Year round CTYI?

Rezmuter Duane

What do people think? Maybe there has been a thread about this before, I don't know. If there has, maybe someone could post a link to it? I just thought I'd throw out the idea. Is this just a pipe dream or would others like to see it too??

Aoibheann

The idea of it is nice, but it'd get a bit much. I love CTYI, I really do, but it being for such a short time is what makes it so special, in my opinion. If it was all year round, we'd have nothing to look forward to in the summer....except holidays obviously, but y'know what I mean.

Raphael

There was. Repeatedly. Pretty much every year.

Oh, and they do have year round CTYI. It's called college

Aoibheann

yes, but the novelty of college will wear off, with all the essays and whatnot, so there's my point proven.

Aliminator

yes, but the novelty of college will wear off, with all the essays and whatnot,

true. essays are a pain in the ass. especially ethics and law..but they only take a week max. if u work at it. unless it's like Ph.D. or something...

but the novelty of college does not wear off easily, especially if u get residential halls. it's can be the same as CTYI, depending on the course u do. hte only difference is....no lights out, u can skip lectures, far more freedom. oh yeh. MUCH LONGER.

so there's my point proven

pssh

Aoibheann

well, I dont think if I do medicine in college, that it'd fell like CTYI. I wouldn't skip lectures I need to go to, and it's a very long time in college. I'm saying, too much CTYI would be overkill, as much as I love it.

Aliminator

how'd u know i do medicine? hmm..
well yes, it is a long time here, but it's worth it. really amazing course. u see patients every thursday on hospital days. usually. great social events for medics. and most medic students are like CTYIers. just some are a little less........odd....like us.

Aoibheann

no, I didn't actually know that. It's what I want to do!
It definitely does seem worth it. Just I have to hope to get the points I need.

Aliminator

me thinks this should go to PM's. but mih...

the point system is a wanksta. i got out of that race by coming here to london. but that requires interviews, and Aptitude tests (which we're all we able for). i encourage thee, come..

Aoibheann

Cool. *goes immediately to London*. *realises still has 1.5 years of school left.* *goes back home*

sounds like a good idea.

Aliminator

1 1/2 years?
how young are u ppl? nevermind..forgot what ctyi age generally is/was...
but do look at it...it's defo worth it. for medicine UCL is the best atm. new hospital opens in 3 months...should be sweet to work there...


yeh...ctyi is a good idea...but to get the numbers for such a place, either the fees will be high, or the cut off point will be reduced considerably..
i don't mean to sound elite-ist.

Aoibheann

just gone 16.

the fees would be astronomical for all year round ctyi, and yes, it would be more restricted in the numbers sense.

Raphael

And would, of course, breed even more elitism than the 3 week CTYI does. This thread hurts my brain, I'm going to bed.

Aliminator

actually i meant expanded numbers...cut off point as in the SAT score centile. reduced.. but that's just logistics of running an institution...a good idea and dream....
but nevermind...


16? well...enjoy 5th year..and 6th...



and aonghus. STFU |\|()()|3

Aoibheann

ah, see what you mean, yeah.

I'm sure I will enjoy 5th year, and 6th. Damn, it is hard to convey sarcasm over the net..

StupidLikeAFox

Aoibheann Brady wrote:

I wouldn't skip lectures I need to go to,

You say that now.....

PurpleFistMixer

It wouldn't be the same as CTYI.
It'd be ridiculously expensive.
The fun would wear off.
It wouldn't ever happen.

So yeah, pipe dream...

Spraypaint

Not cost-effective, not feasible, not justifiable, not as much of a novelty, not gonna happen.

Raphael

PurpleFistMixer wrote:

So yeah, pipe dream...

Random fact, the phrase "pipe dream" alludes to the fantasies induced by smoking an opium pipe

PurpleFistMixer

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pipe+dream&r=f

You mean.. the internet would lie to me? *gasps*

Raphael

I'd trust dictionary.com over urbandictionary.com tbh

It wasn't me!

mmmm... pipe dream... Wasn't there a ban on 1337? I shudder to see it.

Year-long CTYI is the happiest idea ever. But it's just not feasible.

halenger

Aoibheann Brady wrote:

yes, but the novelty of college will wear off, with all the essays and whatnot, so there's my point proven.

I'm looking forward to time off after this year with my nice shiney degree *hits wooden desk visciouly*.

There's only so often you can sit Leaving Cert style exams (twice yearly for four years - cept 3rd year only has 1 set of exams in DCU/my course).
In fairness though Universities take exams far more seriously than the LC examiners etc.

americanCat

as much as i would love being in CTYI forever.. i've come to the conclusion that if i did.. i would prolly ending up blowing up at someone.. unfortunately.. there is such a thing as too much of a good thing *pout* but i *do* wish that there were no such things as nevermores.. and that we could come back every summer until we're old enough to teach some classes ourselves ^_^

(then styi could take over the worrrld!!)
excuse my delusional ranting..i'm a nevermore and i miss CTYI terribly...

