I barely post here, so let's remedy that!
First off, happy first of November! November is a big month, firstly it means there's only 4 weeks until I can open my advent calendar, second November is NaNoWriMo which means I am busier and grouchier than usual and lastly, the second week of November hails my mid-term examinations.
I really can't believe we are half way through the first semester. It feels like I barely stated, but then when I look back on everything I've already learnt.. it all seems completely plausible.
On Wednesday I have a two hour written examination, and on Friday I have a five minute spoken test. Since it's reading week I don't have classes for other subjects apart from Chinese history, and a few Korean lessons to cram last minute. Actually most of reading week is going to be spent doing work for my Astronomy module, Chinese history and Japanese politics so I'm going to be busy the whole week pretty much. I'm going to see Skyfall on Tuesday for a little break, and this weekend I am going to spend most of my time with my Korean friends just speaking Korean and jamming stuff into my head. I really need to get better at numbers by then, I find it hard to translate English numbers into Korean, hahaha. I was planning on meeting my friend this Friday but he's busy, so I guess we will have to meet at the weekend or during reading week at some point. And next Friday I'm off home for the weekend! I'm going to my friends on the Saturday and going ice skating with them, and then on the Sunday I get to go to their taekwondo lesson and count in Korean like a pro.
I really think I did the best thing in coming to Uni. Despite some issues with people on the course (which I am just putting down to the fact they're all young and have energy that I don't and so I get tired and grouchy quick), it's really good here. All my tutors are really amazing and I really do feel like I'm learning a lot. I made soooo many new friends too, but the sad thing is they go back to Korea in February. There will be other exchange students coming to visit then too, but... saying goodbye to my Friends.... =[....
Also while I had originally decided to go to Yonsei university, I've decided that my choice is better spent in going to SKKU, or Sungkyungkwan uni for those who don't know. Both are amazing uni's, and while my Korean friends keep telling me to go to Yonsei... I think SKKU is better for me. It's not graded on a 100% exam, and you get to do cultural things... I can still live in Shinchon and get a bus there, so it's fine!
Actually about the course, the only thing that I've hated so far was having to change a module. Our tutor became ill, so his module stopped running. It was the most interesting one too, and I now have to take Japanese politics and Chinese economics because of it. Japanese politics is actually amazingly interesting and has made me realise that taking Korean politics will be pretty amazing... Chinese economics however.... It's interesting, and it's kind of good that I'm doing Chinese history with it because I can see links in a lot of the stuff being said but.... I have to do sooo much reading for it because I just don't understand. I doubt as if I'd take another economics module unless the other option was doing something that actually involved math. (Thankfully Chinese economics doesn't have any math n_n), unfourtunately it's a 90% exam grade. Ouch.
Thursday, 1 November 2012
Thursday, 6 September 2012
Access to Higher Education Thoughts
For those who don't know, I am 21 and I don't have A-Levels. So when I decided I wanted to teach in Korea, and therefore needed a bachelors degree, this proved a bit tricky. I thought about doing A-Levels, but there were two issues; 1) it took two years and I didn't want to be stuck in college for two years and 2) all the A-levels around here are, err, boring to say the least. It was your basic English, Math and Science with some business and some other ones. I would have happily done Chemistry and Physics, but then I had to think... neither of those would really help to get onto a Korean Studies course, and honestly, as much as I love to read particle physics for fun... any other type of math confuses me. I would not have managed to get B's or A's in Chem or Physics.
So I was confused, and also at this point being hassled by the job centre every week. Just because you're young and forced to go to them does not mean you don't want to work. Unfourtunately they put me with all the other 19/20 year olds and treated me like I was a little girl and spoke down to me a lot. If there is one thing I hate, it's being controlled so not only did I rebel against them by using their rules against them when they tried to bend them to shaft me, but I basically decided I would use that as another motive for somehow getting to university.
And then I set up a meeting with Careers Wales. They're lovely people, always friendly, seperate from the job centre and are very helpful. I've seen them before and they weren't helpful at that point, but I was also 16 and had no clue what I wanted to do in life apart from learn. I didn't get GCSE's for one reason or another, but I digress.
