Making informed decisions (Grade 9 subject choices) | Dr Annie van As

Gershom Aitchison, host · [04:20]And what would be an interesting thing as an exercise to do right now is to ask the audience here to put up their hands and tell me how many of you are practicing what you actually studied for when you started? And I'm going to include the panel. How many of us are actually doing what we studied at university? One, two, some of the teachers. So just as a comparison, how many, how many of us are doing, not doing what we studied at university? And that's more than, than put up their hands in the first place. And what I want to use, use that as an illustration of is that it's not what you study that's important, it is the fact that you have studied that is important. And yes, there are certain things you want to know that your doctors have studied to be doctors, and you want to know that your engineers have studied to be engineers, but there are a lot of professions out there where a general degree gives you access to the specializations that you need. A lot of us studied general undergrad degrees that allowed us to do a PGCE, and then has allowed us to go on and do other higher degrees and certificates, master's degrees, and things like that, that are specific to what we are busy doing right now. What that means is, I'm hoping it takes some of the pressure off you. That the decisions now about your subject choice is not about what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. What you're going to do for the rest of your life is be a human being that needs to be able to maintain relationships, that can do a job if asked to do so, can work collaboratively with people, collaboratively with people, can use technology and AI to facilitate your, your work output and productivity, and more importantly, be a decent human being, someone who's going to study for the rest of their lives, and that's what those decisions are going to be.

Annie van As, guest · [35:40]So just to share with you, when I was in grade nine, I had no idea what I wanted to do. So I wanted to actually become like a pop star, but if you know me, I can't sing. I've been, I haven't been selected to be in any choir. So my dad said, you know what, let's think of another, direction for your life, because I don't think that's going to work out. And thankfully, I believed him. I'm like, okay, maybe I need to do something else. So we started chatting and he said, what do you like to do? Or what are you passionate about? And I said, I love kids. Like I love children and they make me feel so happy and, you know, I, I will rather spend time with children than adults because they're so lovable. So my dad said, okay, why don't you go and study foundation phase? I said, okay, let me try and, study foundation phase to become a teacher. So I started studying, foundation phase, and my first year when I actually had to go to school to do my practicals, I hated it. It was like, oh my weirdo, I started studying the wrong thing, I didn't choose the correct subjects, but my dad said, okay, just, just try. Try and go again and, just get it through the first year. So I said, okay, let me just get through the first year. So after I actually made it through my first year, I started becoming passionate about education and children, and, I couldn't stop studying. I did my honors in education, my master's, and now my PhD, and I, I actually wanted to thank my dad for, you know, guiding me and supporting me to actually make the right decision. So he knew me better than I actually Myself at that stage. So with, I actually studied at the Northwest University, a public university, and we were so many students in the class, I think like three hundred. So I didn't pay that much attention always, but, I, I got through my qualification. But what I wanted to say, if you know you're just going to become a number and you are struggling to, to focus in big groups, then a private higher education institution is also a good way and a good option, because, with, our company, we are called Varsity College. so we have about thirty to fifty students in a class, and we focus on equipping our students with the necessary skills and knowledge to be able to become teachers, but not just normal teachers, like teachers that can integrate robotics and coding and technology, and really equip them Of the, the skills that they need.

Jacqueline Aitchison, host · [47:33]if you're struggling with this, sometimes it helps to do it backwards. So you sit together and you go, right, let's cast forward. Let's go to when you are a functional working adult, no longer draining my bank account. What does your life look like? What do you want it to look like? What would you like it to be? What are you earning? How, what's your lifestyle like? There's your ideal. Now we go back a step. What qualification, what is the type of qualification I need to afford that lifestyle? Oh, okay, hang on. If I want the Maserati and the six-figure mention and, and, and, okay, yeah, it's, it's, it's the actuary type level qualifications, that's probably not for me. So let's, okay, let's scale things down and we have the conversation about being more realistic. So we go from the lifestyle I want to the qualification I need. What paperwork, what letters do I need to make that real? That then I go, right, so what university will take me into that qualification, will give me that? Because remember, universities and tertiary education is, is also quite, it also has trends. You know, for a long time, if you wanted to be a CA, you went to the University of Parramatta, Parramatta. For 10 or 12 years, that was the place to be. Even now, if you want to be an engineer, you know you want to go to UP. That's the pla- you know, universities get reputations for being very, very good in certain faculties. It's what gives them their credibility from a global standpoint. It's how they rank them. So that's my qualification. Where's the best place I can go to get me that qualification? That's your next one down. And then your next one down is, and what subjects and at what level do I need to be operating to get acceptance into that? So what subjects do I need to be choosing now? So can you see how sometimes it narrows down your thinking? Instead of sitting going, I'm just going to start throwing darts into mist, and wherever the dart lands, that's the subject I'm going to choose, and I'm going to just figure it out from there. Flip it around. Go backwards, because it narrows everything into a funnel, and you go, that Maserati means I do need to get my maths right.

Jacqueline Aitchison, host · [59:05]Let's be clear, grade nines, about what a gap year is, because we've heard it all. I'm not sure what I want to do, so I'm just going to take a year to figure it out. You've just made it ten times harder to get back into anything academic, okay? The original gap year, back in the day, What a gap year was, what it was made and intended to be. It was generally run by churches and, humanitarian groups, and gap years were when people would matriculate and then go overseas for a year to build houses in Indonesia out of banana palms for poor people. It was missionary work, it was service work. You spent the year going to be in service of communities. That was the original intention of a gap year. A gap year was never lying on the couch, playing Xbox while I figure out what I want to do. Okay? So if you guys genuinely want to have a conversation about gap years, we are going to have some tough questions for you, like, where are you spending this gap year? Which quest are you going to?