Piste

styi?

TalkISCheap

crazily enough, im listnin 2 the invisible band by travis while im typing this, and pipe dream is a song on the album...

*looks furtively over shoulder*

PurpleFistMixer

Raphael wrote:

I'd trust dictionary.com over urbandictionary.com tbh

Dictionary.com annoys me. It opens popups (and while this barely effects me with firefox, it's still a reason not to like it) and it always refreshes itself after loading so whatever I've typed into its search box gets screwed up...
It's still unspeakably useful, though.

And it agrees with urbandictionary.com about pipe dreams.

pinkpimp

I'm not terribly sure all year CTYI would be a good thing...

Firstly, the closed environment like ctyi increases tension, and emotions run very high... (Hence the people becoming more and more attached to each other, and people being extremely moody, and people moaning...etc...) these feelings all year round would lead to either emotional instability(-breakdown) or emotional closing (people would block out emotions)

Secondly, people that close for that long become extremely annoying. In the three week version, you can find new people to hang around with if you are pissed off with someone. If t'were all year round, you would run out of new people, and end up secretly hating everyone, although you probably wouldn't confront them directly (Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Loretto College Stephens Green).

Thirdly, the beauty of ctyi is that it is an unusual thing. You can afford to act differently while there, and then restore (a degree of) normality when you leave. Making it an all year thing would make it a regular thing, so you wouldn't feel that you had the freedom.

Fourthly, ctyi is what it is because everyone there is basically the same, so people act like they do. If any 'normal' (I use the term loosely) people were there, people would be embarrassed to act as they do (by enlarge), so only a few people would be 'ctyiish' and they would be branded as odd.


Befor you ask, no, I didn't do Psycology (I can't even spell it), and yes, I do want to do it in college (if I can rack up in eccess of 560 points)

StupidLikeAFox

pinkpimp wrote:

I'm not terribly sure all year CTYI would be a good thing...

Firstly, the closed environment like ctyi increases tension, and emotions run very high... (Hence the people becoming more and more attached to each other, and people being extremely moody, and people moaning...etc...) these feelings all year round would lead to either emotional instability(-breakdown) or emotional closing (people would block out emotions)

Secondly, people that close for that long become extremely annoying. In the three week version, you can find new people to hang around with if you are pissed off with someone. If t'were all year round, you would run out of new people, and end up secretly hating everyone, although you probably wouldn't confront them directly (Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Loretto College Stephens Green).

Thirdly, the beauty of ctyi is that it is an unusual thing. You can afford to act differently while there, and then restore (a degree of) normality when you leave. Making it an all year thing would make it a regular thing, so you wouldn't feel that you had the freedom.

Fourthly, ctyi is what it is because everyone there is basically the same, so people act like they do. If any 'normal' (I use the term loosely) people were there, people would be embarrassed to act as they do (by enlarge), so only a few people would be 'ctyiish' and they would be branded as odd.

So in a nutshell, all year CTYI would just end up like regular school really

pinkpimp

Yeah, but I like long-winded explinations.

Jarge!!!

Just to be contrary, I'm gonna disagree on this one. I think year long CTYI is feasible (if extremely unlikely), with a couple of minor modifications to the current program.

First of all, classes would need to change so as to provide a more balanced education (and, more importantly, to provide something that universities will recognise at the end of it all). But no one really cares about the class work anyway, it's the social aspect of CTYI everyone loves, so we'll ignore that for the time being.

Secondly, in order to avoid the emotional problems and the closed environment issue, there would need to be way more people involved, although I have heard cases of boarding schools with as few as 250 people which functioned reasonably successfully, the more the merrier.

Speaking briefly about your fourth point, I fail to see why 'normal' people would be more likely to attend a year round CTYI program than the summer courses. I would also debate that people at CTYI are 'basically the same', although I can see what you were getting at.

At this point it would also be appropriate to point out that in some schools, particularly those with small student bodies or small class groups, things can be much like CTYI - My IB class at school (21 people who i have every class with) and a school I attended in America (8 students in total) were both good examples of year round environments that had CTYI like properties (although they aren't/weren't as good as the real thing). So I guess I disagree that "Making it an all year thing would make it a regular thing, so you wouldn't feel that you had the freedom."

So in the end, what we're talking about is effectively an elitist boarding school for people who can get good SAT scores. Maybe it wouldn't be as good as summer CTYI, but it'd sure beat the hell out of school.

