Thinking of dropping out of JC

Luleil SG

I just got to know my results yesterday and I promoted, however I was thinking about dropping out and taking private Alevels instead. JC1 have been an extremely unhappy year for me, because we go home at 4+pm every day and if there’s CCA we go home at 7pm. I take around an hour to get home and I can only manage to finish my homework and there is honestly no time to study if I want a decent 5 hours of sleep to keep me awake in school the next day. CCA made me very unhappy and it feels like I’m just wasting time, but I can’t quit to go home early to study. I learn slow and I need a lot of time to study but I don’t even have that time (most of our time this year was also used on PW). In the end, I got a promo grade of UUS/UD and an overall grade of DDE/EC. I’m very stressed up and upset, so much so that I would go to the toilet to cry when I really can’t take it in school.

Would it be better for me to drop out of JC so that I have a lot more time to study? I can readily get notes from my seniors who will be finishing their Alevels soon.

gunner77 SG

Don't quit. You are already halfway there.

If you want to quit, you should have quitted in the first few months. Definitely not now! You have already been promoted. Take a breather. Give credit to yourself. Oh anyway, congratz on your promotion.

Take the mental and physical pain like a warrior, it will end. Remember, tough time don't last, tough man do.

And private is not cheap, make use of your status as a singaporean in singapore school enjoy the benefits.

Always believe in yourself.

a mugger SG

Would it be better for me to drop out of JC so that I have a lot more time to study? I can readily get notes from my seniors who will be finishing their Alevels soon.

I am a student Currently taking my GCE A level exams. I sense your agony.You want to do well but time is always against you. Maybe I can share with you my experience.~

I started taking up Gp tuition outside my jc,during my school days. There was much apprehension within myself that Gp is a tough subject that everyone faces.That much,is true. Teachers in my school tend to give little practices,I have source for Gp materials outside school and during tuition.

Also,I have two cca days during my school time,life is struggle. However,I keep telling myself to perservere,even if the odds are never in my favour.I relied on friend support in class and cca.We help each other out in different subjects.

Similar to your situation,I too,take 50minutes to travel to school. I daresay,it's a time constraint but I have to say that it did not hinder my learning so much. I come to school at 7.10am,school starts at 7.35am. This 25 minutes,I will put in the effort. 1 hour break,30 minutes eat,30 minutes revise.

Discipline got me very far. Usually,I sleep at 11.30pm,worth the hardwork I put in throughout the day.

Find out your learning technique,Night vs morning vs afternoon vs evening + quiet/noisy + solo/pair/group revision. A little goes a long way in determining your results.

I didn't do well for promos, BBE/EE,but I survived.

Well,I am not encouraging you to go back to jc route.

Of course, sometimes your classmates are rowdy or your teachers cannot seem to teach you effectively(poor communication/too much scolding/too slow/too fast),you can go ahead to private tuition,which is a better alternative.

I have to say that J1 is really a cheesecake,compared to J2. You may want to consider poly route if you don't like the academic rigour of National Exams. After all,I too detest national exams. I can't wait to go overseas prior to Ns and pursue my career pathway

a mugger SG

Commitment is a big part of what I am and what I believe. How committed are you to winning? How committed are you to being a good friend? To being trustworthy? To being successful? How committed are you to being a good father, a good teammate, a good role model? There's that moment every morning when you look in the mirror: Are you committed, or are you not?
Lebron James

kooldog59 SG

Would it be better for me to drop out of JC so that I have a lot more time to study? I can readily get notes from my seniors who will be finishing their Alevels soon.

chwh96 SG

I'm currently also in the midst of my A levels (urgh right) and personally for me, JC2 was beyond horrible. Work on a daily basis was monotonous, meaningless and draining and there were so many times when I question myself why the hell am I studying all these useless stuff for. Dragged myself to school daily, and I literally wished for this whole ordeal to be over asap everyday. Worse still, I could barely cope, and was at the bottom 10th percentile for almost all of my subjects. When A levels drew near, it became even more intolerable as my teacher would pile us up with essay questions every week (I took history), to a point where I felt like just heck it la, what's the use anyway. Plus together another bunch of other problems, I was sure that I would at some point in time collapse. But honestly that was what made me feel extremely proud of myself for surviving this whole year.

So don't give up. Since you've made it past promos, try again for another year, and if nothing works out, you can still apply to a private institution. I believe that you can do it. Be prepared for the road ahead though, and trust me you'll emerge stronger than ever before.

Btw I'm considering private uni after A levels as well since I don't have high hopes for my A levels. Abit silly right, but that's ok because whatever route we take,we will all still end up in the workforce (unfortunately working our butts off for the next 40 years).

wish you all the best!