Gershom Aitchison, host · [60:18]How are you growing as a human?

Jacqueline Aitchison, host · [60:19]How are you growing and giving service as a human on this gap year? Cause if your plan is to sit on the couch while I figure myself out, dude, no. No. Your, your parents and your school have prepared you better than that. So anyone sitting with Gapio, let's park that discussion for now.

Gershom Aitchison, host · [60:52]Please strike that from the record. That did not happen.

Jacqueline Aitchison, host · [60:57]So there was service happening, yeah. The, the general response that as a school we would have to the Gapio conversation is, you know, other than if you're not doing Quest, if you're not doing that sort of thing, it doesn't actually matter. I hope what's coming across from the two conversations you heard there is that it doesn't actually matter what your first year looks like. Just do something. It can be the broadest Bachelor of Arts, it can be philosophy, sociology, anthropology, really... No, not stats. Don't do stats. But it can be the broadest degree, because unlike in my day where you had to choose your majors straight off the bat, and then you had to like work on these majors every year, and you got to pick up a few electives on the side. In most degrees now, you don't even have to choose your majors until the end of your first year, which is fabulous, I think. You can spend your whole first year actually discovering what you enjoy. You can do a semester of this, you can do a semester of that, you don't have to do a whole year course like we did. And you can spend a year or two figuring out what you actually enjoy, and what floats your boat. And once you've decided what blows your hair back, then you can start curating the remainder of your degree. They really have made it that much more accessible now.

Jacqueline Aitchison, host · [71:09]And he's advocating to change the name of math literacy to business maths, because math literacy has gotten quite a raw deal. Back at, when it was first introduced, yes, it was your math light, you know, your free option, your non-paid math. it wasn't, you couldn't get into varsity with math lit, it wasn't, you couldn't count it towards an APS, it, it really was pretty feeble. and actually, just as a, an interesting point, I don't know if the teachers even know this, when we opened Edu Inc, we didn't offer math lit, you could only take math core. But down the years, math lit has become B-business maths. It really is business maths. It is the math you would take if you're going to run a business one day. And it is far more... In fact, now I'm at the point where if I could make mathlet a compulsory subject, even if you did core math, I would, because you're doing depreciations, interest rates, all of the things that you actually use, you do tax, you do all of these things that you actually need to be a functional adult. So it is a very valuable subject that is now recognized by the universities that does contribute towards your APS. You can't go into medicine on mathlet, but you can go into a whole lot more commerce degrees than ever before. You can go into some of the bachelor sciences and move across to medicine if you've been on the mathlet stream. There are far more options available to you now. Mathlet is no longer the throwaway stepchild of math. It is a, a, a good subject in its own right. So if your thinking has been the traditional thinking of it's not worth the go, times have changed on that subject.

Mr Hall, intro voice or played clip · [76:52]So physical sciences is the other side of the coin to the mathematics argument, which is where math core is essential. The, the way that you think that, that you're going to approach the subjects is, or mathematics specifically, is going to directly lead to how you approach physical sciences. The, the algebra that you learn in grade ten, grade eleven, and grade twelve math is going to be directly relevant to help you with the, the physics especially, and balancing out the, the, the stoichiometric calculations in chemistry that you'll be doing as well. there is...

Jacqueline Aitchison, host · [77:31]Careers?

Mr Hall, intro voice or played clip · [77:33]In terms of careers, so I know that Wits has been considering adding physical sciences to its medicine requirements, just because of the critical thinking skills that comes with the added physical sciences, and the chemistry as well, and leading that into medicine. anything related to engineering, anything that involves the manipulation of, systems, physical systems, is going to need, knowledge of physics and the, the forces and the, the kinematics behind it. it's very much the physical world that you're going to be dealing with. even if you're going to something like, mechanics, where you're dealing with physical systems, even if you don't take phys... If, if somebody took physical sciences, their ability to interact with the concepts that they will deal with, the way that the motors are moving and functioning at, at a fundamental level and the chemistry behind the combustion, those will all benefit from having a background knowledge of physical sciences, especially with the practicals that we do and the way that you engage with these physical systems. So that background skill, even if it's not the direct knowledge of doing a degree in physics or in chemistry, those, that background knowledge is going to be useful to engage with them. Poppenell's calculation. In terms of the consideration from our side for you to take physical sciences, there is the math requirement of getting a combined mark of 120 for English and math, and then above that you need to add your physical sciences mark to get a total of 180 to be considered to take physical sciences. Now, because we've semesterized physical sciences, or natural sciences into physical sciences and life sciences, and for you guys specifically, you did the physical sciences aspect in the first semester. So, from term one and leading up to the July exams in term two, that, that mark in your term two is going to be what you would add to your, your calculation to see do you get 180. So it'll be your English and math mark at the end of this year, and then your term two mark, where you wrote the July exam, and that'll be taken into consideration for whether you can take physical sciences. anything above that is fantastic, but that sixty percent average is what we're looking for. You know, can you cope with good English marks, understand the comprehension and engage with the, the wordy lengthy questions, the mathematics for how you think about things in a systematic way, and then the content itself, do you have an interest in engaging with the physics and the chemistry behind the minutia of how the physical world works at a macro and a micro scale?