School Project. Poly VS JC
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I think we will end up in endless debate if we want to say which is the "better" one.
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those people that choose to go poly, they already noe exactly wad dey wanna do
of cus not dat going JC means that a person doesnt noe wad he wans his route to be. but some prefer to take the shorter route of education instead of going JC and den to uni, its a long journey. it requires a lot of finance too =/
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I took the JC route and find it an utter waste of my time. Dont get me wrong. I scored pretty well for A levels (triple A, A2 for chinese, B3 for GP). In my opinion, i feel that the A level curriculum should be reduced to just 1 year.
Even though i find JC route an utter waste of my time (2 years), i will still choose that over a poly cos i know ultimately i want to study in a university.
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First of all, those who have not studied in Polytechnic or/and had chosen Poly over JC should not speculate and post their comments. It just makes you look stupid...
To Abel,
Graduating from polytechnic no simple task. In JC, you're only required to complete 4 subjects. In Poly, you do about 9 subjects a year and is required to pass all of them to proceed to the next level. Polytechnic curriculum is, in my opinion, tougher than JC.
I studied in Temasek JC before switching to Singapore Polytechnic and my reasons are...
1) Financial - you are immediately employable upon graduation even if you do not make it to the top 5% for University qualification.
2) Options - you can always still do a degree after but if you take the JC route, it's either University or MacDonald's.
3) Value - a degree is a stepping stone to a career but experience matters more than qualification. you can graduate with a part-time degree and is still more valuable than any NUS/NTU graduate.
4) Choice - the JC route limits your choices... science to do engineering, commerce to do business and arts to do law. In Polytechnic, as long as your 'O' level grades qualify, you can do any courses and move on to any degree.
Last but not the least...
I like the freedom to wear whatever I want and not be treated like a child. And Poly girls are hotter... (I was young then).
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Originally posted by lagdesserts:
those people that choose to go poly, they already noe exactly wad dey wanna do
of cus not dat going JC means that a person doesnt noe wad he wans his route to be. but some prefer to take the shorter route of education instead of going JC and den to uni, its a long journey. it requires a lot of finance too =/
This is what I always tell my tuition students
You see those people fixing wiring in buildings? Those are from ITE. You see those who tell them what and where to fix and make sure they do it correctly? Those are from poly. Then those you don't see, are those with uni cert. They do the planning, then tell the pple with poly certs to command the pple with ITE certs to do the fixing.
I know there's a whole lot of discrimination in my above example passage. I apologize first if it offends anyone. But this is quite similar to what is happening in society. Doesn't mean 'shorter route' means better.
Given a second choice, I will still choose the A level route. This is because that it will be a 'must' that you complete uni in order to survive well. From the mentality described in your passage, a uni education will be 'good to have' instead of 'must have'. Obviously, a 'must have' attitude will very usually do better than a 'good to have' attitude. -
Value - a degree is a stepping stone to a career but experience matters more than qualification. you can graduate with a part-time degree and is still more valuable than any NUS/NTU graduate.
Yes, but there are many cases of companies not wanting to promote poly grads too much just because of their cert. Their capabilities are there, they can easily thrash any of the uni grads any day, but just because of their cert, they are not promoted.
Again, this is only applicable if you are looking to be employed all your life. Those taking the entrepreneurial route are not included.
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i would prefer ITE
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Final note to this thread..
You guys are placing way too much emphasize on a degree. Those already in the workforce will tell you that company HR couldn't even be bothered to check your certificate.
As a hiring manager, all that matters is the right experience and a base level qualification (probably a degree). Most employers just want to know if you have a degree but where you get them if of the least concern (even if you're in the midst of reading for one); unless you graduated from Standford, Harvard or Yale.
On level down, I do not they would even be interested to read in your resume if you graduate from poly or JC.
I entered poly knowing that it would not be enough and I would have to get a degree someday. Where I get that degree is of no importance but what I experience I have matters the most.
Our government hired the best and the brightest that Singapore's educational system can produce and where does that lands us? We have army generals running GIC and heading Temasek investment arm... looks at the billions they are losing.
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Originally posted by anonymous_dickhead:
4) Choice - the JC route limits your choices... science to do engineering, commerce to do business and arts to do law. In Polytechnic, as long as your 'O' level grades qualify, you can do any courses and move on to any degree.
Actually this is not true.. A lvls applying for uni is somewhat similar to o lvls applying for poly.. as long as ur points are good enough, and u have revelavant subjects which some course require, u can enter any course.. for example u could have done NOTHING about history in A or even O lvls, and yet still take a degree in history..
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Originally posted by anonymous_dickhead:
First of all, those who have not studied in Polytechnic or/and had chosen Poly over JC should not speculate and post their comments. It just makes you look stupid...
