The Haus of Talk Thread

[Bwarch]

Might as well get another laptop I suspect. A good laptop goes for around 1k/1.2k, aye?

[InsaneIntentions1]

It is one of those expensive ones, so I'm just gonna contact the company and see if they'll replace the board

[KobaBeach]

stuff about winter

In this part of Portugal, we don't even get snow

All we get in winter is rainy days and extremely freezing sunny days

Not that I mind, I love rainy days~

la mulana 2

Looks p. great

[Ashan]

My last semester of high school starts tomorrow. Kinda scary when I consider how fast that first semester went. It's a weird feeling that graduation is coming up so soon. It was something you talked about but it never really felt like it would ever come and now it's coming really fast.
It's not so much the graduation part that scares me but the fact that I'm going to have to start figuring out what I'm going to do with my life.

[BeatBoxingBoo]

I've been in a significantly greater mood and have been feeling better about life in general since I started exercising this week.

[pholtos]

That's exactly my problem, but I'm in my second to last semester of college. I don't know what I'm doing after this.

[zmonbobbo]

I'm going to have to start figuring out what I'm going to do with my life.

Nah. You still have time. You don't even have to figure out what you want to get your degree in until your third year.

This. I switched twice and still graduated on time. If you aren't sure what you want to major in yet, just take a lot of core classes and go from there.

[PichuVSLink]

So yesterday I received my semester one grades. I'm actually really proud of them, I'm getting high to highest grades in classes I didn't ever feel like I would do good in, and those of the classes that I knew I was a little poor in I at least got decent grades. The comments were all positive as well.

[kilon]

I'm going to have to start figuring out what I'm going to do with my life.

Nah. You still have time. You don't even have to figure out what you want to get your degree in until your third year.

This. I switched twice and still graduated on time. If you aren't sure what you want to major in yet, just take a lot of core classes and go from there.

So is that in North America in general then? That the first years of university seem like a huge waste with courses of all kinds of subjects and not enough related to the degree you actually want to do something with?
Or maybe I'm wrong. That whole education system is ununderstandable for me.

[S.N.N.]

Yeah, that's pretty much what it's like. I went into university as a chemistry major, switched to psych for a bit, and then finally settled down on molecular biology. I'm finishing up my last term now and even though I technically only started this program in my third year, I'll still graduate on time (had to overload on courses a bit though).

..but yeah, if anyone is stressing over what major to get in their first (or even second) year, don't. Use that time to sample a lot of different classes that you think will interest you and then go from there.

[devil†zukin]

that sounds like a cool system

here in the UK we sign up for a course at the start of university and then most of our classes are mandatory (and the little choice we have is limited to the subject we're studying)

if we want to change it usually involves starting the current year over and maybe all years over depending on if it's in the same field

[Ditocoaf]

It's different depending on what school or major you have. My school had you choose your major your second year. My sister's had her choose it in her first year. Plenty of others wait until the third.

Even at a school that lets you choose your major in your third year, depending on your major, you might have too many required classes to fit into your time left. Sciencey majors tend to have a couple classes that you should be taking during your first year, so if you don't take those then decide later to major in that subject, you'll be kinda screwed.

Most american colleges/universities (remember in America college is another word for a post-secondary school, whereas in the UK I think college means high school / a school for mid-teenagers?)... ahem
Most american colleges/universities have a bunch of classes that all freshmen take no matter what they end up majoring in, or some "general education" requirements that have lots of classes that fulfill them, but are the same across all majors. This is largely because our high schools have wildly varying levels of output, (partly depending on whether you're from a rich neighborhood or a poor one). So since freshmen and sophomores are mostly busy taking "gen-ed" classes, it's pretty natural to let them not nail down a major until a year or two in.

[Falky]

whereas in the UK I think college means high school / a school for mid-teenagers?)... ahem

College generally refers to somewhere 16-18 year olds (and some older) go after secondary school (11-16) to learn a trade. Sixth form college (usually just called sixth form) is post-secondary education for more academic subjects usually, and tends to be a precursor to university. That's what it was like a few years ago in England, at least. Education until 18 is compulsory now, and the Scottish system's a bit different.

[Ditocoaf]

whereas in the UK I think college means high school / a school for mid-teenagers?)... ahem

College generally refers to somewhere 16-18 year olds (and some older) go after secondary school (11-16) to learn a trade. Sixth form college (usually just called sixth form) is post-secondary education for more academic subjects usually, and tends to be a precursor to university. That's what it was like a few years ago in England, at least. Education until 18 is compulsory now, and the Scottish system's a bit different.

Ah.

