Uni talk - Restricted Entry 2009

[MattRSK]

I am planning on doing engineering next year at Canterbury, this is the first I have heard of restricted entry. Having traveled to Christchurch to met with liaison staff and being told I would be accepted no issue, this comes as quite a surprise.

I left school at the end of sixth form and have since completed an electrical apprenticeship. My sixth form certificate marks are just under the requirements for university entrance. I would hope that they would judge entry requirements on the study I have completed, and excelled at, outside of high school.

Would this make the adult entry void?

Certain people won't know what they want to do straight out of school. I imagine this would just add more pressure to decide early on.

[N1CK]

You can get credits for doing a "learn to sail" course ffs.

I don't know anything about this one, but there could be some type of evaluating and writing at the end. ?? Instead of just sailing.

getting a drivers licence, physical education etc - although to be fair the stuff i saw for Phys ed wasn't exactly a walk in the park, more a gruelling run for 5km

Never heard of the drivers licence one. That one is a bit rude.

The P.E stuff however contains a lot of thinking and writing, after the actual phys ed, and can get quite intense.


Anyway, this stuff is off topic.

[Squiggles]

We must remember that there are already courses set aside for students who didnt make the grades for UE, they do a semester of uni and passing gets them in (believe its called a Cert. of Proficiency but not sure and cant remember what papers you do)...

What if they were to keep that system, but say, you chuck in a paper or two from the faculty you want to get into in there, (The faculty's Gen ed paper and 1 normal perhaps? ) Then, if you didnt make the grades at school, theres still a pathway, and if you cant make it in that enviroment, then how are you going to make it through 4 years worth?

[Real_Wolf]

I'm not sure, but I think that the "over 25 is a different category" setup will still apply.

I think that whatever they do, they should at least try to find out whether or not you CAN learn. Alot of people don't learn at college cause there doesn't seem much point, and when your at university, its not what you know, its what your able to learn that matters. I knew absolutely nothing about wave particle duality until I learnt them, but if I wasn't scientifically inclined, I might not have been able to learn that at all, like alot of people who take alot of subjects can't learn what they need to.

I'm reminded of a 'what university course to take' thing at college, where someone asked the economics people whether they wanted people taking 7th form accounting or economics, and they went "No, we don't, they teach it all wrong, then we have to go back and re teach it anyway"

[Ragingrob]

I'm glad I sucked at economics in school then

[Zealot]

I'm fine with the restricted entry. I'm doing a BE/BSc, and the standard in science is pretty low. In terms of difficulty, science seems to be about the same as engineering, but the workload is lighter, at least at 2nd stage (although 3rd stage geog was easy too). There are also a lot of people who don't seem to care about the papers they take.

I can recall going to compsci220 lectures and having ~20 people in the class. Come test time, the class had ~120 people in it.

Hopefully restricted entry will raise the bar a bit.

[motorbyclist]

University is the next school after college, right? so if people don't do too well in a school ( college ) setting, what makes you think they will magically come right 3 months later at University?

completely different environment, different attitude, different friends, different learning style, material is actually relevant to what you want to do and paying through the nose for it provides a strong incentive to do well

not saying everyone is capable of it, as many are not, but a lot of "bad students" at high school do in fact magically come right (or atleast up to the bar)

We must remember that there are already courses set aside for students who didnt make the grades for UE, they do a semester of uni and passing gets them in (believe its called a Cert. of Proficiency but not sure and cant remember what papers you do)...

What if they were to keep that system, but say, you chuck in a paper or two from the faculty you want to get into in there, (The faculty's Gen ed paper and 1 normal perhaps? ) Then, if you didnt make the grades at school, theres still a pathway, and if you cant make it in that enviroment, then how are you going to make it through 4 years worth?

+1 again

personally, when heard about restricted entry i thought "so what?"

there's already a lot of restrictions, and alot of exceptions. good working example is those who don't make it into engineering being allowed in later down the track if they can hold atleast a B+ average in a science degree

[bomma]

but shouldnt uni entry be available to all?? if i want to go to uni just to socialise and waste MY time and MY money why the hell should i not be allowed to?!?! Like Ross pointed out this doesnt happen much and any persons doing this wouldnt last too long without support or some passing grades but shouldnt this option be open to me??

also currently, there are already restrictions in place for entrance into many "hardout/pwnz0r" courses such as engineering.....my grades from school werent good enough to get me into engineering and those were the brakes....i think the system in-place for assessing entry qualifications is fine. like i said, you dont need excellences to get into a BA...i mean really "Would you like fries with that?" SEE ITS THAT SIMPLE

also just coz im a dumass at school doesnt necessarily make me a dumass.....i would have failed 7th form physics if i hadnt gotten tutoring coz my teacher was an idiot and we spent most of our class time watching junkyard wars and blowing up bottles with dry ice.....my grades didnt reflect the learning that took place in school....how "intelligent" a person is is very subjective to their environment......

