Education.

^.^ So. I have a few questions.

What are your views on anything education related? Did you have a good experience? High points and low points? Things you regret or don't regret at all? Advice? What the system is like where you live? (Seem to recall we've posted about that elsewhere, but might be nice to have it collated somewhere on topic).

I'm particularly interested in people who have been to university, seeing as I'm hoping to be going soon..I've heard so many mixed reviews that I don't know what to make of it.

Some claim that everyone's noisy and you never sleep in your first year of uni, some claim they have a great time. Friends of mine have even said the noise is so great where they are that they moved out of residential halls within the first term!

I was actually home schooled and I did love being home schooled. :kiss: On the other hand, my mom never pushed me and if I was bored, or tired of learning, that was the end of my school day. So I didn't learn much. I am definitely people/street smart > book smart. :S

I never had the urge to go to college, as my dream job is working from home doing my art and I love *my* style. I don't want anyone to teach me how they think art should be. *shrug*

I think education is wonderful and I absorb trivia, history and science information like crazy.

I'll write an out-line of the Croatian educational system:

Basically, you have elementary, high-school and university. Kindergarten doesn't count as part of the educational system. Elementary school is obligatory. Home-schooling isn't possible. There are only a few private schools, and they aren't any better then the state schools. I'd even say they are worse becasue I know a lot of people that changed to a state school becasue it had better teachers etc.

Elementary school is from minimum 6 to max 16 (when you turn 16 you automatically get kicked out and you have to finish elementary in evening school). Elementary is a total of 8 grades.
High-school isn't obligatory but almost everyone goes; basically 15/16 to 18. Mostly 4 grades with the exception of 3 grades if it's a school for some trade. We usually say 1st-4th grade of high school, not 9th etc.
In elementary and high school you have a prescribed number of obligatory subjects (can't remember the exact count in elementary, but in my high school we had 16-17). I'm sorry I can't show or explain to you how much material that is, but some of my friends that went for a year to the UK or the USA as an exchange student in high school said that in the UK/US it was easy.

After high-school, there's university. Uni was 4 years (most degrees) in the past, but now our uni system is under the Bologna system because of EU and therefore it's 3 to 6 or more? years depending on which degree you are perusing.

I've had excellent marks through out my whole education and been to various school competitions for different subjects and achieved very high marks and places, been to the country level for the competitions etc. Expect the teasing and similar I can't say anything bad about our educational system.
I've only had problems at uni becasue of falling into a depression. Uni just seemed not to matter, so studying became a problem. Now I'm better and I've started to get a hold of my life and uni again so I try to look positively at the future.

Places in residential halls aren't easily available to all and I never wanted to be in one becasue our residential halls aren't really nice. I live in a small rented apartment. Had to move a lot, but I'm satisfied where I am now. It's quiet and I have more space then in a room in a residential hall.

Regarding learning, residential halls here aren't generally noisy, but they can get loud if there is some party, but that's not every day. People mostly learn in learning rooms which we have in residential halls or in some library. I have a couple libraries I like to study in, because even though my apartment is quiet, it gets lonely so I feel better when I have company, even if I don't know the person, but it's easier to learn when all the persons around you are doing the same.

I think I've written enough for now. :silly:

Interesting at the different experiences of education.

Where I live (middle of England), we have nursery/'reception' classes which are basically pre-school, then at age 4-5-6 (depending on your birthday) you start in primary school which lasts for 6 years, then secondary which lasts 3 years, and at 14-15 you start college and do two years for GCSE exams (first basic qualifications) then if you choose to stay on in education, you do another two years for 'A levels' before you head off to university at the age of 18-19.

That's the system in my city anyway, it can differ slightly for some cities, e.g. I know most places don't follow our split-up system and they place the GCSE kids in the same schools as secondary, so some people do 5 years of secondary before going to college to do A-levels for two years.

Hah, I reckon the UK system is pretty easy as well in comparison to other places - probably why my brother and I have always breezed through everything. My mother taught me quite a bit of what I know and would constantly ask me what I learned in school during the day whilst I was in primary and secondary. She noticed that what we learned in secondary was equivalent to what Chinese kids learned in first few years of primary or so.

For me it was preschool for.. I think a year, kindigarden for a year, elementry school for grades 1-8, high school for grades 9-12. Then those who can (or think they can) afford it go to college, either a two year or most often a four year college. Must say I hated elementry and high school, but Loved college, wish I could have afforded to stay and get my degree. But if you went through the chaos of choosing classes early enough at the start of the year, you could basically set up whatever type of schedual you wanted. The small classes were much more fun, the big classes could be boring if you weren't to interested in the subject. Which was another great feature, there were still the specific classes that were required, but for the most part you get to choose what you want to learn about which makes it so much easier if you're interested. I'd love to go back to that same college if I could ever afford it, corse that'd have to be after I pay what I owe, and I'm currently looking to try out the at home/internet college for a work related degree. Will see how that goes.

:woohoo: I think this is sort of on topic..

I learned today quite a lot about rural China by watching something on TV..It just really opened my eyes. I'd never seen *actual* pointy hills apart from in Chinese paintings until now. It's amazing..The strange wildlife and the use of the land..

Made me really want to go deeper into rural China.

Below is a picture of the rice paddies which are built on hills..They're amazing and cover loads of land..It looks really artistic.