To do or not to do, that is the question - Transition Year

twirly sponge

Transition year is optional in my school and I can't make up my mind whether or not I want to do it.
Have any of you done transition year? Was it good and or was it a big fat waste of time? And if you're in transition year now, what do you think of it?

shep the malevolent pixie

it all depends on your school really. i did transition year and i had a great time while i was doing it but now i kinda wish i hadn't because i'd be so much closer to being finished and out in the semi-real world of college now. (long sentence...)

yeah, it all really depends on what you want yourself, do you like school and do you like the people in your class? because if the answer is no then your choice is fairly obvious. on the other hand, if the answer is yes, then do it and you'll have a great laugh. i dunno. follow your instincts. i'm too tired to be giving any sort of lucid advice right now...:p

sHep :cool:

Barry Aldwell

I did transition year. Best year EVAR. My mini company, the yearbook and the computer room got me off so much school I kinda disappeared for the last 3 months.

oq4v3ht0u76kf2

Basically, if you play SCT rugby (possibly completely irrelevant in your case) or do honours maths then you should probably do fourth year. Otherwise, it's kinda up to you / your school's individual T.Y. programme... ask some of the current fourth years. Find out what kind of stuff they do, if it sounds good - do it. If not, don't.

It's never a "waste" of a year but sometimes fifth year might have been a better choice. Regardless though, by the time you sit down for your first class in fifth year you'll probably have forgotten all about it if you did it and all about why you should have done it if you didn't.

G'luck, Bob.

mentalimplosion

i'm going to do it cuz it means i have the time to do all the things, i've ever wanted eg: (finish my novel, get together a zine, establish my clothing label, make the irish version of the three colours trilogy, improve my spoken irish). if i didn't plan on doing these things, i'd probably just skip it. except that you can't in my school. *sigh*

theymademedoit

i want to do.i have to do it. in my school tis now manda-mo-tory, therefore, i dont want to do it and it is being forced on me in a horrible act of repression.aahhh, the joys of angst...

Raphael

And thus the inspiration for your name is revealed

halenger

Waste of a year in my old school (didn't do it thank god). Leaves me a hell of a lot closer to a degree so I'm happy. I hated secondary school.

*shudders* I remember a word called ho..me... wor...k


Glad to see the back of it!

It does depend on the school really. In mine very few did Transition Year and it was fairly crappy.

Talk to people ahead of you. See what majority of your friend group is doing and then figure out what suits you best. Also if the vast majority of your year will be doing it then it'll probably be fairly decent and start covering _some_ of the Leaving Cert course thus making it somewhat worth doing.

Aliminator

fingers de la mentalimplosion

except that you can't in my school. *sigh*

bullshiat. you can ALWAYS skip it. it was also 'forbidden' in my school. but i skipped it, so now i'm free. TY is an absolute bollox if you want to go anywhere academic in life. arts n' humanities, have a go.

I'm free. free to spam all i want now. (insert friendly snip from mod here)

I too remember that word homework. so long since i've had it.

Awayindahils

'or do honours maths'

why is it good to do ty if u do honours maths?i skipped ty this yr and maths seems fine at least at the moment it does.

The best thing i ever did was skip ty but i was having a crap time nd stuff so it was a good thing for me (i moved schools completely)

Mystic Fibrosis

There has never been something more irrelevant to the progress of one's education than 4th year. It has been said that the year is "invaluable". Bull. Granted, if you genuinely feel you need to rest (or something) between the certs then by all means do it, but otherwise it's just a waste of time, and I recommend not doing it.

Coincidentally, it IS a good idea to do ty if you're planning on Honors Level in the leaving cert. In my class at least we covered a lot of material we otherwise wouldn't have known about until later this year, and it HAS given us a headstart.

stevanavich

transition year... i enjoyed it well enough... it went by pretty quickly, and had loads extra-curricular to do. if you wanted to do it that is. i didnt but thats me. work experience, now thats a drag. 3 weeks in total of the worst mundane and boring tasks for smelly old men ever- though still a valuable experience in retrospect. bad idea and waste of time if you want to do well in 5th year, simply because it makes you a lazy old fart and you wont work at all.

hence, do it if you dont care about having to do another year/if your lazy/you want to.

dont do it if you want to get the hell out of school quickly/ you want to do well in your leaving cert/ if you dont want to.





horse steroids

Crash

Originally posted by Awayindahils
'or do honours maths'

why is it good to do ty if u do honours maths?i skipped ty this yr and maths seems fine at least at the moment it does.