Firstly we looked into doing GCSE's and finding a university course I could do without A-Levels. We were going for the 'if you can't do Korean studies, do something else' route. Now, I wasn't very happy about this, but at the same time I had to remind myself that beggers couldn't be choosers. What I wanted most was to get a degree and teach in South Korea. There were numerous ways to do it and just because I was set on one direction meant nothing.
The upside to this route was getting a really good few grades in GCSE science was going to get me into a really nice college in Cornwall which would give me a degree of sorts in Marine Biology. For those who don't know, which is possibly everyone, if I didn't want to teach in Korea... I would probably either be an Astronaut or a Marine biologist/conservationist. So I didn't really have an issue so much when they spoke to me about it. The biggest downside was Marine Biologists find it hard to get jobs, it's not really a useful degree. Korean studies would be, even if I didn't go to Korea to use my language skills, there would always be need for the language here whether people see it or not. Embassys and buisinesses for instance, plus with Asia's economic expansion, some people reckon it's more useful to have an Asian language than it is French or Spanish these days.
And then I stumbled across Access to Higher Education because I decided, let's forget everything and be a midwife! I don't know WHAT I was thinking... I'm terrified of blood, hate hospitals and I am immature with human biology. There are different types of Access courses, some are designed for midwives. As I did more research I found there were general access courses, I found one in a town close-by that did good subjects I could use for Korean studies. It was like someone had opened a door and said 'go ahead'.
So I went and applied, and went for interviews and got onto the course. My subjects were English Lit. and History and my third was Enviromental Science, because it was an interest and the only other 'useful' subject would have been sociology and I can't say it really interested me (until further on in the year when I was reading through the others work and thought 'oh.. it's actually kinda good').
This was the first down side to the Access course. You had to chose your subjects and there was no going back. There were half hour talks with each of the tutors and that was it. It is impossible to know ANYTHING about a subject in half an hour and I stand-by the idea that instead of having three days of an induction week, a whole week with having taster lessons would have been a better use of the time.
The other down side is you really don't realise when you do it that it will be hard. The tutors and previous students tell you it will, but you don't actually grasp or believe it. Trust me when I say I have never worked harder and I barely got the grades I needed. The first term it was slow, but then after the first holiday... work piled up so fast you couldn't even blink. I was staying up late to do work, getting up early to go to college, not getting home until 7pm some days, barely eating at college because of the price or because 15 minutes for lunch and you have to desperately add in another point into an assignment is not fun. It is a lot of work. I have no idea how the other students had jobs and/or kids at the same time and kept their sanity. The upside to this point is though, the work load has me a lot more prepared for University (they say) than an A-level student is prepared. Since I don't know if this is true, I'll answer this when I'm a month or so into my degree and amend if I'm floating or sinking.
Access courses are not doing coursework or exams either. You have assignments. Your classes are more discussions or your teacher talking to you like a lecture. The learning is more like how you learn at University. It is mostly 'this is what I give you, if you really want to do well, you have to research it on your own too'.
My issue with the course was the tutors. Not all of them were helpful all the time, and I often felt too intimidated to ask for the help until nearer the end of the year. If you do an access course, I can not stress how important it is that you ask for help if you need it. Don't be worried if the tutors scare you, or if you're worried they won't get a proper lunch break-- they are being paid to teach, they are being paid to help you. I think most of my work would have been cut down had I learnt and/or known this from the get-go.
A personal issue I had was myself. I am a perfection is and I expected all my work to be perfect the first time I wrote it, and if there was a slight mistake I really beat myself up and worried so much that I had no time to do a second one. The first assignment I handed in, I expected a distinction for. That isn't bigheadedness and it isn't ignorance, because to this day, I still believe it to be one of my best pieces of creative writing and I will still admit that I think it was graded entirely wrong. However, I pretty much agreed with all of the grades in other lessons. There were sometimes I felt very annoyed, like my writing style cropped up a lot because, I have been for a very long time-- an author of fiction. To suddenly have to adjust myself for academic situations... I had barely grasped it by the end of the year. I was told by two tutors to change, and told by the other two to stay the same.
