Taking mathematics can harm money-making potential

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussions' started by oxpecker, Dec 16, 2003.

Loading...
  1. oxpecker

    oxpecker New Member

  2. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    What, exactly, ARE"O" levels and "A" levels?
     
  3. agilham

    agilham New Member

    OK. Bit of UK educational history to start.

    Unlike the US, we don't have High School Graduation, we have national age-level exams taken at the end of compulsory education (at age 16) and after two years of post-compulsory education. The exams are administered by a number of national examination boards.

    Between the early 1960s (ish) and the mid 1980s, the end of compulsory schooling exams were split between 'O' (for 'Ordinary) levels, the main academic examinations for those considering academic post-secondary education and CSEs (Certificate of Secondary Education), the exams aimed at the less academic. Back when I took them, 'O' levels were graded A-E, with D and E being fail grades and CSEs were graded by passing grades 1-5, with grade 1 deemed the equivalent of an 'O' level.

    After secondary education, if you were serious about going on to university, you took three 'A' (advanced) levels, which were the academic qualifications that governed your university entry, graded from A to E as passing grades, followed by an 'O', meaning the equivalent of an 'O' level pass and a fail grade of U or Ungraded. When I took them 'A' levels were still normed, as they acted as a filter to the university system, so only the top 5 percent of a given exam cohort would get an A grade, for instance.

    In terms of difficulty, 'A' levels as taken then, and as referenced in the article (which deals with the year cohort four years ahead of me), would be the equivalent of the IB/Advanced Placement/Freshman university course in the US.

    Since my time, 'O' levels and CSEs have been canned and replaced by a single examination aimed at all ability levels called the GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education) and norm referencing has been removed from 'A' levels. Most recently (two years ago), the single 'A' level examined at the end of the two year course of study has been replaced by a split qualification, examined at the end of each year, the two halves of which (named AS and A2) are deemed to make one 'A' level.

    It should be noted that Physics, Chemistry, Biology is the usual selection taken by wannabe medics, dentists and vets, so they're somewhat self-selecting for people who should be doing pretty well umpteen years down the line. The History, French and Art combination is also self-selection of a kind, as it's no use doing 'A' level art unless you're a good enough artist to make a living from it.

    As for the ones that don't make money. English, French and History is one of the classic combinations that lead to an arts degree, and they have a nasty tendency to lead to lower-paid jobs; Maths, English and History, especially at the time the people were taking the 'A' levels is guaranteed to leave admissions tutors and potential employers scratching their heads and worrying.

    Angela -- History, English and Classical Civilisation, actually ;-)
     
  4. oxpecker

    oxpecker New Member

    My O levels (early 70's) were History, English Language, English Lit., French, Latin, Math, Ad. Math, Physics, Chemistry, Religious Knowledge (Anglican boarding school required me to do latter). My A levels (mid 70's) were Physics, Chemistry, Pure Maths, Applied Maths. Not a lucrative combo ...
     
  5. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    So it's a highly complex version of our SAT and AP exams? This might explain why a UK BA takes three years whilst we require four, the freshman year being in large extent a duplicate of the last year of high school...to the extent that it is relatively easy to simply test out of it!
     
  6. whalerider

    whalerider New Member

    hmph. Good thing I'm in the US, where all the high-paying professions are being offshored, no matter what the degree!
     
  7. agilham

    agilham New Member

    'O'Level RS . . . now that's something that would have nauseated even most of the theologians around here. It made geography look like it had content and meaning!
    That depends ;-) I know several people with that combo, starting with my fiance . . . and they all get paid very well in the City.
    Even now, I'd say that 'A' levels were probably more difficult than AP. Certainly, when Oxpecker and I took them they were a *lot* more difficult than the AP exams I've looked at.

    We also don't have all those general education distribution requirements, or those huge survey courses.

    To give an example, my degree in History and Politics comprised the following courses:
    Ist Year.
    Introduction to Political Analysis (compulsory politics core)
    Introduction to World Politics (compulsory politics core)
    European History 1715-1945 (compulsory history core)
    Eastern European History 1740-1980 (history option)

    2nd Year
    Political Theory from Hobbes (compulsory politics core)
    Political systems of the Smaller European Democracies (political systems option, it had to be systems, you couldn't just do theory)
    European History 1500-1715 (compulsory history core)
    Germany in the Age of the Reformation (history option)

    3rd Year
    The Americanisation of Germany and Japan (history option)
    Radicalism in the English Revolution (double weighted history special subject)
    Political Theory and Conceptions of Industrial Society (politics option)

    Note the complete and utter absence of anything except history or politics.