The best thing i ever did was skip ty but i was having a crap time nd stuff so it was a good thing for me (i moved schools completely)

TY is good for honours maths cus honours maths is basically a three year course crammed into two years. so a lot of school start doing the Honours course a year earlier. just means you have a better starting point. on the subject of TY i skipped it myself. my school had a ****e program and also i was the oldest in my class so it made life easier to skip it. went to a new school because you werent allowed skip it in my school (And Alim it is up to the school whether you can skip it or not).

Aliminator

that's Bull**** neil. i (actually my mother) politely gave the headmaster hte finger and told him to stuff it. talented youth loike? hear what i'm saying?

Pretentious it may be, useful it also is.

Liquorice

I really don't want to do transition year, but my school won't allow me to skip it. I think it's a waste of an entire year. Fine, if you want a break from studying and/or have things you wouldn't have time to do in 5th year, by all means go ahead. I want to be out of school as quickly as possible.
Unfortunately, as I've said before, my school won't let me skip it, and I don't want to move school because I'm very happy with Colaiste Íosagáin, and there aren't any other good schools in my area. So...I'll have to find something to do during this year of boredom and wasted time.....join the school orchestra on violin, take up bass guitar, dressmaking, doll-making, umm....some other stuff that I have yet to think of....maybe do a ballet exam so I have some qualification after 11 years of it.

So, in conclusion.....to me, transition year=biggest waste of time possible, but if you want to do it, go ahead.

Aliminator

Colaiste Iosagain? as in the one up Booterstown Ave. on Stillorgan road? fek it's a small world in that case.

who the fuk doesn't let you skip? ur talented youth loike. call their bluff.

s0l

Hell, we don't even have transition year in my school.



I don't have anything else to say.
























Drink Coke.

Spenguin

Why is everyone so anti transition year? It sounds great to me! I like my school and the people in it. If I skipped transition year it would suck so much because a) all my friends would be in the year below me and I wouldn't get to see them as much, and they'd still be in school while I'd be in college, and b) I'd have all of my classes with the people in the year above me, who in my opinion are jerks. Well, some of them might be nice, but when I was in first year they were so horrible to all of us. Most of them are jerks. Besides, when you leave school you'll be so busy, and if you have some crazy money making scheme that will take a while to prepare its best to do it transition year. I wouldn't want to skip it also, because I am very afraid of what awaits me beyond secondary. I don't know what i wanna be, and i don't want to work hard, and I'm pretty sure I won't have any money so I'm scared. Why would I want to push that date closer than it is? I'm definitely doing it. And steven, you say you won't do as well in your leaving cert if you do transition year? bull****, if anything it would give you more time to prepare and study, hence better results. your reasons fo' doing and not doing it are a tad biased. you make the people who do it sound lazy and stupid.

It wasn't me!

I'm in third year now and sweet Jesus am I looking forward to transition year! Okay, mandatory in my school but I want to do it anyway for the break. I'm very lazy and I really don't want to face the leaving cert any sooner than I possibly can get away with. Also, my school has quite a cool programme for it and stuff, like paintballing against the teachers! Also, I wouldn't mind another year to stockpile materials and plan how to make every teacher in my school's life hell on that precious last day of the leaving cert. The junior cert is a great big dirty creation of evil with no practical value whatsoever and a whole lot of pressure for no result! God I hate this year. *Looks back on doing nothing at all in second year nostalgically*

Liquorice

Originally posted by Aliminator
Colaiste Iosagain? as in the one up Booterstown Ave. on Stillorgan road? fek it's a small world in that case.

who the fuk doesn't let you skip? ur talented youth loike. call their bluff.

