SMBC Comics Forum

I got my first choice for University
USQ REPRESENT MOTHER FUCKERS
Simon, are you to old to have received an OP?

I'd like to know the opinion of OP's by the rest of the forum also.

so after some quick research i have determined that OPs are Australian slang for overall position. I assume that means what rank your grades were in comparison to the rest of your graduating class at your school. If that is the case, then I have no problems with it. I also got my first (and only) choice for college those many years ago (holy monkey crap, it's been 8 years... i'm seriously old) when I applied.

I would appreciate OP's a bit more if it wasn't so much affected by the qcs exams... which is an exam that all of the grade 12 group takes. Now you might just be saying "But everyone has exams at the end of the year, so what?"
but with QCS it requires basic knowledge of a year 10 standard and unfortunately the entire schools performance strongly affects your OP. So if 99% of your school are morons and 1% are at Stephen Hawkings level of intelligence, there is a good chance that your OP will be about 15 instead of 1.
I got a 9 when i could have received a 7... because my school is full of morons...

That's my rant done with lol. I got the OP I needed so yeah. Is college different to uni? this whole country vs country thing is confusing. Our college's [in Aus] are of the secondary variety and teach grades 8-12 as far as i know.

Jaydee wrote:I would appreciate OP's a bit more if it wasn't so much affected by the qcs exams... which is an exam that all of the grade 12 group takes. Now you might just be saying "But everyone has exams at the end of the year, so what?"
but with QCS it requires basic knowledge of a year 10 standard and unfortunately the entire schools performance strongly affects your OP. So if 99% of your school are morons and 1% are at Stephen Hawkings level of intelligence, there is a good chance that your OP will be about 15 instead of 1.
I got a 9 when i could have received a 7... because my school is full of morons...

That's my rant done with lol. I got the OP I needed so yeah. Is college different to uni? this whole country vs country thing is confusing. Our college's [in Aus] are of the secondary variety and teach grades 8-12 as far as i know.

That is pretty ridiculous. I mean, you can't help it your friends are dolts. Actually, you would think that would drive up your OP. I mean, clearly the school isn't doing a terribly good job, so despite that, you have managed to come out as rather smart (I assume), so you have triumphed over dumb schoolmates and lazy teachers. Or somesuch.


Here in Canadia, specifically the province of Ontario, we have the following:

Grade School - This is Grades 1-8. Or roughly ages 4-13. Also sometimes called "Primary School".
High School - Grades 9-12. Roughly ages 13-17. Rarely, but sometimes, called "Secondary School".
College - Often thought of as a more practical version of university. More hands-on, and great for trades and jobs that tend to be less theoretical. Result is a degree, but isn't sought as highly as many employers.
University - Tends to be less specific and less hands-on than university. Is better for fields where you need a broader perspective. Graduation gives you a Bachelor of Arts or a Bachelor of Science.

We don't have Middle School (Grades 6-8), though I believe some provinces do have it. Also, Ontario used to have a Grade 13, known as OACs, which were essentially prep courses for University, if that was the direction you were heading in. That was weeded out a few years back.
My understanding is that this isn't terribly different from the United States.

Yeah, we just have a middle school from 6-8. Sometimes called junior high by people born 30-40+ years ago.

Well in the US where, things actually matter, it's largely public/private distinction, but no one really cares whether you went to a college or a university. It's not more desirable to go to one over the other.

Universities are state-run, colleges are typically private, though some smaller state-run schools use the college title. In speech they are effectively interchangeable, although no one will ever say "I'm going to university". We'd say either "I'm going to A university", or "I'm going to the university of BLAH", or "I'm going to college." (usually we'd say the last one). Normal conversation goes like this (except no one actually admits to going to the university of oregon):

A: Where did you go to college?
B: I went to the University of Oregon.

mountainmage wrote:Yeah, we just have a middle school from 6-8. Sometimes called junior high by people born 30-40+ years ago.

Also incorrect. Middle school is 6-8 and has a 9-12 high school. Junior high is 7-9 with a 10-12 high school. I went to junior high not nearly 30 years ago

Well I just came back from out of town, and for some reason you're all talking about schooling! Over here in the West of Aus we do things similar to Canadia apparently. Our primary school only goes to year 7, and high school starts at 8. Oh and we call College TAFE mostly. Because TAFE is a more popular place to go to, it's like a college, but it's business name is TAFE, and that's been melded with the local language. We also have a different school system over here than I think the rest of Australia, but other parts may have the same as ours, I can't remember what the system is that they tried to introduce to WA. But it is awful and all the teachers, all the students, and pretty much everyone but the government said "Fuck off government this will fuck us up hardcore, your new system is shitty and horrible". So after spending a lot of money trying to force it on us, the government gave up. In short, I do not know what OP's are. We don't have them. We have TEE scores, Tertiary Entrance Exams, which are pretty self explanatory. I did fairly well in those I guess? I think my score was 87, which means I did better than 87% of the people doing year 12 that year. If you're super nerdy etc, you get a TEE of 95+, and there's always one guy who gets 99.03 or something.