    The other point to note is that you consider AP to be a college level course. We consider 'A' levels to be university qulaifying exams, they are not at college level.

    Currently, we have nothing that's really like the SAT (either general or the subject tests), but that may yet change.

    Angela
     
  8. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    I went to a VERY good public high school in our state capital in the early '70s. We had available courses that, looking back on it now, were pretty much designed to replace some of those "huge survey courses". Being a dimwit, I actually TOOK all those courses my first two years in college instead of CLEPing out like Ishould have. (Did real well, of course. Second time around!) As it was, I finished my BA in three and a half years; I might well have been able to cut it down to three years if I had taken advantage of the CLEP tests.
     
  9. Tom57

    Tom57 Member

    Although AP courses can exempt one from taking the equivalent in college, the conventional wisdom is that they are not the same. The equivalent courses in a US university are generally much more rigorous. AP courses are often taught from the perspective of passing the test, rather than emphasizing theory. It's quite common for APers to use their AP experience as a primer and retake the course in college.

    At Berkeley, for instance, many students who jump over the usual first year courses because of their AP status are literally crushed when attempting the second year courses in the first go round.

    Yes, AP courses are considered college level, but our college is 4 years - yours is 3 years. We just divide the pie differently. There is no substantive difference.

    On a personal note, when I was working for an actuarial consulting firm, I had a workmate who did her math (maths, in UK, I guess) degree at Univ. of Bath. One day, she informed me, rather haughtily, that since all of her courses were in math (without the broader general ed requirements of US universities), her BA was really equivalent to a US masters. In a later discussion, she argued mightily that pi was equal to 22/7 (and thus is not irrational). Yikes! So much for that masters. You can bet my 10th grade students last year knew the difference. I realize a sample of one doesn’t mean much, but really…
     
  10. cmt

    cmt New Member

    Seems to be some confusion over "college" and "university" here. A UK college is nothing like a UK university and serves a very different purpose. This distinction is not made with the US nomenclature.


    Angela,

    I am confused over this:
    I would hope so! If I took two years to prepare for 3 AP exams I would be a moron. Apples and Oranges.

    Yet you take 'A' levels at college (UK), right? How can they not be "college level" then?
     
  11. agilham

    agilham New Member

    Um, let me see if I can emumerate the umpteen different meaning of "college" in English English. This will be both long and confusing as "college" does not have a specific meaning over on this side of the pond, whereas "university" is a protected, legally defined term that refers only to an institution with degree-awarding powers to the Doctoral level.

    College can refer to a school: Eton College, Brighton College. The school may or may not teach beyond the end of compulsory education at age 16.

    Most institutions of post-compulsory but pre-university education
    are called colleges. There are Sixth Form Colleges (which mainly concentrate on academic education, one of which was where I did my 'A' levels) and Colleges of Further Education, which usually have more vocational studies. Confusingly, Colleges of FE quite often also offer university-level courses.

    Colleges of Higher Education are university-level institutions, but may or may not have degree awarding powers (up to the Masters Level) of their own. The same is true of the few remaining Colleges of Agriculture.

    A University College is usually (but not exclusively) an ex-college of HE with a name change and degree awarding powers up to MA level.

    A College may also be consitutent part of a university, like the colleges of Oxford, Cambridge or Durham, or the constituent colleges of the University of Wales (all of which now call themselve universities because they didn't want to be confused with the new university colleges) but not have degree awarding powers of their own. Even more confusingly, the constituent colleges of the University of Wales all set and mark their own exams up to the PhD level (albeit with a bit of central moderation), but the degree is conferred by the federal university, which doesn't enroll students directly at all.

    In colloquial speech, the questions "where are you at college?" and "where are you are university?" are completely interchangeable, as well.

    Worse still, people (like me), who've been used to the differences between the UK and US systems or have US friends will use the term "college level" when talking to a mainly US audience (which this is) to refer to what in other cases we might describe as "university level" or "degree-level" courses of study.

    So, to sum up. In the UK, 'A' levels are not degree-level courses of study, neither would AP or the IB be considered degree-level. They're all pre-university courses of study that you have to pass before getting in to university and for which no credit whatsoever will be granted at degree-level study.

    Does this answer the question? I think it does, but the two systems are still so different (although moving much closer together than would have been the case when Oxpecker or I were doing our 'A' levels) that it makes it difficult to judge.

    Angela
     
  12. cmt

    cmt New Member

    That clears up a lot. I lived in England for 7 years and never understood the system.

    More confusion:
    I was accepted into a US University with my GCSE certificates and yet my wife cannot get her college here to award credit for her 3 'A' levels that she completed in England (B passes) :rolleyes:.
     

Share This Page