To Abel,
Graduating from polytechnic no simple task. In JC, you're only required to complete 4 subjects. In Poly, you do about 9 subjects a year and is required to pass all of them to proceed to the next level. Polytechnic curriculum is, in my opinion, tougher than JC.
I studied in Temasek JC before switching to Singapore Polytechnic and my reasons are...
1) Financial - you are immediately employable upon graduation even if you do not make it to the top 5% for University qualification.
2) Options - you can always still do a degree after but if you take the JC route, it's either University or MacDonald's.
3) Value - a degree is a stepping stone to a career but experience matters more than qualification. you can graduate with a part-time degree and is still more valuable than any NUS/NTU graduate.
4) Choice - the JC route limits your choices... science to do engineering, commerce to do business and arts to do law. In Polytechnic, as long as your 'O' level grades qualify, you can do any courses and move on to any degree.
Last but not the least...
I like the freedom to wear whatever I want and not be treated like a child. And Poly girls are hotter... (I was young then).
i cant get your first sentence. how can you not study in poly when you have chosen poly over jc.
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Originally posted by anonymous_dickhead:
4) Choice - the JC route limits your choices... science to do engineering, commerce to do business and arts to do law. In Polytechnic, as long as your 'O' level grades qualify, you can do any courses and move on to any degree.
not true. JC students can choose almost any course that they want. Even an arts students can jump to science stream as long as he/she has taken a science/maths subject before or they can take a bridging module in university. -
First of all, those who have not studied in Polytechnic or/and had chosen Poly over JC should not speculate and post their comments. It just makes you look stupid...
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Originally posted by eagle:
I cannot say for life science.
But I can say for sure that in my graduating batch for engineering, none of the poly pple got 1st class honours or are on the path to getting one. In addition, none of them got the innovation and research award for their final year projects. All were from JCs. I'm pretty sure is because when the time they have in uni is too tight. No matter how you plan your modules, it is almost impossible for them to embark on programmes like what I have done, just because I have 4 years and they have 3 years.
Personal experience is, yes, for projects that requires hands on, for the hands on section, the poly students win hands down. But these projects require analysis too, and in the end, for one of the projects, the poly students built a very solid structure, but was too big to do a figure 8 as required by the module. The programming and the algorithms were also not done properly... At the uni level, the analysis to make the structure to run is much more important. In the workplace, it will be you who will be coming up with the plan; you will then command those under you to build it, not you.
There are also things that were taught in A levels, and retaught in first year uni. For poly intake, they did not learn it in poly, and being able to skip most of the modules in the first year, they did not get to learn too. In the end, in the 4th year, they lose out.
So, no matter a dip-degree route or a Alvl-degree route, just think... The Alvl-degree route results in a 1st class honours or 2nd upper with enrichment programmes like industrial attachments done (of course not every one la... too many A lvl students as compared to poly students), compared to a dip-degree route, which is harder to get a 1st class honours or 2nd upper mainly due to lack of time.
Then again, a cert is mainly used for employment. If you are not seeking one in the long term, but using it merely as a form of education, a form of investing in yourself, a step/passport to the working world, then it doesn't matter as much.
haha.. when i said dip-degree win alvl-degree, i mean like 1st class honours dip-degree winning 1st class honours alvl-degree kinda thingy u noe.. haha..
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Originally posted by purpledragon84:
haha.. when i said dip-degree win alvl-degree, i mean like 1st class honours dip-degree winning 1st class honours alvl-degree kinda thingy u noe.. haha..
orh that one different.
If a dip-degree can get 1st class honours (and with slightly lesser time somemore), that person must be really zai, and he definitely deserves better opportunities.
But I think employers will likely eye the 1st class cert, and not the cert before that... :(
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Give me a second chance, I will choose JC :(
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Originally posted by purpledragon84:
haha.. when i said dip-degree win alvl-degree, i mean like 1st class honours dip-degree winning 1st class honours alvl-degree kinda thingy u noe.. haha..
umm...the 1st class hon alvl-degree would be doing his masters already (and finishing) while his counterpart just finished with 1st class hon dip-degree. -
Originally posted by FirePig:
umm...the 1st class hon alvl-degree would be doing his masters already (and finishing) while his counterpart just finished with 1st class hon dip-degree.
can we like make it a controlled experiment? like all other things equal except one is jc-uni and one is poly-uni..? -
Here's my honest reason for choosing to go to a Poly over a JC. I wanted to do either science or engineering but for most JC's to do science you needed to have done A Maths at 'O' Levels. I actually dropped A Maths cuz I couldn't stand doing something I didn't (at the time) understand the use of and the JC's which allowed me to do science I just felt weren't worth going to in my honest opinion. I spent the PAE period in CJC arts and it was one of the best times in my life but I knew I was never going to stay in arts.