The pluses? I got more confident, for most of the year anyway. I did start to suffer from anxiety and panic attacks nearer April because of personal issues but I am a lot more independant now. I used to be too scared to go outside alone, now I'm always going out and I don't even need to have music blasting to do it. I also learnt a lot about myself from the course, and I got to meet people MY age and older and people who I had minor things in common with. One of the girls I met on the course is a very good friend of mine now and is actually giving me a ride to uni. One of the others, the only one who I had enviromental science with, actually turned out to be one of the biggest forms of support I've ever had. She is a very nice person... she has an amazingly good heart, I guess some people would call it naive, but I think she's too smart for that term. But she allowed me to have fun with people again-- something I hadn't done properly in a long time. During the first term too I was having a hard time getting over something that happened to me a few weeks before the course started. She really gave me good advice and support and just a laugh when I needed it. I don't think she understands how much I relied on her because at the end of the year, she was thanking me and saying I inspired her.
Of course the biggest plus is that I got into university and I feel... somewhat ready for it. I can't deny that I'm scared, and as much as I protest that it's because I'm scared I won't do very well, it's actually because it's so rare that things go my way that I am honestly waiting for something to pull the rug out from beneath my feet. I am almost sure it is going to happen and I don't want to leave myself unguarded so that I land on my backside and not on my hands.
I don't regret doing the access course, it was very good for me emotionally and personally rather than academiclly. You won't learn anything properly on an access course. If you take history, you're not going to learn this and that... you will pick up facts to do with your topic but that's pretty much it. Access isn't designed to give you knowledge, it's aimed more for giving you skills to help you not only to swim at university, but to make a boat with all the bits of driftwood that come your way. I don't feel 10x more smart, but I do feel a lot more mature and just ready in general. I'm 21 and I act like I'm five or something, and I protest a lot that I feel old while I'm around 18 year olds, but I have never once felt as much my age as I do now. Perhaps it's only a few years, but it really does feel like such a huge gap to me. Who I was when I was 18 and who I am now are two completely different people.
So I was confused, and also at this point being hassled by the job centre every week. Just because you're young and forced to go to them does not mean you don't want to work. Unfourtunately they put me with all the other 19/20 year olds and treated me like I was a little girl and spoke down to me a lot. If there is one thing I hate, it's being controlled so not only did I rebel against them by using their rules against them when they tried to bend them to shaft me, but I basically decided I would use that as another motive for somehow getting to university.
And then I set up a meeting with Careers Wales. They're lovely people, always friendly, seperate from the job centre and are very helpful. I've seen them before and they weren't helpful at that point, but I was also 16 and had no clue what I wanted to do in life apart from learn. I didn't get GCSE's for one reason or another, but I digress.
Firstly we looked into doing GCSE's and finding a university course I could do without A-Levels. We were going for the 'if you can't do Korean studies, do something else' route. Now, I wasn't very happy about this, but at the same time I had to remind myself that beggers couldn't be choosers. What I wanted most was to get a degree and teach in South Korea. There were numerous ways to do it and just because I was set on one direction meant nothing.
The upside to this route was getting a really good few grades in GCSE science was going to get me into a really nice college in Cornwall which would give me a degree of sorts in Marine Biology. For those who don't know, which is possibly everyone, if I didn't want to teach in Korea... I would probably either be an Astronaut or a Marine biologist/conservationist. So I didn't really have an issue so much when they spoke to me about it. The biggest downside was Marine Biologists find it hard to get jobs, it's not really a useful degree. Korean studies would be, even if I didn't go to Korea to use my language skills, there would always be need for the language here whether people see it or not. Embassys and buisinesses for instance, plus with Asia's economic expansion, some people reckon it's more useful to have an Asian language than it is French or Spanish these days.
And then I stumbled across Access to Higher Education because I decided, let's forget everything and be a midwife! I don't know WHAT I was thinking... I'm terrified of blood, hate hospitals and I am immature with human biology. There are different types of Access courses, some are designed for midwives. As I did more research I found there were general access courses, I found one in a town close-by that did good subjects I could use for Korean studies. It was like someone had opened a door and said 'go ahead'.
So I went and applied, and went for interviews and got onto the course. My subjects were English Lit. and History and my third was Enviromental Science, because it was an interest and the only other 'useful' subject would have been sociology and I can't say it really interested me (until further on in the year when I was reading through the others work and thought 'oh.. it's actually kinda good').
This was the first down side to the Access course. You had to chose your subjects and there was no going back. There were half hour talks with each of the tutors and that was it. It is impossible to know ANYTHING about a subject in half an hour and I stand-by the idea that instead of having three days of an induction week, a whole week with having taster lessons would have been a better use of the time.