Any thoughts?

pinkpimp

Jarge!!! wrote:

Secondly, in order to avoid the emotional problems and the closed environment issue, there would need to be way more people involved, although I have heard cases of boarding schools with as few as 250 people which functioned reasonably successfully, the more the merrier.

Speaking briefly about your fourth point, I fail to see why 'normal' people would be more likely to attend a year round CTYI program than the summer courses. I would also debate that people at CTYI are 'basically the same', although I can see what you were getting at.

Contradiction?

My point is, in order for an all year ctyi to be feasable, it would have to be adjusted. This would neutralise the effect it has on people. I know it would be feasable, but just not the same.
Also, other similar things like boarding schools may work, but they aren't the same as ctyi, and I believe that if they were, people would have ripped each other apart.
I would like to add to my arguement a reminder that, at one stage or another, everyone here was complaining about being there. Most people got very homesick, and emotional. There isn't enough personal space for a teenager to deal with things properly, so people break down.
Also, you'd have to be able to leave campus for it to be feasable. And ctyi would not be near the same if that were to happen.
Plus, the food... I couldn't survive without some sort of substinance in my diet all year round. Even the salad wasn't fresh.

Aoibheann

another thing about it is the whole elitist part of it. I mean, people who maybe can't get a high enough SAT score may still want to learn, and what makes us so great that we get the right to have a special school ahead of them? I mean, I hate school and all, and CTYI is obviously waaay better, but this would only bring out the elitist in a person. The 3 weeks in summer is different. It's not school as such and it isn't as bad as it isn't necessary that we go to it, like school is.
What makes CTYI so special is that it's this amazing experience, but it's in such a short space of time. Dragging it out for a year, or whatever amount of months would take away from the overall brilliance of it.

pinkpimp

Ah, now, Let's not go crazy. Elitism is one of the best things in the world. It's just that intillectual elitism hasn't been tried.



Bide your time, Colm, bide your time...

lucernarian

What if CTYI were to become a proper secondary school? And we keep the 3 week courses for all the fun stuff? I prob wouldn't be able to go to this heavenly school though coz I'd say it would cost an arm and a leg.

Jarge!!!

Not a contradiction, when you bear in mind that if functioning as a school it would need to take older people (to get them up to school leaving age).

Elitism is a problem with summer ctyi, so it's gonna be there no matter what you do with the course in any case.

In terms of getting homesick, it happens when one is on holiday, when one goes on an exchange, and indeed in regular boarding schools. It's there, yes, but it's an unavoidable part of going away from home for protracted periods of time - something we're all going to have to do sooner or later.

In both boarding schools and regular ctyi, people are allowed to go home at weekends/holidays. In my first year at CTYI, i went home every weekend and guess what - it was still good.

And as to the food... well, you've got me there. Not even I'm willing to defend CTYI canteen food (although in fairness, most of it wasn't too bad this year).

And, to answer aoibheann's point, i don't think anyone who attends ctyi can fairly say that we beleive everyone should be allowed to do whatever they want and go wherever they want in terms of education. I mean, would ctyi be the same if the let in people who... weren't as intellectually exceptional as us.

Barry Aldwell

Jarge!!! wrote:

Elitism is a problem with summer ctyi, so it's gonna be there no matter what you do with the course in any case.

Elitism is a problem whenever someone is put in a better position than their former peers, whether it be through superior skills, sheer chance, or having more money. My school costs 5 grand a year. Result: Every dumbass in my school who will probably get <200 points in the Leaving Cert feels they are better than those who are in public schools who work really hard and get 500+ points, just because their daddy (roysh) is rich enough to send them to a private school.

nosmo

Deja vu.

lucernarian

Originally posted by Jarge!!
And as to the food... well, you've got me there. Not even I'm willing to defend CTYI canteen food (although in fairness, most of it wasn't too bad this year).

I resent that remark completely!! You didn't have to get 7 litres of potassium chloride solution injected into your veins little more than a day after the end of Ses 2! Mainly thanks to the food there.

I know I sound like a sour grape but what I said is the truth. The food situation there can actually cause very serious illness. And who would blame me for being bitter when I'm not allowed back to CTYI this year mainly because of the food.

Back to the point,

originally posted by Barry Aldwell
Elitism is a problem whenever someone is put in a better position than their former peers, whether it be through superior skills, sheer chance, or having more money. My school costs 5 grand a year. Result: Every dumbass in my school who will probably get <200 points in the Leaving Cert feels they are better than those who are in public schools who work really hard and get 500+ points, just because their daddy (roysh) is rich enough to send them to a private school.

