My concerns about university

[Jack140]

Horus @ Sun Nov 23, 2008 4:12 pm wrote:

it's too late for me to redo english, cause i'm already in gr12. and our school is a term school, not semester. (except for AFCALC)

I don't think high school english have anything to do with your communication skill or even literacy skill.

what we're learning in english is shakespeare, which have nothing to do with modern english. I really hate reading shakespeare stuff, it's outdated for like 200+years. I also hate the essay that we have to write. e.g: in gr 11 I have to write about is shakespeare sexist. and I don't like that topic at all. I had a private tutor (which my mom got for me and payed him $30/hour) My tutor used to be a high school teacher even after he edited the essay for me, I still got 60% on that essay. Basically because my english teacher doesn't like the idea from what I (and my tutor) wrote.

I totally agree with you Horus...
All we pretty much do in school is that lame old boring shakespear stuff... (Its interesting to see what it was like speaking that way, but its just simply boring)
I personally think its useless (I mean who would speak, something like "art thou thy quisp" No one will understand you....
In addition, I believe that our government is not making the proper decisions... We should speak like normal civilized people (or modern people)
Our language has evolved quite significantly over the past years (centuries), I don't understand why we would should go back to the "stone age"...
That languages is not significant... Especially if we are trying to communicate to other people in the work place...
As long as you pass with a high mark in this stuff, then I guess you will be able to apply for a job.

[endless]

Horus @ Mon Nov 24, 2008 7:51 pm wrote:

and oh, I just find out something:

carleton have only 58% of the graduates employeed. I'm going to take out carleton as my 3rd choice and add in macmaster (91% of the graduates employeed)

may i ask where you got 58% from? it could be for the whole university, whereas 100% of the comp sci students enrolled in co op were accepted.

[jbking]

Horus @ Sun Nov 23, 2008 4:12 pm wrote:

it's too late for me to redo english, cause i'm already in gr12. and our school is a term school, not semester. (except for AFCALC)

I don't think high school english have anything to do with your communication skill or even literacy skill.

what we're learning in english is shakespeare, which have nothing to do with modern english. I really hate reading shakespeare stuff, it's outdated for like 200+years. I also hate the essay that we have to write. e.g: in gr 11 I have to write about is shakespeare sexist. and I don't like that topic at all. I had a private tutor (which my mom got for me and payed him $30/hour) My tutor used to be a high school teacher even after he edited the essay for me, I still got 60% on that essay. Basically because my english teacher doesn't like the idea from what I (and my tutor) wrote.

<rant mode>
In some ways I'll disagree with the "high school English having anything to do with my communication skill or even literacy skill" where in Grade 10 I had a teacher that finally could explain to me how to write an essay properly; what was the algorithm for that so that I could go from getting ~60% on an assignment to ~90% because I had used the proper structure for how to give my arguements on something. Granted that kind of teacher is likely rare these days, there are likely a few good ones out there.

There is the general question of beyond basic proficiency what should be taught next; which applies both in language and in other areas like Mathematics. Once you get beyond basic Real numbers that one can add, subtract, multiply and divide, what should be taught next? Geometry, algebra, or calculus all rely somewhat on those 4 original operators but can grow the complexity of what one can visualize and then one can add in other concepts like Combinatorics, Optimization, Graph Theory, Statistics and functions which makes things even more interesting for some; for others who cares about what are the chances of winning at craps? I believe a similar line exists within English for most of North America except for Quebec where French may be the dominant language. After you can write in a paragraph what should be the next challenge? What useful examples could one study and examine to see how well this worked or didn't work? Shakespeare may seem to be in a different language, but most of his tricks on the language aren't that different from songs today where new terms can be coined as well as words having contradictory meanings, e.g. if I call someone a dog, is that an insult or a compliment? I've often heard that "All men are dogs" used in generally a derogatory way but yet one could see Randy Jackson on American Idol calling someone "You're my dog!" and this is a huge compliment to the person.
</rant mode>

[Horus]

endless @ Tue Nov 25, 2008 6:35 pm wrote:

Horus @ Mon Nov 24, 2008 7:51 pm wrote:

and oh, I just find out something:

carleton have only 58% of the graduates employeed. I'm going to take out carleton as my 3rd choice and add in macmaster (91% of the graduates employeed)

may i ask where you got 58% from? it could be for the whole university, whereas 100% of the comp sci students enrolled in co op were accepted.

yea it's for the whole university.

my source:
http://www.topuniversities.com/schools/data/school_profile/default/carletonuniversity
click on school stats

I know it's 100% coop rate but i wonder what kind of coop job u get? Maybe it's some crappy job that you'll get paid for like $10/hour. I mean it's impossible for 100% of the students to be in good coop company right?


and for english, there's so many more options available:
Like how do you write a resume, business letter, and even a contract.
I know resume is covered in career class, but doesn't it make more sense to just put it in english class?
These skills are much more important to be applied in RL compare to old fashion Shakespeare (unless you can travel 200 years back in time).

[endless]

oh, so essentially, 58% of just graduated students have a spot of employment waiting for them? i thought we were talking about just co op, about your question of quality of co op spots, i would think carleton; being in ottawa, there would be many technology etc. companies involved.

[Horus]

endless @ Tue Nov 25, 2008 10:44 pm wrote:

oh, so essentially, 58% of just graduated students have a spot of employment waiting for them? i thought we were talking about just co op, about your question of quality of co op spots, i would think carleton; being in ottawa, there would be many technology etc. companies involved.

basically 58% of the graduates find a job within 6 month after graduation.