Were you in Coláiste Eoin? Or do you have some other connection with the school?

Aliminator

no.
i was in St. Andrew's down the road. u know, the one with the jockbirds/hockey sluts and a better boys hockey team than any other school in the country. (shameful i know.)

thankfully i'm finnished now.

Raphael

In my school transition year is optional, and probably wont be on due to lack of intrest. Still though, i dont think i want to do it, purely because a. most of my friends arent b. I wanna get to college asap c. My school is a dump

malecO

I suppose that doing TY really depends on yourself. If you just want to get out of school as quickly as possible then don't bother. If you'd prefer to take your time, however, then definitely do it. It is not just a break from school but also gives you enough free time to do other things that interest you. My friend, for example absolutely hated TY but he doesn't regret doing it because his free time allowed him to form a band and meet loads of people and stuff like that. They have started gigging now and he loves it. 5th year doesn't usually give you enough time to enjoy things like this.

Myself, I didn't do the TY program. I took a year off and went to France where I learned lots of things such as French (obviously), met loads of new people, learned about what it's like to live in another country and of course, most of my percussion techniques (Ah the good auld bongos). Besides all this I also learned most of the stuff TY aims to teach you such as working out stuff on your own, not being spoon-fed, to be more responsible, etc. All of this sort of stuff.

TY in my opinion doesn't really improve your academic standard. It kinda makes you lazy going into 5th year. But I still say do it.

Oh and BTW, this is actually more important than it sounds. Try not to go into a year that's full of assholes. Seriously.

Squeee

Dar, I be a ty meself this very year. Erm, well, if you feel like you couldn't go straight to fifth year after the JC, then do it. It really helped me because I'm working even less than usual and I would have done the same if I had gone straight into fifth year so I would've been completely screwed coz fifth year is sorta important.....you kind of need to at least try to try.
As a warning Ana, I doubt you'll accomplish all of that in ty. In my crappy slum (school) we're swamped with pointless projects that will never help you with anything so that you don't get time to do all the really great things that you innocently thought that you would, the things that made you wnat to do ty.
Another warning is that if you have a poor memory you should probably skip it. Honest, I'm getting dumber by going to school(Funnily enough, I almost spelt "dumber" without the 'b' there. Now you see!!!). I feel my brain decay as I type. I'm forgetting all the things that I used to know. My maths and science are all right, but my languages have turned to bile. I can't remeber how to construct remotely interesting sentences in french and german so I can barely even write an essay. All knowledge has escaped my now vacuous (perhaps it was from the beginning though) head. On the up side, I have perfected certain skills that will get me nowhere in life but jail and my taste in music has improvedd coz I now finally get time to listen to all the stuff I never had time for and I also am able to sleep past 5 in the morning. Pretty sweet.

mentalimplosion

Originally posted by stevanavich


dont do it if you want to get the hell out of school quickly/ you want to do well in your leaving cert/ if you dont want to.

err, i was once told by somebody whom i cannot remember that students who do transition year get higher points in the LC than those who don't.

and i'm determined to do honours maths, even if i'll never understand geometry, so sounds like i better add in that extra year.

Aliminator

fek TY. just do the LC and take a year off after school loike moi. then one can do whatever the fuk one wants.
no more school uniform or getting up early. Period.

twirly sponge

Originally posted by Spenguin
I like my school and the people in it. I wouldn't want to skip it also, because I am very afraid of what awaits me beyond secondary. I don't know what i wanna be, and i don't want to work hard, and I'm pretty sure I won't have any money so I'm scared. Why would I want to push that date closer than it is? I'm definitely doing it.

Oh, I totally know what you mean there. I think I might do transition year just so I can have another year avoiding thinking about what I'm gonna do after school. Also, I'll probably be changing schools for 5th and 6th year so I kinda want another year with my friends here and stuff. Even though the TY programme in my school is pretty sh1tty. Oh well.

Alex, how did that France thing work? Did you go and stay with a family and go to a French school for a year or what? Is it just an individual thing or do a load of Irish people go over?

