Pros and cons of doing transition year?

coldwood92

PrO:gr8 craic
Con: LOTS of prjects

leonardjos

TY is a great opportunity to study something that you're interested in, rather than what's on a syllabus. And when you take away the pressure of preparing for exams, learning can actually be enjoyable!

This is a good example in some schools in Cork - TY students, bored with the same old language modules, are learning tongue-twisting tongues from the far east

POWER IS moving east. Europe’s population is in decline, and American supremacy has taken a thumping.

The Transition Year students at Christ King Secondary School in Cork are amongst hundreds of students who are jettisoning the usual European language modules to tackle the unfamiliar sounds of Chinese and Japanese. Chinese is offered as a special TY subject in 30 schools, most of which are based in Cork and Dublin, while Japanese is currently available in 30 schools as both a TY and Leaving Certificate subject.

Kayshey

I think everyone should deffo do 4th year...in the long run it's only one extra year in your life..and I think someone just turned 17 isnt ready for the leaving cert and it's a nice break after the j.c..4th year was deffo the best year of school, our year got closer and you make friends with people you barely talked to before..as long as you take part in everything and don't treat it as a doss it's a great laugh, plus you get to go on holiday with your whole year!!

xsarah1995x

Hey Still havent made up my mind whether to do 4th year and we have to let the school know pretty soon so I'd appreciate any advise!! haha

all my friends are definitely doing ty and they all want me 2 do it.
My parents don't want me to do it though but they said it's up to me...
I think it'll be a great year sounds like great fun!!
if i dont do it I'll be 16 doing my leaving cert.. every1s saying its too young (besides my parents - they'd rather i went straight 2 5th year so i can hav 2 go's at the leaving..)

dont know what to do!! please help!!

Duffman'05

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055819550

hisbabygirl95

elaine93 wrote: »

It really does depend on the school. I'm doing it at the moment, counting down the days till its over. I think TY is only of benefit if you have huge self discipline and are willing to use the extra time well. Make it clear to your brother they will not start the leaving cert course so you will not get a head start. Make sure he goes to meet a current TY student/5th year and ask them what they thought of the schools Ty, DO NOT BELIEVE WHAT THE SCHOOL SAYS YOU WILL DO, THEY ARE LYING! My school made out like we would be doing all this fun stuff, and guess what, we do nothing! No photography,psychology,criminology,journalism! All we got was a class in film-making which is a disaster and a class in makeup!

You must understand that not all schools are like that i am currently a ty student and because it is non-optional we get a start on the LC course so please get your facts right before leaving such a comment.

trotsky93

Just in my humble opinion and as someone who has been through it, here's what I found;
1) All the trips (which was about 3 or 4 in our school anyway) were fairly average and mostly involved long walks.
2) All the "courses" done are really just speakers coming in talking about their lives for two hours.
3) You'll have to do these annoying projects where you write about yourself, what experience you gained from market day etc. which although easy are just incredibly tedious to write. And if you're doing LCVP in 5th year, you'll have to do those anyway.
4) There will be a lot of time spent idly or "free classes" which is good for two or three weeks but the novelty soon wears off.
5) It is a doss year, don't let anyone else say otherwise. Perhaps a small minority will get gold Gaisce medals or learn a new instrument but what will happen to a lot of people is that they fall into a lazy routine which is difficult to break come 5th year.
6) Just think that when other friends move onto college, you'll be doing the leaving.
7) If you have to repeat the LC just think about how old you'll be when you get out of secondary school. Plus, who would want to spend 7 years in secondary school?
I know this may sound cynical but just remember that TY may sound great in theory, in practice it really can get boring and you just feel unproductive. 5th Year isn't that stressful and you may as well hit the ground running. There is a strong likelihood you will regret it when especially when your friends get their LC results and you know it's all ahead of you....:(

AdamH95

Did TY last year and was the best year of my life.

Pros...
Trips to some wonderful places including Holland and London
Made some great new friends
Gained a lot of self confidence (sounds like standard TY crap but honestly true)
The craic was had

Cons.....
Some god awful class modules (Hertiage and Tourism)
Work Experience wasn't that fun, didn't really enjoy going in most days
Some stupid projects

Academic wise.....just forget about it. The only thing I kept up with in TY was Maths and Irish but every other subject I did nothing.

Make sure your TY has a great and dedicated co-ordinator who will do as much as they can with you..... I had a brilliant one, she really went all out for us.

At the end of the day, it really depends on the person.

ismisekatie

i did ty and even though it wasnt the most productive year... it was very enjoyable indeed :P

what i will say though is im in 5th now... and out of the 15 or so 'newbys' that joined our year, skipping ty, over half of them have decided to repeat next year. the teachers always said the people who do ty do better in lc and i didnt believe it until i saw it. they are not doing well academically... so for that reason alone i would recomend everyone to do it!

