Taster Sessions

With A-Level choices imminent, our school decided to lay on some 'taster sessions' to allow the students to sample some of the subjects on offer. I haven't really got much of a clue about what I'm going to be in the future. When someone asks me "What do you want to be when your older", I reply "Undecided", and let their opinions waft over my unconscious self.

First up was Chemistry. This was one of my many considerations, albeit a more serious consideration than, say, French. As you might expect, the teacher brawled on about how Chemistry is everything and when the world ends, all the chemists will be called upon by God to join him in the garden of heaven, and all the artists and historians will rot in the cesspit of hell. Did I mention he was a psychopathic creationist - teaching a science?

Second was ICT. There are two options here, IT or Computing. IT involves the general sort of questions and applied knowledge and creating problems and solving them etc. Computing involves programming and spawns many new computer nerds into our universities every year. These are the sort of people you see in a darkened room with 4 different computer screens covered in code and binary like something out of the Matrix. Neoites I call them.

After break in which I had a sausage wrapped in a slice of toast with brown sauce that taster like hand cream, a half-hour of Geography followed. I have always liked Geography, although now it seems like we won't actually learn anything new. The tutor told us we would study plate tectonics (done in 3rd year), tourism (done in 4th year), ecosystems (also done in fourth year) and farming in the UK (just finished it last week). What he should have said was: "GCSE? You're sorted mate. Don't bother coming back."

The next session to follow was Economics. I am currently taking a Business Studies GCSE and this sort of follows on from that. What we were told was that universities favour the more traditional subjects, and Economics is apparently one of them? I though the sciences, languages, Geography, History, English and Maths were viewed as being traditional, but not Economics? The teacher told us that he teaches with great knowledge, passion and with a true love and desire for the subject. This made all the girls laugh hysterically and flutter their eyelids. He merely smiled, but with a distinct twinkle in his eye. Maybe it was the fluorescent lighting.

Finally, Physics was attended by many students. The teacher told us that he would not lie to us. He told us that half of us were probably better off walking out the door right now, waffled on about quantum theory for a bit, showed us a video on You-Tube that he downloaded about people falling off roundabouts and gave us a poorly photocopied sheet on the subject.

Bonus. Now it was time to return to our final normal lesson of the day: IT. This lesson last thing on a Friday afternoon has traditionally been a sit-off where no work is conducted whatsoever. Alas! A cruel plan to dig boredom into our small little minds. "A meeting with the deputy headmaster and careers adviser in the school chapel?" How they got permission from God to talk about money and salary in his own bloody house I'll never know. They droned on for around 40 minutes about the importance of making good combinations of choices and not just doing things because your friends are. Personally, I would be glad to get away from some of my 'friends' once in a while to avoid their persistent nagging, stabbing and crude jokes based on other people's sexuality (usually mine).

So in conclusion, not quite sure what I'm going to be doing with my time on this mottled lump of rock hurtling around the sun. Maybe I'll be a professional blogger. Or maybe I'll get a life.

Read Jingo's account of the taster sessions