Since gta IV is coming out soon then i have my exams in may i'm going to take a break from lfs another thing is my g25 is being stupid and won't calibrate anymore. So bye
Those aren't exams. You only do like 3 of them and it doesn't really change anything. GCSE's are the real deal, the bulk of mine start in a few weeks time and those will probably change my life.
Lol me, Im not giving up LFS for any GCSE exam, no way, sadly, breaking into the 1:08s in a FOX at Blackwood has become far more important than getting that vital B grade!
Ignorace is bliss I guess, so im just trying to distract myself from the terrible, unavoidable reality.
:juggle:
If you don't do well in your GCSE's then you don't even do A level's.
SATS, well you do your GCSE's regardless of what you get in your SATS. Added, the fact that your sets aren't decided totally on your SATS results, you don't really need to give up everything to do well on them. Just do an hour of revision each night, slotted around things that you like doing. It makes it easiest to digest the information and you'll do better.
If you sit infront of a book for 5 hours after you get in from school, you won't revise well. You'll just try to remember too much information and come out with nothing but a blur between subjects.
If you think GCSE's are hard do A-Levels - I thought SAT's were hard because they were the hardest thing I'd done - then I met coursework and GCSE exams and I thought they were hard - but they weren't. Now i'm doing AS Levels and they really are getting hard now (first time in my life i've ever been left with no free time for over 2 weeks), i.e. the 100+ page, 20,000+ word report i'm doing for ONE subject (out of the 4) which, in one document, is more work than I did for all of my GCSE courswork combined.
Of course next year A2 Levels will be even harder and i'll think "pffft, AS Levels!". Hopefully University will be easier as i'll finally be able to do a subject I enjoy (i.e. Computer HARDWARE not ICT which is media / studies on a computer - I have a WRITTEN ICT exam ffs!).
EDIT - That report thing is in for Thursday. Really out to finish it actually rather than forum whoring. Stupid headache. Stupid Tequila
Good luck, unless you have been doing Maths at A-Level and take electric engineering, you're unlikely to get much hands-on hardware work. Most Computer Science degrees will give you next to no hands-on hardware interaction - you'll be doing a lot of writing, and a hell of a lot of mathematical theory.
I'm doing Maths but nothing in Electrical Engineering
I just want a course that involves using PC's - ICT AS Level (here, at least) involves taking a Business Letter and analysing it's content/layout - WTF?!
I would love to do a course in computer hardware as it's where my passion lies and (imo) it's something that's rarer than your average "i can use windows help" IT Guy.
I don't mind writing (well, I do, but that's not the point) it just seems like I was mis-sold this course in "using computers etc" when actually it's business studies, but using a computer - the fact I have to do a WRITTEN exam on the health and safety aspect of USING a computer, or the Data Protection act, or on information flow inside a business tops it all off.
If you wanted a more hands-on PC course, you should've taken the A+ Certificate course. It might have changed but that's what I would've gone onto if I finished the basic course.
I'm in a High School, not a 6th Form College (or a College) - it was ICT or... well, nothing.
I considered going to College to do a proper IT course but I will get good grades in my A-Levels - I decided not to put all my eggs in such a historically unstable basket.
What I mean is that some Schools round here are Colleges (usually vocational/applied/apprentiship subject), some are 6th Form Colleges (i.e. you just do AS/A2 levels there, usually very very big and well specced) and some are High Schools which have a 6th form added on. This means that usually theres a lack of funding for the high-end stuff that the courses need, but around here i really don't have a choice.
I meant, you'll probably have to take Electrical Engineering at University if you want a hands-on hardware course. But, bear in mind, most of it won't be PC-hardware (though, it's all applicable). Oh, and another thing, make sure you do well in your Maths at A-level, it's your most important subject if you intend to take Electrical Engineering (slightly less important for the dumbed down, 'fake', ComSci degrees that universities offer these days, but still essential).
ICT will put you in very good standing for the written and business parts of a Computer Science degree.
Let me give you an example of things I had to do with my ComSci degree course (none of which involved direct hardware work):
Programming (of various sorts)
Networking theory
Usability and HCI
Information Systems
etc.
There are, of course, choice modules you can take in things like machine vision, and such, but the interactions there are purely on an interfacing level, not on a strict hardware level. You'll get a decent amount of hardware theory, but you'll get no hands-on hardware work. You need to realise that you're not going to find a Computer Science degree that's about hardware, it just won't happen. Hardware is such a (relatively) small part of the computing industry these days (in relation to 15 years ago), due to the advent of so many software solutions. No more do you have to find a new hardware solution for your problem, as most problems are solved with software solutions (I realise this is a gross over-generalisation, but it's for illustration).
You will have to do a course specifically tailored to hardware (as I said, electrical engineering), in order to get lots of hands-on hardware time.
Also 20K words? Why? If that's like 20k words including code then yes maybe, but we didn't do anything near that when I did Comp, Maths and even Geography (which is a very wordy subject). I can't ever see that much being needed. Yer we did a year project designing what I can only describe as a dodgy-as-feck back-office system, but I don't remember it needing 20k words of documentation. And I got an A.