Feb 22

So, UTAS, huh?

… A year ago, the mere mention of the name would elicit a muffled giggle from me. Not because I thought the name was funny, or because of the way it was spelt, or anything like that. Nope – it was because it wasn’t one of those Uni’s that struck fear into the hearts of all that entered it hallowed halls, you know? They say that it’s in the top 10 Uni’s of Australia. Then they go on to tell you that it’s number nine. Out. Of. Ten. :o

In other words, it isn’t one of those respected/well-known Uni’s, like Monash, or Swinburne, (RMIT, etc – the list goes on) – certainly not by me, in any case.

You see, the “master plan” for a while now has been to go to the University of Adelaide and study Dentistry – Adelaide because they produce the best dentists, and dentistry because medicine is overrated, or something to that effect.

If you’ve been reading freshbytes lately, though – you would have seen that I just wasn’t good enough. With a TER of 88.9, and some embarrassingly awful UMAT results, I fell well short of what I needed to achieve. Even UTAS didn’t want me to do medicine!

I’m kind of over that now – the UMAT results hurt more than the TER (missing out by 1.1 points still sucks a lot, though). So for now, it’s the “time to do something random for a year and then apply again for next year” time.

My idea of something random is something I would enjoy, but also be able to do decently in – for higher education entry, I need a credit average or higher, with a solid UMAT score.

Something random would also need to be able to be turned into a career later on down the track.

Naturally, the only thing that fits both of these criteria would be a Bachelor of Computing. Sure, some general science degree would have worked as well, but some people I know are already doing Computing. Being one to follow the crowd, I am now doing Computing as well.

Orientation day for us Faculty of Science, Engineering and Technology guys was on Thursday last week, and it wasn’t too bad. A tour of the facilities, lunch, sitting down in lecture theatres, and all that kind of stuff that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

You learn a little – but, just like high school, the most informative sessions is always a chat with mates, or with past and/or present students. They’re the ones that can tell you what you can and can’t do, what to do and when to do it, and more!

Final word?

UTAS seems okay. I’ll still miss Calvin, though*.

Comments below.

* Actually, I might have to go back on that. Stay tuned.

written by Benny Ling \\ tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dec 28

I’m a little disappointed with my TCE results 2008. It’s entirely my fault, because I just managed to do really, really badly on my external exams, the mythical places where careers are made and extinguished…

In my case, the flames were pretty much put out permanently. Okay – so maybe it wasn’t quite that bad, but it was ridiculously worse than I was expecting.

After having a bit of a mull-over for a couple of days/weeks/months (years, even) I’ve come to the realisation that your TER/ENTER/UAI (Tertiary Entrance Rank [SA, TAS, NT], Equivalent National Tertiary Entrance Rank [Vic] Universities Admission Index [NSW]), while important to what courses you want to do at Uni, isn’t a definite sign of who you are, or what you want to be.

As a side note, Queensland also use something else, but it’s called the OP (Overall Position) and it’s really weird compared to the TER/ENTER/UAI. Instead of being a percentage-based score, the OP is a number from 1 to 25, where 1 is “You’re awesome at academics”, and 25 is “You’re not-so-awesome at academics”. Multiple inter- and intra- school scalings are taken into consideration, but in this blogger’s opinion, it Just Doesn’t WorkTM.

The TER isn’t a measure of how intelligent you are (that’s your IQ, folks), or how “street smart” you are. Far from it, it’s more a measure of how well you did compared to your peers. If you take that literally, it’s a measure of how you stack up against your fellow students – which is something that can be influenced by heaps and heaps of different factors like subject choices, aptitudes, and a whole lots of other stuff I won’t bother to name here.

I think my main cause of concern was that I wasn’t in the top 10% of the state. Yeah, that was probably it – NOT! I care not whether I was in the top 10% of the state or not. I’m heaps glad for those select few who are in the top 100, so congrats to Ellen and Elise, but really – that doesn’t matter.

I guess I’m just disappointed about my whole performance overall. I know I completely screwed up my exams, and that just really sucks!

If I tell you the truth (I do always try to), then I guess that arrogance played a part in this. Either I had the arrogance to think that I was going to do spectacularly in the exam (and I had reason to think so, with one B internally and the rest As), or I was just arrogant enough to think that I would do well without adequete study. Neither are particularly pleasant options, but hey, I guess that’s life…

Comments below.

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Dec 21

Bitter Disappointment should have been the title of this post, but since I used it up last week, I”m going for the more-neutral “TCE Results 2008″.

When the results arrived in the mail, I wasn’t planning on open them. I was far too scared to.

Anyway, I did, and the results were horrible! I was really, really not happy with my results.

With a TER of 88.9, I was 1.1 off what I needed. One point one!

After looking over the report, I realised that I had completely stuffed up my exams. Computer Science, in particular, was fairly horrible – I went from an EA (one B internally) to a maximum CA.

Thankfully, Maths Applied was just as expected. No nasty surprises here, and Physics was also better than expected (max CA).

Chemistry was just horrible as well – I managed to score a max SA. Yay! </sarcasm>

So, where to from here?

Well, my options are:

  • Repeat Year 12 (by doing Year 13). Obviously, this would suck the most. I love Calvin and all, (don’t get me wrong, Calvin is awesome) but really – I don’t want to be there for another year, especially if no-one else I know is there. The fact that none of my friends are there would help keep away distractions, however – but it would still suck immensely.
  • Do something else. This option also sucks. I hate engineering with a passion, and even though UTAS offered me a place, I’ll be dammed if I’m going to take it. No way.
  • Wait and see. Now this option I like. I won’t recieve offers from the mainland uni’s until early 2009 anyway, (round two offers for Adelaide and Victoria are the 5th of Feb 09), so I’ll just have to enjoy what time I have left.
  • Do something funky to get into the course I want. I haven’t fully explored this option yet, but apparently I can do a normal degree (science or something) at my Uni of choice for a year, and then transfer into the course I want in 2010. This would mean that I can essentially “waste” a year, and it would provide me with an oppurtunity to have a pseudo gap year, but really – dentistry is a five year course anyway! I don’t want to be like Dean, who managed to turn a three year course into a nine (?) year one!!

So yeah, at the moment I’m playing the waiting game – stuck in a sort of Facebook Limbo.

That’s enough about me, though. I’d love to hear how you went in TCE results 2008, so if you want the rest of the world to know as well, shout out in comments!

Points don’t matter. TER does, and that’s really all I care about!

written by Benny Ling \\ tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,