There's a subtle difference here- Those dumbasses think they are better than someone else for an idiotic and basically illogical reason. However, there is a reason for people at CTYI to think they're better than others, intellectually anyway, because CTYIers are there at CTYI because they're intellectually gifted. The problem lies where anyone might think that they're better as a person than someone else who's less intelligent (I'm not saying that it does happen).

Spraypaint

Hang on a sec. When/How the hell was Jarge suddenly unbanned and by whom?

Back to the point: The elitism thing would be a big problem but it works both ways even inside CTYI as opposed to just Ctyi versus everyone else.There are various degrees of gifted-ness(Ok I made that word up) even amongst CTYIers. Some people get in with scores of in excess of 1500 on the SAT. Some of us(myself included) didn't do so well and scraped in. That could lead to a case of them us and superiority and inferiority complexes.

Likewise CTYI is cliquey by nature. Factions develop quickly and people can tend to be left out. Groups of friends stick together and become tightly-knit. Now picture being on the outside of those groups for an entire school year.

It wasn't me!

He was unbanned a long time ago, he just hasn't been here since.

lucernarian

originally posted by Spraypaint
Back to the point: The elitism thing would be a big problem but it works both ways even inside CTYI as opposed to just Ctyi versus everyone else.There are various degrees of gifted-ness(Ok I made that word up) even amongst CTYIers. Some people get in with scores of in excess of 1500 on the SAT. Some of us(myself included) didn't do so well and scraped in. That could lead to a case of them us and superiority and inferiority complexes.

Likewise CTYI is cliquey by nature. Factions develop quickly and people can tend to be left out. Groups of friends stick together and become tightly-knit. Now picture being on the outside of those groups for an entire school year.

That's a very good point. People can and do get left out. I was kinda like that in my first year at CTYI. I was really shy then (and still am I suppose). Btw I dont think many people know me here on boards.

Raphael

And think what it would be like for people like Cotton

It wasn't me!

...I'm starting to like this idea.

Raphael

What, making a 13 year old boys life hell?

StupidLikeAFox

works for the catholic church!

Jarge!!!

Ok. George's spiel, part 3.

Elitism is being discussed as a problem in two main ways, people in CTYI believing they're better than people a) outside ctyi and b)others within the course.

In terms of elitism between ctyi-ers and non ctyi-ers, it's gonna exist with any organisation/society that has entrance requirements: private schools, select sports teams, nerd camp. It's something everyone seems to have dealt with so far and I'd imagine they'd go on dealing with it if our hypothetical situation were the case.

In terms of elitism within ctyi, there are two points i'd like to bring up. Firstly, elitism and exclusion is going to be a problem wherever adolescents associate with other adolescents, or indeed human beings associate. It's part of human nature, and pretty well unavoidable.

Secondly, I don't remember too many people at CTYI in any of my 4 years saying 'i don't wanna be friends with you, you only got X on the SAT', either outright or through their actions. I would further suggest that anyone who does is not worth your time and, given the prolific numbers of sound people at the course, you should go find a new friend. One without an attitude problem.

mentalimplosion

i don't agree with the idea of yearround ctyi, mainly for reasons i won't go into, so as not to piss a load of people off and get in trouble but also because i know that if i went, it'd kill me. as spraypaint said, some of us just barely scraped in. i remember sitting in class last session (international relations, which, before i took the course i would have felt fairly abreast on) and not having a clue not anyone was talking about. that is i think one of the major problems with ctyi itself, that you have eversoslightly above average losers like myself in the same class as kids with brains the size of planets. but, as has been said, separating kids like me from the smarter kids just creates more elitism.

*leaves whilst nursing bruised ego*

Aoibheann

Jarge!!! wrote:

And, to answer aoibheann's point, i don't think anyone who attends ctyi can fairly say that we beleive everyone should be allowed to do whatever they want and go wherever they want in terms of education. I mean, would ctyi be the same if the let in people who... weren't as intellectually exceptional as us.

Yes, but it's in the summer anyway, and it's technically not part of our actual school education, and it's not necessary that we go to it, like school is. For schools, I think anyone should be allowed to get the education that they want, it's unfair for any of us to say they shouldn't. School and CTYI are different in a lot of ways and that's why I dont think they should mix.

It wasn't me!

In fairness Ana, there were maybe two people in the class who didn't feel exactly like you. Everybody was just waffling away on whatever little snippet of information they had come across and hoping for the best. I know I was. I made up a decent proportion of what I said in that class! And got burned on several occasions.

mentalimplosion

ehm what about the guy who knew everything? and riognach's instant jelly? and mary's ever-faithful dedication to australia? and everyone knowing something about chechnya except me, the one person who was supposed to know all about it???!??!??!