Luleil SG

I am a student Currently taking my GCE A level exams. I sense your agony.You want to do well but time is always against you. Maybe I can share with you my experience.~

Discipline got me very far. Usually,I sleep at 11.30pm,worth the hardwork I put in throughout the day.

Find out your learning technique,Night vs morning vs afternoon vs evening + quiet/noisy + solo/pair/group revision. A little goes a long way in determining your results.

I didn't do well for promos, BBE/EE,but I survived.

Well,I am not encouraging you to go back to jc route.

Your promo grades are much better than mine! I get to school by 7am in the morning too, because I might be late if I take the later bus, but I can learn from you and make use of that 30 minutes to study. I have tuition too, but only for math, because JC tuition is pricey. One question: are CCAs really important for the SGC? I plan to give up on CCA and just focus on studying next year, because I really need a lot of time to build up on my H2 subjects (which are also my weakest subjects).

Luleil SG

wish you all the best!

I feel your reply so much, your first paragraph very literally describes me, I think this may ae how the majority of the JC cohort feels and it's very painful because it's eating away at my motivation at the same time. I take geography so we have a lot of content too (probably lesser than history though), I'm at the bottom 40 percentile of my cohort and everyone is moving so fast ahead of me, sometimes I really wonder if I'm not made for JC because my learning process is much slower than others, and the way school tries to push us just makes me feel even worse. Your reply was very encouraging, thank you.

UltimaOnline SG

I've always been supportive of the private candidacy route, as I've always been of the opinion that the majority of time and energy spent in JC life is wasted (eg. how many students really learn and benefit from JC lectures? Lectures should be replaced completely by tutorials), majority of JC students suffer from perpetual chronic sleep deprivation (it's a medically proven fact that everyone on average requires a minimum of 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep, and daily sleep deprivation of less than 8 hours of sleep results in accumulative damage to your brain and body resulting in damaged intellectual faculties and semi-permanently lower IQ (damaged can be partially reversed if you successfully manage 8 hours of sleep daily from now on) and consequently significantly poorer A level results, and it's also therefore no wonder that Singaporeans have the highest incidence of diabetes, heart attacks and strokes, the risk of these diseases greatly exacerbated by chronic lack of sleep) and the combined (mental, emotional, psychological) stress from all the different JC subjects, CCAs, projects and other committments, can actually do more harm than good (and in extreme cases can almost ruin one's entire life, even for students in or perhaps especially students from top JCs, such as Kevin Wee of RJC, and XinLin of HCJC, etc. Hope Kevin and XinLin are both doing well in their lives now).

Better to leave now and go the private route and take back control of your life, than risk a severe psychological breakdown that will not only ruin your A level results anyway, but may even cost you your phsyical, emotional, mental and psychological health, and in tragically worst case scenarios (there have been several cases in the last few years), it may even cost you your life.

If you can afford it, go for tuition (group tuition is always a lot cheaper than solo tuition) for your H2 subjects. But even if you can't afford any tuition at all, even solely self-study will still (in all likelihood) gain you a better performance at the A levels, compared to if you were to suffer a psychological breakdown in the unhealthy JC environment.

Final disclaimer : obviously this is just my opinion. I'm *not* telling you to quit JC and take the private route (coz this is your own life and therefore you must make your own decisions for yourself). I'm just saying that if that's what you decide for yourself that it's you want to do, then as far as I'm concerned, there's certainly a lot of sense in doing so. Obviously there will be some JC and ex-JC students will say, "What a load of rubbish! I'm totally enjoying JC life! No stress at all for me! No sleep deprivation at all for me! I love JC life, which has been socially, mentally, emotionally and personally enriching and fulfilling for me in every way! I just wish it was at least 4 to 6 years instead of just 2 short years!", but just as there are such students on one end of the spectrum, there are bound to be students on the other end of the spectrum, for which private candidacy would make a lot of sense.

Decide for yourself, and no matter the outcome, you can respect yourself for taking back control and responsibility for your own life.

Priscilyasmine SG

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qdtimes2 SG

Which JC and what CCA are you in? As far as my understanding and experience goes, SGC is only important when you apply for scholarships etc, and when you are appealing/interviewing for a certain university course. So, grades are the very main criteria university look at. But even so, I wouldn't reccommend you to drop because CCA only eats into the march/april period at most.

Some of my personal tips:

1) Managing to finish tutorials is already very good enough for me in those hectic days. Extra practices are meant to reinforce what you are weak in.

2) Stop practicing what you are already good at.

3) For any homework in humanities subjects (I took H1 econs), write in point form at most. Most of the times, I don't even do it but I have the thought processes going.