The other down side is you really don't realise when you do it that it will be hard. The tutors and previous students tell you it will, but you don't actually grasp or believe it. Trust me when I say I have never worked harder and I barely got the grades I needed. The first term it was slow, but then after the first holiday... work piled up so fast you couldn't even blink. I was staying up late to do work, getting up early to go to college, not getting home until 7pm some days, barely eating at college because of the price or because 15 minutes for lunch and you have to desperately add in another point into an assignment is not fun. It is a lot of work. I have no idea how the other students had jobs and/or kids at the same time and kept their sanity. The upside to this point is though, the work load has me a lot more prepared for University (they say) than an A-level student is prepared. Since I don't know if this is true, I'll answer this when I'm a month or so into my degree and amend if I'm floating or sinking.
Access courses are not doing coursework or exams either. You have assignments. Your classes are more discussions or your teacher talking to you like a lecture. The learning is more like how you learn at University. It is mostly 'this is what I give you, if you really want to do well, you have to research it on your own too'.
My issue with the course was the tutors. Not all of them were helpful all the time, and I often felt too intimidated to ask for the help until nearer the end of the year. If you do an access course, I can not stress how important it is that you ask for help if you need it. Don't be worried if the tutors scare you, or if you're worried they won't get a proper lunch break-- they are being paid to teach, they are being paid to help you. I think most of my work would have been cut down had I learnt and/or known this from the get-go.
A personal issue I had was myself. I am a perfection is and I expected all my work to be perfect the first time I wrote it, and if there was a slight mistake I really beat myself up and worried so much that I had no time to do a second one. The first assignment I handed in, I expected a distinction for. That isn't bigheadedness and it isn't ignorance, because to this day, I still believe it to be one of my best pieces of creative writing and I will still admit that I think it was graded entirely wrong. However, I pretty much agreed with all of the grades in other lessons. There were sometimes I felt very annoyed, like my writing style cropped up a lot because, I have been for a very long time-- an author of fiction. To suddenly have to adjust myself for academic situations... I had barely grasped it by the end of the year. I was told by two tutors to change, and told by the other two to stay the same.
The pluses? I got more confident, for most of the year anyway. I did start to suffer from anxiety and panic attacks nearer April because of personal issues but I am a lot more independant now. I used to be too scared to go outside alone, now I'm always going out and I don't even need to have music blasting to do it. I also learnt a lot about myself from the course, and I got to meet people MY age and older and people who I had minor things in common with. One of the girls I met on the course is a very good friend of mine now and is actually giving me a ride to uni. One of the others, the only one who I had enviromental science with, actually turned out to be one of the biggest forms of support I've ever had. She is a very nice person... she has an amazingly good heart, I guess some people would call it naive, but I think she's too smart for that term. But she allowed me to have fun with people again-- something I hadn't done properly in a long time. During the first term too I was having a hard time getting over something that happened to me a few weeks before the course started. She really gave me good advice and support and just a laugh when I needed it. I don't think she understands how much I relied on her because at the end of the year, she was thanking me and saying I inspired her.
Of course the biggest plus is that I got into university and I feel... somewhat ready for it. I can't deny that I'm scared, and as much as I protest that it's because I'm scared I won't do very well, it's actually because it's so rare that things go my way that I am honestly waiting for something to pull the rug out from beneath my feet. I am almost sure it is going to happen and I don't want to leave myself unguarded so that I land on my backside and not on my hands.
I don't regret doing the access course, it was very good for me emotionally and personally rather than academiclly. You won't learn anything properly on an access course. If you take history, you're not going to learn this and that... you will pick up facts to do with your topic but that's pretty much it. Access isn't designed to give you knowledge, it's aimed more for giving you skills to help you not only to swim at university, but to make a boat with all the bits of driftwood that come your way. I don't feel 10x more smart, but I do feel a lot more mature and just ready in general. I'm 21 and I act like I'm five or something, and I protest a lot that I feel old while I'm around 18 year olds, but I have never once felt as much my age as I do now. Perhaps it's only a few years, but it really does feel like such a huge gap to me. Who I was when I was 18 and who I am now are two completely different people.