[Squiggles]

but shouldnt uni entry be available to all?? if i want to go to uni just to socialise and waste MY time and MY money why the hell should i not be allowed to?!?! Like Ross pointed out this doesnt happen much and any persons doing this wouldnt last too long without support or some passing grades but shouldnt this option be open to me??

Yer, but it is true that the fees we pay are already heavily subsidised by the gubbermunt, which essentially means that only a portion of your courses come from "your money"... And to think we'd let you waste your time and money without telling you what to do

Personally, I believe you've got to want it to get it, if you want to go to uni, you'll do what is required... i want to get a degree, so i was willing to work hard to get in (even though there is currently no entry requirements for science), i intend to leave with that degree. Some people come in, and just sort of hang round, never leaving, never passing (when they fail they dont even try harder next time round). They just sit in limbo for 5 years, no idea what they want, no desire to find out, meanwhile others cant get into the lectures/labs because of those limbo'ing.

I dont agree with going straight from school to uni either though, you've got to get out there first to know fully what you dont want to do with your life, and perhaps you might just find out what you do want... I dont want to be a tiler, gardener, groundskeeper, builder, housemover, or an electrician. I might still be a courier, teacher or pyrotechnician, but we'll see

[motorbyclist]

Y
Personally, I believe you've got to want it to get it, if you want to go to uni, you'll do what is required...
I dont agree with going straight from school to uni either though, you've got to get out there first to know fully what you dont want to do with your life...

so you'd suggest open entry with lower subsidy (higher fees) to scare off those who aren't serious?



btw, you actually tried courier work yet? my neighbours work at fastway (higher up running something, ex drivers but my mate still drives occasionally when inbetween work) and it's not the best job, particularly when you have to pay for damaged goods that were munted by idiots loading them on/off trucks. the loaders don't pay so literally throw stuff around, landing you with the bills for damage.
plus traffic/stress etc etc... unless it was on a bike i'd say being a gardener would be better, and gardening is shit

[vindy500]

how about different fees for different results, i.e in second year if your average was A then you pay less fees than the person who got a C average....


i guess thats what schols are for tho huh..




*enjoys his step up scholarship*

[motorbyclist]

unfortunately i didn't get any scholarships, being 2nd best in all my subjects meant nothing from the school, never got the paperwork/information about sitting sholarship exams despite my asking several times, and there being no scholarships available to mechatronics students... and my parents earn too much, despite also supporting my younger siblings and paying off the mortgage

there's those bonded merit govt ones you get for doing well but apparently i'm not doing well enough despite meeting all criteria; all the smarter students got in first



bit OT here:

big problem with NCEA is that a student who did "Physics" may have done a completely different set of achievement standards (ie, mini papers) to another student who also did "Physics"

and within that is unbalance in the work requirement and/or difficulty for a given number of credits across different standards. ie a 500 word essay in english gets the same number of credits as a 3000 word fully referenced report in biology

and then there's the issue of dodgy schools like cambridge with had multichoice tests for internal assesments

[Squiggles]

btw, you actually tried courier work yet?
.......
plus traffic/stress etc etc... unless it was on a bike i'd say being a gardener would be better, and gardening is shit

Not yet, i just about did but came to uni instead, got my goods&services license tho. Was going to do it on a GN

[klyong82]

I dont agree with going straight from school to uni either though, you've got to get out there first to know fully what you dont want to do with your life, and perhaps you might just find out what you do want... I dont want to be a tiler, gardener, groundskeeper, builder, housemover, or an electrician. I might still be a courier, teacher or pyrotechnician, but we'll see

I agree with your thought ... going to university nowadays to many people seems to be something that everyone does and they don't know why. I ask them what ya planning to do and 6 or 7 out of 10 most of the time will say I don't know - I am taking this paper because my friend is doing it or my grades allow me to do so or the career advisor think I am suitable or etc etc..

I think the restrictions is a good thing to only allow people who wanna be there to persue a tertiary education while the rest in the labour force or technical college or an apprenticeship.

. Anyway you should be a pimp as you fit the criteria....bike pimp.

[teamsuperoxide]

Restricted entry is a bit of double edged sword.
On the one hand it will improve the quality of University education but on the other there will be people who miss out with poor high school marks that would have excelled in the University environment.
I'm definitely one of the latter. I dropped out before 7th form, enrolled in IT at AUT, dropped out of that when the computers plotted to kill me but discovered chemistry in the process and I'm now about to finish a MSc in Inorganometallic Coordination Chemistry. However after two years teaching students in stage-one chemistry I welcome restrictions. University is used by a lot of kids as the dole.
I think its up to the high schools to help student decide what they want to do with there lives. I’m not sure about all subjects but I definitely know that in the sciences what is taught in high school is far removed for University level and University level is generally more interesting.