My score was enough to get me into any of the uni's I wanted in Perth, but I didn't choose the most prestigious because it is fucking expensive and the workload is about 4 times as much as the same course at a different uni. Also ridiculously expensive. So yeah, I just finished my first year of Environmental biology with 2 distinctions, a credit, and 2 passes.

By the by, I don't know how it works over there, but once you get into uni and do one semester of learning, they disregard your TEE (equivalent, yr 12 scores, you know what I mean), and just base everything on your first semester. So you know, I wouldn't get too cut up about it. Every year you go up in schooling, you find out the year before was worthless, and whatever year you just started is the big league, then next year, same thing. It gets pretty annoying, but it's necessary to form those building blocks in people.

Our system works in an opposite way to yours Jaydee, I don't really know why. But if lots of people fail, then the ones that did well are rewarded even more. Each subject has scaling, at the end of the year, your marks for each subject get scaled depending on how everyone (in the state) did for that subject. So if the average is worse than the year before, the course/exam for that year (it gets changed each year, the course not so much, but the exam has to, as I'm sure it does everywhere), then they assume it was a hard course, and so scaling takes your marks up! So for instance, you might have got 45% in Chemistry, meaning you fail by your school standards, but when all the results come in, and scaling is worked out, it gets scaled +5.9 or something, meaning you get 50.9, and pass. If everyone scores higher than they should be, scaling is in the negatives. Also, harder subjects like Trigonometry and chemistry etc are usually scaled up because they are harder subjects, and they want people to pass. But easier (academically) subjects like TEE art, or Tech drawing, are usually scaled down hugely.

I think our system we have now is pretty good.

Also it is so fucking hot these days. Our lake is dried up. Global warming for the WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN.

TwoBuy wrote:

mountainmage wrote:Yeah, we just have a middle school from 6-8. Sometimes called junior high by people born 30-40+ years ago.

Also incorrect. Middle school is 6-8 and has a 9-12 high school. Junior high is 7-9 with a 10-12 high school. I went to junior high not nearly 30 years ago

Well, I don't know about you, but 6-8 definitely was called junior high, and 9-12 was high. You must have gone to some sort of bizzaro world school system that I am unaware of.

Wikipedia wrote:Canadia and the United States
Middle school (sometimes abbreviated MS[2]) is often used instead of junior high school when demographic factors increase the number of younger students.[3] Advocated by groups such as the National Middle School Association, the middle school concept is a relatively new model for the middle-level grades, contrasted with the more traditional junior high concept. North American children at this level are educated either at junior high schools or at middle schools, depending on the philosophy and practice of the particular school.

Middle schools are usually grades 6, 7, and 8.

Many people also call middle school "junior high school."

So yeah, um, we're both right, perhaps?

Lethal Interjection wrote:(Grades 6-8)

Easily the most irritating php code. I mean, those characters could easily come in succession.

TwoBuy wrote:
Also incorrect. Middle school is 6-8 and has a 9-12 high school. Junior high is 7-9 with a 10-12 high school. I went to junior high not nearly 30 years ago

To some degree I knew that (thanks Degrassi!), though I'm not sure I knew that both existed. Essentially I wasn't sure if the "middle school" I was talking about was 6-8 or 7-9. Either way, it isn't something that we have here.

Simon. wrote:By the by, I don't know how it works over there, but once you get into uni and do one semester of learning, they disregard your TEE (equivalent, yr 12 scores, you know what I mean), and just base everything on your first semester.

Pretty much the same here. Once you get in to your post-secondary institution, your grades/scores/whathaveyou from highschool are irrelevant.

Simon. wrote: (1) Each subject has scaling.

(2) Also it is so fucking hot these days. Our lake is dried up. Global warming for the WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN.

Re: (1) We have that here, I did Physics and Chemistry in two seperate classes, combined they kicked the shit out of a lot of other peoples grades, on the prerequisite that I passed them on about a B. Which was awesome. So if:
"I got an A in Home Ec"
"I got a B in Physics"
The B would smash teh A in Home Ec... due to home ec being the source of the Devil.

Re: (2) It's so lame over in SEQ. I went to the beach for a week at a waterfront hotel and it rained the entire time.
I ate thai food though.. so that was good.

Global warming is definitly ftw though.

Global warming wtf!

Lethal Interjection wrote:Global warming wtf!

it's true... global warming does make the weather a bit nicer in Canadia (and at my house in "almost Canadia"). soon all you freaks in warm climates will be taking trips to the resorts in Seattle to bask in its cooling mist. Take that Hawaii

Australia is torn atm, I see. Simon is sweating whilst I'm shaking at night times with the windows shut and fog coming out of my mouth whilst last summer I was sleep with frozen towels on me and swimming with bottles of wine to pass away the summer.

I can't believe how many Australians are on this forum. . I'm starting uni this year too, I got an OP7, and I'm spending three years doing a Bachelor of Popular Music at the con.


Which is awesome, because it means if I study hard, one day I can be a Dr of Pop Music.


Which, needless to say, would rock.

Dust_Biter wrote:I can't believe how many Australians are on this forum.

It's true. We do encourage drinking here.