Tuesday, 4 September 2012
University
I will be starting at UoShef soon! Not even two weeks any more! We're still trying to sort out the module issue, as we've been having trouble with pre-registration and module selection.
My course has three core modules; Korean Language I, Korean Language II and The History of Korea. On top of that, I have to take 40 credits of approved modules. My choices are The Languages and Writing Systems of Asia, Modern Chinese History and Chinese culture and society. Well, this is only if they let us take 70 credits on the first semester and 50 on the second, as we have 20 points for an unrestricted and I wanted to take Travel Writing! I'm not sure if the course still exists though, and if it doesn't I need to find two 10 pointers. I was debating on German or something similar, but we will have to see! We can change our modules for a week or two, so I might have to do a bit of jiggling around.
If I have to admit it, I'm actually really scared. I'm older than most people I've met on my course so far and they all did A-Level's while I did Access. I'm worried I'm not smart enough or something for the course and I will fall behind. I mean, what if I get there and suddenly find I'm not learning anything at all? I guess a part of me is still a little excited, but I am literately sick with nerves. I've been trying to find ways to calm down, such as writing a story or two, but I can't concentrate on them. So I decided to find some TV programs to prepare myself for University but I can't concentrate on them either and have to pause sky+ to stare at the TV like "What the hell am I doing?"
But the good thing is, I seem to have made friends already. This is the part I struggle with ever since I started school. During college I only really made two friends and one more who was like a friend, but not. I'm having dinner with one of them and her kids on Saturday and she's pretty awesome so I hope she'll notice my panic and just tell me to calm down. She's always there for me like that.
The past few years on Korean Studies there have only been up to three students, but so far we've met five (including myself) and another one who is possibly joining us. That is all we know of online, so we could end up with a pretty large group. I'm not sure if this scares me or not. My least favourite class in college was English because there were so many of us. The language classes will have 'outsiders' in but.... ah, I don't know why I'm freaking out. Two of these people are really nice and one of the Japanese studies people is nice too, so that's at least three friends!
I get people asking me a lot about getting into UoSheff with Access, or Access courses in general because, even though they have existed for a while, they're only just starting to get popular. I may make a post later on to link people to when they ask me. I have to admit it's a bit tiresome to write the same thing out all the time.
My course has three core modules; Korean Language I, Korean Language II and The History of Korea. On top of that, I have to take 40 credits of approved modules. My choices are The Languages and Writing Systems of Asia, Modern Chinese History and Chinese culture and society. Well, this is only if they let us take 70 credits on the first semester and 50 on the second, as we have 20 points for an unrestricted and I wanted to take Travel Writing! I'm not sure if the course still exists though, and if it doesn't I need to find two 10 pointers. I was debating on German or something similar, but we will have to see! We can change our modules for a week or two, so I might have to do a bit of jiggling around.
If I have to admit it, I'm actually really scared. I'm older than most people I've met on my course so far and they all did A-Level's while I did Access. I'm worried I'm not smart enough or something for the course and I will fall behind. I mean, what if I get there and suddenly find I'm not learning anything at all? I guess a part of me is still a little excited, but I am literately sick with nerves. I've been trying to find ways to calm down, such as writing a story or two, but I can't concentrate on them. So I decided to find some TV programs to prepare myself for University but I can't concentrate on them either and have to pause sky+ to stare at the TV like "What the hell am I doing?"
But the good thing is, I seem to have made friends already. This is the part I struggle with ever since I started school. During college I only really made two friends and one more who was like a friend, but not. I'm having dinner with one of them and her kids on Saturday and she's pretty awesome so I hope she'll notice my panic and just tell me to calm down. She's always there for me like that.
The past few years on Korean Studies there have only been up to three students, but so far we've met five (including myself) and another one who is possibly joining us. That is all we know of online, so we could end up with a pretty large group. I'm not sure if this scares me or not. My least favourite class in college was English because there were so many of us. The language classes will have 'outsiders' in but.... ah, I don't know why I'm freaking out. Two of these people are really nice and one of the Japanese studies people is nice too, so that's at least three friends!
I get people asking me a lot about getting into UoSheff with Access, or Access courses in general because, even though they have existed for a while, they're only just starting to get popular. I may make a post later on to link people to when they ask me. I have to admit it's a bit tiresome to write the same thing out all the time.
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