behind with work and have poor time management. I'm not sure if I could do it at a uni level tho. With physics, that's kinda hard to hear because high school physics I really am passionate about (haha I don't know what my internal of 80 or trial mark of 54% tells you otherwise...), but seriously I'm not great at it but I was hoping uni physics would be similar and honestly I'd do it just for enjoyment. It seems that's maybe not the case tho?

On a side note, I'm not sure if anyone would know this but I've been thinking about how my timetable would likely clash with the year below me and with the people who know people who've repeated, how did the school get around this? Did the timetable just happen to very luckily work out alright or did they have to maneuver around somehow?

physics is known for slaughtering people in uni. the manageable atar requirement doesn't do it justice and is mainly because of a somewhat low demand.

@Drdusk just curious, what is the dropout rate for physics at UNSW?

 

[jazz519]

that's awesome!! As soon as I read that I literally went straight to UAC to add that to my preferences but I can't change them until 22nd October, on that day I will add it. Also yeah I saw about Celtic Studies :/ It's literally my dream to study something like that, I'm kinda obsessed with that type of history haha. I don't know if it's possible that uni's might bring back minors/majors after discontinuing them or if I can find those similar units in other minors, but in a year I guess we'll see. I'll keep checking usyd and might find a way to call and ask if they bring back upon popular request.

this is actually something I had no idea about, you really need 3/4unit maths to do physics at uni?? Damn... I do genuinely like 3unit but I fell behind with work and have poor time management. I'm not sure if I could do it at a uni level tho. With physics, that's kinda hard to hear because high school physics I really am passionate about (haha I don't know what my internal of 80 or trial mark of 54% tells you otherwise...), but seriously I'm not great at it but I was hoping uni physics would be similar and honestly I'd do it just for enjoyment. It seems that's maybe not the case tho?

On a side note, I'm not sure if anyone would know this but I've been thinking about how my timetable would likely clash with the year below me and with the people who know people who've repeated, how did the school get around this? Did the timetable just happen to very luckily work out alright or did they have to maneuver around somehow?

Yeah uni science courses aren't as forgiving as the high school ones, in terms of it gets way more into the fundamentals of things. Like the reason uni physics in particular cannot be compared to high school is because in high school there is no inclusion of calculus, but as soon as you get to uni literally every physics subject has got some aspect of calculus to it from electromagnetism to quantum stuff to mechanics. That's why i say that someone who has done 3 unit/4 unit maths is better prepared than someone just doing physics because the skill set is different. Perhaps maybe if you want to do it for enjoyment i.e. similar to hsc physics, you could go down the route of science for education or something like that, because the core physics stuff you really have to like maths as well as it's heavy part of it

 

[Drdusk]

physics is known for slaughtering people in uni. the manageable atar requirement doesn't do it justice and is mainly because of a somewhat low demand.

@Drdusk just curious, what is the dropout rate for physics at UNSW?

I don't think it's that much for Physics majors itself. The class for Physics majors is already very very small, and everyone there is good. My class had some Olympians, some which are on the level of state rank for 4u etc etc. Basically what I'm trying to say is everyone is smart which kind of surprised me just a bit so they ain't gonna drop. I only know maybe 1 or 2 people who couldn't keep up because they lacked the motivation/ability.


However I must add aside from Physics majors the first year Physics courses absolutely did slaughter other students who were mostly doing it for Engineering.

 

[quickoats]

lso yeah I saw about Celtic Studies :/ It's literally my dream to study something like that, I'm kinda obsessed with that type of history haha. I don't know if it's possible that uni's might bring back minors/majors after discontinuing them or if I can find those similar units in other minors, but in a year I guess we'll see. I'll keep checking usyd and might find a way to call and ask if they bring back upon popular request.

Sadly in Australia, universities serve a more vocational purpose (due to the Dawkins reforms) so unpopular units get put on the chopping block. I guess the Australian system gets a lot of people educated for cheap but this means that universities are sometimes lacking. If you're interested in that sort of period of western civilisation, then maybe late antiquity might be an area you might want to consider. It would be broader than pure celtic studies but it seems like a happy compromise. If you want to study the language(s) itself then maybe duolingo might be a good start? Welsh and Gaelic are still very much alive.

I'm assuming Celtic studies is taught in many British/Irish universities so you can always do a couple units on exchange

By the way, what career(s) are you looking into?

Tbh it's best just to worry about your upcoming exams but it's good to see that you're really having a good think about things.

 

[twelfth_holmes]

heyo!! I'm not sure if anyone would know,, but do you know if a school can turn you away from repeating there if they believe it's unnecessary as you got relatively good marks and/or offers?

 

[Sam_Jones]

heyo!! I'm not sure if anyone would know,, but do you know if a school can turn you away from repeating there if they believe it's unnecessary as you got relatively good marks and/or offers?

Hey!
I am so happy that I found a RECENT post on someone who is thinking the same as me!
I'm also planning on repeating year 12 for exactly the same reasons, and although I won't know anyone in my new cohort (I am planning on moving to a better school, since the school I currently attend is the reason my ATAR is crushed)
I was wondering how you went? Did you repeat year 12? What were your experiences so far? What issues did you face? Do you believe you will get the ATAR you're dreaming of? Do you regret your choice or is it the best decision you ever made?
I have so many questions lol sorry for being a pain in the back, I'm just really curious since I'm perusing the same path as you. Answer me when you get the chance!

Cheers,
Sam

 

[twelfth_holmes]

Hey!
I am so happy that I found a RECENT post on someone who is thinking the same as me!
I'm also planning on repeating year 12 for exactly the same reasons, and although I won't know anyone in my new cohort (I am planning on moving to a better school, since the school I currently attend is the reason my ATAR is crushed)
I was wondering how you went? Did you repeat year 12? What were your experiences so far? What issues did you face? Do you believe you will get the ATAR you're dreaming of? Do you regret your choice or is it the best decision you ever made?
I have so many questions lol sorry for being a pain in the back, I'm just really curious since I'm perusing the same path as you. Answer me when you get the chance!

Cheers,
Sam

heyo there!!!!!!!! I most definitely did end up repeating year 12 and I'm kind of upset I didn't update this post much sooner. It has been one of the best decisions I've made and I'm confident I'll do much better. I'll be sure to update properly soon as this is early offer application and scholarship week, but what would you like to know! Also when do you have to make your decision by?