Other universities such as UW, UFT, McMaster have 90%+ graduation rate.

Carleton seems pretty low compared to these universities.

[endless]

yea, i wonder why though, being in a larger city than most. i also wonder how highly i should regard this stat, since it will be another 4-5 years until we reach that stage.

[Tony]

Horus @ Tue Nov 25, 2008 10:24 pm wrote:

I know it's 100% coop rate but i wonder what kind of coop job u get?

Whatever you are capable of getting yourself hired for. Though because it's a number that apparently sells to students (it being brought up here), the method of calculating that number would be a more interesting question. Sometimes it's the percentage of eligible students earning a co-op credit that they require.

If volunteering for a fraction of the term completes your requirement and you earn a credit for the experience -- you count towards the statistic.

If it's your first year and you did not get a credit towards the "5 credits in 6 terms" requirement -- then you don't count towards the statistic.

The bottom line is that "100% coop rate" does not mean that you are guaranteed a position. And 95% does not mean that you'll get hired for 19 of the 20 jobs you apply to.

[Dan]

Horus @ 25th November 2008, 10:24 pm wrote:

my source:
http://www.topuniversities.com/schools/data/school_profile/default/carletonuniversity
click on school stats

I find this static very hard to blive and the source questable at best.

Stats form the university it's self show empoyment rates closer to 90-100% for 2 years and 87.5%-100% for 6 months in 2005

Source: http://oirp.carleton.ca/cudo/htmlSectionK.html

[Horus]

Dan @ Tue Nov 25, 2008 11:04 pm wrote:

Horus @ 25th November 2008, 10:24 pm wrote:

my source:
http://www.topuniversities.com/schools/data/school_profile/default/carletonuniversity
click on school stats

I find this static very hard to blive and the source questable at best.

Stats form the university it's self show empoyment rates closer to 90-100% for 2 years and 87.5%-100% for 6 months in 2005

Source: http://oirp.carleton.ca/cudo/htmlSectionK.html

wow this did change my view about carleton, however knowing that your source is from carleton itself, they'll most likely putting up higher numbers than the actual one.

I don't know how accurate my source is, but it's probably not biased. I'll research more about employment rate before i make 3rd choice for university.

(McMaster is kinda for IT rather than comp sci) (Queen's no freedom of speech) (Carleton might have low employment rate) this is so hard to decide....

[Dan]

Horus @ 25th November 2008, 11:36 pm wrote:

wow this did change my view about carleton, however knowing that your source is from carleton itself, they'll most likely putting up higher numbers than the actual one.

University's in Canada are public, and they get funding based on data from theses kinds of reports and as such would be in an extrema amount of trouble for faking any of the data.

The report this is from is the CUDO (Common University Data Ontario) and is a standaized report that almost all Univeristys do and it's hole point is to be used as an unbaised comprason of University's in Ontario. You can find out more about it here: http://www.cou.on.ca/_bin/relatedSites/cudo.cfm

It's proably the most acurite and unbasied data you can esaily find and compare.

Horus @ 25th November 2008, 11:36 pm wrote:

I don't know how accurate my source is, but it's probably not biased. I'll research more about employment rate before i make 3rd choice for university.

Your source lists the Average Domestic Student Fees in EURs and the rest of the values in USD and almost all the values are wrong when compared to the values from Carleton (some on your source even make Carleton look better then it is). It also says Carleton only has one department.

I am not saying to apply to Carleton or not just if you are going to make a decision about a university make sure the source you are using is a vaild and check on there facts.

[FreshPrince]

Not that I mean to bring this thread back up or anything...I was just looking around and saw what Dan wrote about the CUDO site.

UOIT's admission average for the Bachelor's of Info Tech program is listed as 70s but people got in to that program and many others with less than the required average...that confuses me. The total of arts programs with people below 70% was something crazy like 11%. How does that happen?

And if I have an average of 71 (super embarrassing i know), do I have any reason to be worried? (Minimum average was 70%) and most people accepted had averages between 70-74% according to CUDO. Oh and it says they have enrolment of 60 people but I know that number is always understated. And is there any guesses as to how many people get early acceptances by the university? My friend got in to this program with a 74% average.

I'm super stressed, so any help would be greatly appreciated

Thanks

[Dan]

Admission averages are offten not the same as your average for your last year of high school. They only take in to account certent credits and on top of that universities noramly take other factors in to account witch effects the students admission average. For example waterloo has the AIF witch can add to the admisions average and they add or remove % points based on what high school you went to.

Also many schools may still offer admisions for averages under the cut off but have special conditions that go along with them like you have to keep a 70%+ average for your first year or you have to take or retake somthing in summer school.

Finaly that number could be the excpected cut off point but if they get less applications they could lower it to fill all the spaces. In the same way they could rase it if they get greater amount of applications then they expected.

[FreshPrince]

Can people that have just below the required average expect to get a conditional offer BEFORE the deadline of May 28? Or do they only get in if there is more space available after May 28?

[Dan]

FreshPrince @ 29th March 2009, 5:30 pm wrote:

Can people that have just below the required average expect to get a conditional offer BEFORE the deadline of May 28? Or do they only get in if there is more space available after May 28?

Thats up to the university about when they send out the offers. I have seen people get conditional offers that say they have to keep there average above 70% in first year if they had lower then the required average but again thats totally up the university and it changes every year, how many are applying for that program and how much space they have.

I would say it is unlikey to get in after the deadline but that is just a guse not based on much.