bluemusic97

Im a third year student, and in my school some people say ty is a great thing because theres a big trip eachyear, and a school musical (which you can take part in, in all years). I think im going to skip 4th year, because i hate studying, doing homeowork and teachers telling me what to do, eventhough i do try my hardest in school, and usually get on quite well, im doing all honours ( for now anyway:p). my year in school is also full of messers,people who really dont care about school and are very rude. all my friends are doing 4th year except myself and one other girl, they keep telling me to do it, cuz it'll be such a doss and they'll get involved in things, but i have a couple of friends in 4th year at the moment who tell me to skip not even because its that boring, but because they'd love to get to know me better. my friends in my own year are also starting to fight a bit (girls being girls) , and its been going on for a long time now, i just dont think id be able to put up with the same people for another full 3 years!, but ill also miss the lads in my class because they're all so funny, and so sound aswel. if i do 4th year im also afraid ill get bad teachers for cores, as my year hasnt been very lucky with teachers so far. But doing 4th year would mean an extra year of the school musical, which i did in 1st and 2nd year and i thought it was great craic!, getting settled down and finding what subjects i like and im best at, and it would mean i would be a good eighteen doing my leaving cert, which would mean id be old enough to go out in college. if i skip into 5th year, i will only be seventeen doing my leaving cert and wont be eighteen until a good few months into the college year! my sister says i should do 4th year because i wont be old enough, and it will be a break after the JC. my mam thinks this aswel, even though she says the decision is up to me. my dad and brother say i should skip. i was also talking to my english teacher who said she skipped when she was in school, ( which I wouldent say was that long ago) and she was only 17 going into college, she said it was the best decision she made. im just so confused! ill probably end up skipping, but when i think back on all the good things that have happened since 1st year, i become unsure, but there has also been alot of bad things.. i need to make my mind up in the next 2 weeks and i was just wondering could somone tell me what TY is like! ( in my school you really have to get involved in stuff, because if u dont they will do nothing with you).. THANK YOU!

ismisekatie

bluemusic97 wrote: »

Im a third year student, and in my school some people say ty is a great thing because theres a big trip eachyear, and a school musical (which you can take part in, in all years). I think im going to skip 4th year, because i hate studying, doing homeowork and teachers telling me what to do, eventhough i do try my hardest in school, and usually get on quite well, im doing all honours ( for now anyway:p). my year in school is also full of messers,people who really dont care about school and are very rude. all my friends are doing 4th year except myself and one other girl, they keep telling me to do it, cuz it'll be such a doss and they'll get involved in things, but i have a couple of friends in 4th year at the moment who tell me to skip not even because its that boring, but because they'd love to get to know me better. my friends in my own year are also starting to fight a bit (girls being girls) , and its been going on for a long time now, i just dont think id be able to put up with the same people for another full 3 years!, but ill also miss the lads in my class because they're all so funny, and so sound aswel. if i do 4th year im also afraid ill get bad teachers for cores, as my year hasnt been very lucky with teachers so far. But doing 4th year would mean an extra year of the school musical, which i did in 1st and 2nd year and i thought it was great craic!, getting settled down and finding what subjects i like and im best at, and it would mean i would be a good eighteen doing my leaving cert, which would mean id be old enough to go out in college. if i skip into 5th year, i will only be seventeen doing my leaving cert and wont be eighteen until a good few months into the college year! my sister says i should do 4th year because i wont be old enough, and it will be a break after the JC. my mam thinks this aswel, even though she says the decision is up to me. my dad and brother say i should skip. i was also talking to my english teacher who said she skipped when she was in school, ( which I wouldent say was that long ago) and she was only 17 going into college, she said it was the best decision she made. im just so confused! ill probably end up skipping, but when i think back on all the good things that have happened since 1st year, i become unsure, but there has also been alot of bad things.. i need to make my mind up in the next 2 weeks and i was just wondering could somone tell me what TY is like! ( in my school you really have to get involved in stuff, because if u dont they will do nothing with you).. THANK YOU!

ok i cant help on the personal friend front... thats up to you :P what i will say is you get out of ty exactly what you put in (cliched, i know) so if you put in a little effort to organise work exp that interests you, etc. you will have an AMAZING year, also something you may not have considered is that people who skip do not do aswell as the tys come fifth year, not trying to scare you but im in fifth now, there were maybe 20 who skipped ty and are in our year now.... a good half of them are repeating fifth again next year because they just couldn't keep up. of the 10 appx staying they all achieve below average apart from one. to rephrase 1/20 (in this particular case) is doing well in fifth. i genuinely believe having the year to relax and do some non academic stuff will make you better prepared to focus in fifth, be under no allusions if you are looking for anyway high points in lc you need to be paying attention in fifth! bottom line, i reccomend ty i hope i didnt freak you out too much!

OwlYouNeed

TY's compulsory in our school, but I'd do it anyway even if we had the choice. I hear from people in other schools that they do nothing in TY, but the people at our school still get loads of homework and Christmas/Summer tests. Perhaps some teachers slacken off a bit in fourth year, but the majority usually start to cover the course work.

nonamefemale

I'm currently 15 (turn 16 in May) and i'm doing the Junior Cert in June. I'm wondering if I should do Transition Year. If I do it, I will be 19 doing the Leaving Cert, and If I don't do Transition Year, I'll be just turned 18. Is 19 too old?

Fad

nonamefemale wrote: »

I'm currently 15 (turn 16 in May) and i'm doing the Junior Cert in June. I'm wondering if I should do Transition Year. If I do it, I will be 19 doing the Leaving Cert, and If I don't do Transition Year, I'll be just turned 18. Is 19 too old?

No, being a bit older when you hit college isn't a bad thing.

meandmypalimmy

gives you time to mature....pro
keeps you in school a year longer than you have to.... con

meandmypalimmy

you mature quicker though i think if you go into a class a year above you. you will then ajust to their maturer mind state hanging around older people if that makes sense?

NegativeCreep

The biggest pro in my opinion is being 18 by the time you get to college. Makes things like going out so much easier
Con: It's an extra year in school