In the US, "high school" is four years for 14-18-year-olds (sometimes 3 years for 15-18-year-olds), basically the last place you go for your first 18 years of mandator education. Then colleges and universities are places people go after that to get bachelors degrees, masters degrees, and doctorates. Some places that call themself a university divide themselves up into "colleges". Some places are just a college, but it doesn't necessarily mean they're less advanced or anything. The very largest places tend to call themselves universities, but you're still "going to college at ___ University".

[Falky]

I think foreign systems always seem a bit alien. We have (or had, at least) primary school from 4-11, secondary school from 11-16 (then you could get a job, highly unlikely nowadays), sixth form or college from 16-18, then uni, usually for three years. Worth noting that we also don't graduate from secondary school, it just kind of ends. You don't redo a year or anything. You can at sixth form or uni though. Uni's the only place we really graduate from, with the mortar boards and gowns and whatnot.

[devil†zukin]

It's different depending on what school or major you have. My school had you choose your major your second year. My sister's had her choose it in her first year. Plenty of others wait until the third.

but you still get to choose after you apply and get accepted?

here in the UK we literally have to apply for the course we want, which was a problem for me since there were so many things I wanted to pursue and I wasn't sure which to go for

deciding so early does have the advantage of letting you pick a school that has good facilities for what you want to do though

[Falky]

here in the UK we literally have to apply for the course we want

That's a point. I wanted to study law, so I put Law down on my UCAS form (admissions nonsense), along with choices of university (well, I only put down one choice, but still).

most of our classes are mandatory (and the little choice we have is limited to the subject we're studying)

Unfortunately. I didn't have any choice about which modules I wanted to do until the second year, and even then it was only a choice between human rights and employment. All the other modules were classed as core modules. All of my third year modules were my choice though. Well, the dissertation's classed as a module, but it was my choice what I wanted to write it on.

[Ditocoaf]

It's different depending on what school or major you have. My school had you choose your major your second year. My sister's had her choose it in her first year. Plenty of others wait until the third.

but you still get to choose after you apply and get accepted?

here in the UK we literally have to apply for the course we want, which was a problem for me since there were so many things I wanted to pursue and I wasn't sure which to go for

deciding so early does have the advantage of letting you pick a school that has good facilities for what you want to do though

Yeah. Schools still like you to put your intended major on your application, so that they can be like "oh we need more physics majors accept that application", but it's not mandatory and it's not binding. Lots of students do choose a school based on "well I'll probably major in chemistry, so I'll go there", but yeah, you usually don't have to commit yourself until a year or two in. It's pretty sweet!

Most people these days, though, don't figure out what they're gonna do until after they've already graduated from college, with a degree that's completely inapplicable to whatever they end up doing. Like, out of the first 10 people I can think of who I know who graduated from college in the last 1-5 years, only two of them are doing anything in the field of their major. Hooray for the job market, etc.

[ano0maly]

I really feel that the UK system needs to give more freedom to students to study what they are interested in.

[kilon]

In the Netherlands there is a lot of choice to do whatever is best for you. Depending on your learning ability there are different routes you can take that are more focussed on vocational training for example.

My school career:
-Primary School 8 years (Age 4-12)

-High school 6 years. In the 4th year I chose a profile already focussing on the areas I was interested in, the sciences. (There are 4 profiles roughly aimed towards arts, economic/politic, science and biology/science which you can to some extent)

-University. 3 years Bachelor. I picked chemistry, first 2 years covering all basic courses; org, theoretical, analytical and maths, physics and biology (but aimed towards chemistry) Third years choosing a minor (Advanced Molecular Chemistry).
-University. 2 years Master. Analytical Sciences. In my last 6 months, working on my master thesis.

I don't think I want to get a PhD after this. It's time to get a job.

[Aposke]

Apparently "lynch" is "racially insensitive" to some people (moops).

Dumb.

So the entire IRC turned into social justice central now? Sounds fun.

That aside, the university situation here in germany is pretty much the same as for Kilon. You need to apply for courses (although most are pretty easy to get into) and then you get a choice of modules, of which you need to complete a certain number of to get your bachelor degree.
I did a few things wrong last year and ended up only getting one semester worth of work done during 1 1/2 years (mostly due to switching universities and study fields), so I'll have to catch up on a few things, but with the current system, it should totally be possible to finish within the next 4 semesters.

[Dan]

If "social justice" means "don't say nigger or faggot" or "don't be transphobic" then yes
I wouldn't say we're centered around it though, those are just things that decent people do because they're decent people

[Ashan]

And if there's anything the IRC is, it's decent people.

[Leet]

I'm pretty sure the word lynch is a regular word used by decent people to describe something that happened to occur to some groups. It's still a word regardless of history, and it's meaning hasn't changed over time. I don't know of the context of when it was used and summarily called insensitive, but i find it hard to believe it could effectively be used as an offensive word.

[ano0maly]

Note: The context was a mafia game