As for the helping honours maths thing that don't really make a difference to me cos I'm gonna get an A in maths anyway! Ha! *prepares to hang my head in shame when I fail maths*

purplepolkadot

jesus honours maths is so frickin hard and now the girl-who's-best-at-maths is sitting beside me and she looks into my copy to see where i'm at and it's a hideous mess and hers is perfection between margins i know this is a long sentence but F.C.U.K. LIKE. we're doing these things... you have a line... it's going through a curve... you want the area of the little bit in-between the line and curve... it has something to do with –d(theta)sin(theta)... differentiation and integration also involved... the computer letting me pass the maths on the s.a.t. was obviously doing so for the pisstake...
if i had have done TY, i woulda got the honours maths book my school uses (that is, discovering maths 4, maths book fans) and gone through it like a bastard, figuring out as much as i could, on top of whatever maths class i had. seriously. oh it's so hard (for me).

The junior cert ...no practical value whatsoever...whole lot of pressure...

in all fairness to the oul' jc, it gets you down wit’ going in and sitting a proper exam, for practical value. and writing stuff properly. stuff LIKE MATHS. aw yeah. and it's a test where you more or less can't cheat (cept in the mocks there), so it's giving you a real challenege.
pressure? pressure? hah, i pity the fools who feel pressure for the junior cert. as long as your doing an honours paper in whatever subjects you want to do honours in for leaving cert. you're sorted. sawh-teed...

oh and that thing about those who did TY getting more points, it's something like 15 or 20 from what i've heard. and consider the argument that it's cos they're (v.probably) older and therefore more capable of understanding HONOURS MATHS, cos i'd say the people in my year who are touching 19 will do better than me, who will have just turned 17.

now, on to the subject of the thread:
are your close friends doing TY?
are people you can become proper friends with doing TY?
is anyone you intensely dislike doing TY?
are the knackers/bitches doing TY?
what do the current TY's think of the programme?
do ya have to pay loadsa money for it?
is there ****e teachers in charge of it?
what do ye do? (e.g. shows...school exchange... experiments...magazines...?)
what's your gut instinct?
do a lot of people usually do it? if so, it may be good?
do you feel you would benefit from participating in your school's transition year programme?
when i was deciding, i asked myself all of that and was hmmm.... then i didn't do it.
cos i want to be just turning 21 when i finish college. i've always been the youngest in my class/year, and i bloody well like it (second youngest in the year, ohhh...yes). i don't think i would have been able to settle back to doing homework. i would have got so used to going out all the bloody time that i'd never have any money and i'd get itchy feet whenever i wasn't out. and it costs a truckload in my school cos it's a convent. etc.

sorry for the long post I’m in a so-talkative-she’s-not-inhaling-in-between-sentences kinda mood today.

Babygirl

Transition year = best year ever. I suppose it does depend on the school, but wherever you are it offers a chance to relax after the pointless, tedious hard work of the Junior Cert year. And it's what you make it - you can get involved in so much stuff and have way more time for going out and stuff. You'll be in the workplace long enough. Why would you want to bring that day even closer? Enjoy your youth while you have it (sez I at the ripe old age of sixteen)

Nyopallo

You should all be happy that you even have the option of doing a transition year.

Over here you are in for a set amount of years, unless you've failed too many courses. You can sort-of take a year off, but that's only if you fill up your schedule with classes like "Foods", "Ceramics" and "P.E."

Though it doesn't really affect me anymore, as I'll be jettisoned from this system along with 500 other people from my school in under 7 months.

Spog

Speaking as a current ty, i must say tis bloody good craic. But it does matter what your school organises. if they do a musical or show or somethin go for it cos its some of the best craic you'll have! and regarding year-head... be v careful. if you've a bollox for a year-head (like i do) think seriously bout your choice.

I think ty is great for choosin subjects, which is the main reason i did it, as i didn't have a clue what subjects to pick for the aul leavin (not that its any clearer to me now what subjects i'll b pickin, or what i'm gonna do in later life), but ty's givin me time to, eh, consider my options??

Sure do it for the craic, but do take into consideration all those things that purplepolkadot pointed out in her post.