4) The grades in promos, march test and prelims don't mean shit to me, be it good or bad. I create my own plan for A lvls, think far. A lvls is the deciding exam.

5) I seek understanding, not grades and position.

6) The school system or the tutors are there to help you but not control you. Not all of their methods and study plans work for me. I know what lectures are useless and I do other things instead.

7) I do not sacrifice my sleep in exchange of wanting to complete some extra work.

8) I know what I will forget and will make annotations for it, and will eventually compile them together to relook conveniently.

JC 2 was very much more relaxing for me; because there are no more graded assignments like PW except for SPA, so I can have my own flexible schedule outside school. School timetable gets shorter too (no more PW and MTL afterall).

p/s.I also watched Kevin Wee's videos and it's a really depressing case.

chwh96 SG

You're most welcome. In my opinion, I don't think it is wise to compare or compete with your friends because ultimately everyone has their different aims (like he/she may wish to enter law/medince hence they have to get 90rp, but maybe your aim isn't one of those high-end courses, so while it is still important for you to aim as high a rp as possible, there's no need for you to be on par with them in terms of results because you're not really vying with them for a spot in uni), and doing so will only make you more stressed up than you already are. Just try your hardest will do (:

Btw I wanted to take geog haha but the last time I took it was in lower sec so I didn't have the courage to take it again.

kooldog59 SG

One of the reasons why Singapore's current cirriculum is bad is because the focus is on passing exams rather than understanding the topic. No understanding is in fact required, but simply rote learning, so it will definitely be very boring and hard for some. It does not motivate anyone to be the best that they can be, which is the sole purpose of education

Luleil SG

Some of my personal tips:

1) Managing to finish tutorials is already very good enough for me in those hectic days. Extra practices are meant to reinforce what you are weak in.

2) Stop practicing what you are already good at.

3) For any homework in humanities subjects (I took H1 econs), write in point form at most. Most of the times, I don't even do it but I have the thought processes going.

4) The grades in promos, march test and prelims don't mean shit to me, be it good or bad. I create my own plan for A lvls, think far. A lvls is the deciding exam.

5) I seek understanding, not grades and position.

6) The school system or the tutors are there to help you but not control you. Not all of their methods and study plans work for me. I know what lectures are useless and I do other things instead.

7) I do not sacrifice my sleep in exchange of wanting to complete some extra work.

8) I know what I will forget and will make annotations for it, and will eventually compile them together to relook conveniently.

p/s.I also watched Kevin Wee's videos and it's a really depressing case.

I'm from YJC and my CCA is Art. The only thing holding me back is the stern and fierce teachers we have in the club.

Luleil SG

The teachers in my school strongly discourage rote learning, and that time I memorised econs really hard and still landed myself a U, so I'm trying hard to understand instead!

Seowlah SG

Rote Learning is applicable if you have access to well written essays, case studies answers, excellent lecture notes, mindmaps that linked up everything. However, to excel in H2 Econs, you need to be able to apply the knowledge to the questions with good examples and explanation. Essays need to be in the format of GIST, PEEL and SR and Case studies in the format of SQ3R.

Mcdgdgd100 SG

If you need help in Physics. Do look for me

The Code SG

Just find something to cheer you up, like drinking an milk shake, watch Mr Bean (I heard that there is even an Mr Bean's theme cafe in Marine Square right now!) or Youtube like this : http://youtu.be/T24DPU-hkJM

Is Accelerated Learning Possible? : http://masterthepowerofthemind.com/intro-distilled-learning-method

110 Self-Improvement Boosters : http://valhallamind.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/110-Self-Improvement-Boosters.pdf

The Science Of Success : http://www.behaviouralconsulting.com/index.php/articles/sustainability/71-the-science-of-success

Living A Purposeful Life : http://global1.com.au/content/living-a-purposeful-life

Secrets For A Happy Soul : http://www.guyfinley.org/free-content/writings/special-lessons/2060

You're Your Own Rocketfeller! : http://blog.subliminalmp3s.com/youre-your-own-rockefeller

YctLeong SG

Eh guys I have a stupid question ☺️ Coz I'm not sure of it lol . In Jc , GP = English ? So there is no "English" as a subject itself but only GP ? Or wrong oO

DragonMaster SG

Eh guys I have a stupid question ☺️ Coz I'm not sure of it lol . In Jc , GP = English ? So there is no "English" as a subject itself but only GP ? Or wrong oO

You either take H1 General Paper or H2 Knowledge & Inquiry (KI). Not all JCs offer KI. To take KI, you usually need to pass an interview and also have distinction in English at O Level. So most people take H1 GP

Some students also take H2 English Language and Linguistics, but that's not a compulsory subject. It's more suitable for those who want to study English in university