Choosing Poly was quite straightforward for me. The course I was really interested in is actually considered a dumping ground (ME). I would love to see this "Engineering is a dumping ground" issue discussed but it is irrelevant at this point in time. What gave me confidence was that my 'O' Level score was less than half the cut-off point for the course so it did boost my confidence of having an advantage over my competition. Oh and NYP was just behind my house.
Apparently I wasn't the only on who thought this way during my intake. According to my lecturers, my batch did surprisingly well compared to previous batches and many whom enrolled also had good 'O' Level scores. I still enjoyed myself there and never regretted it. I met many good friends and played hard but at the same time was serious when I needed to be. I've now graduated with a COM and am awaiting my NS. I've also received placement offers from NUS n NTU. How well I fare in Uni is still yet to be known.
Now I'm not trying to promote myself or anything, I just want to say that the choice between a Poly or a JC I believe depends on whichever is most suitable for the individual to excel in and there's no best route, it just depends on the individual's interests and ability.
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at the same time, i also believe that they should give more space for the unis to poly students rather then FT's..
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Interesting thread, let me give my 2 cents. (altho out of topic)
My reasons for choosing JC are unlike most forummers here actually and would sound silly to most of you.
Most cite economic advantages, finances, prospects but for me its slightly different.To me, there's more to life than measuring it in terms of good prospects and employability and cert worth.
I wanted very badly, to experience a college education at least once in my life.
To thrust wits with the brightest in the country and to tackle the notoriously hard A-Level curriculum as a personal challenge. I wanted to hang around a like-minded community to provide me the intellectual-stimulation that I would find lacking elshwhere. (poly of course got also, but you gotta admit there are not many of them)
I don't see why some JC folks complain so much. In fact, I had an enriching time.Those days pia-ing out 10 yr series and discussing tutorials on tight deadlines wth my friends will always be a vivid memory for me. In fact, somewhere down, I do miss wearing my JC uniform and reliving college days again.
JC is a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity that I would go for again even if I had to rechoose 100 times.
One more thing is that in poly there are superb students and trashy students (lets be realistic here) if we go by L1R4. There is this danger of getting bad influence by poly kids who are slack (not the good ones tho) and uninterested.If for example, you had no choice in choosing group mates, they could potentially ruin your projects if you are unlucky enough to "tio" them. These are some of the factors making it a tough battlefield out there and a riskly challenge to secure good GPA.
These are just my own views and not to be taken seriously. Hope I have not stepped on anyone's toes.
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Originally posted by stellazio:
at the same time, i also believe that they should give more space for the unis to poly students rather then FT's..
x2..
but lets not digress and make this another mudsling fest.. coz oxford mus- oops i mean ppl are going to say that its "survival of the fittest"..
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Government is not stupid. They open SIMuni so that pple will stop complaining about the lack of places in uni.
The birth of SIM University took more than 12 years of meticulous planning and preparation. The seeds were first sown in 1992 when the Ministry of Education (MOE) appointed SIM, its parent organisation, to run the Open University Degree Programme (OUDP) in collaboration with The Open University of The United Kingdom (OUUK). In 2002, the OUDP was granted accreditation status by OUUK and renamed SIM Open University Centre (SIM-OUC). With accreditation, SIM-OUC enjoyed greater flexibility in designing and directing its academic programmes. It also began an internal restructuring process in preparation for achieving its vision of becoming a full-fledged university.
That vision was realised in January 2005 when MOE granted SIM the approval to form SIM University, which formally came into existence on 14 April 2005. With its founding, UniSIM assumed direct responsibility for SIM-OUC’s enrolment, which currently numbers about 7,300 students.
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Apreciated for your replies. Thing is im not looking for a clear cut answer on why this is better than that like one person said. i just need your opinions on the trend where now, polytechnic doesn't seem so inferior to junior college and more students seem to be going to polytechnics compared to ancient times. And please don't worry, out project has a due date, so sooner or later this topic will close. All the more the reason to type out all your ideas now!
Thanks to people who put into real thought into what their typing
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Originally posted by Abel low:
Apreciated for your replies. Thing is im not looking for a clear cut answer on why this is better than that like one person said. i just need your opinions on the trend where now, polytechnic doesn't seem so inferior to junior college and more students seem to be going to polytechnics compared to ancient times. And please don't worry, out project has a due date, so sooner or later this topic will close. All the more the reason to type out all your ideas now!
Thanks to people who put into real thought into what their typing
Well one of the reason you really should consider is the lack of placing in Unis and JCs across the board.They need to encourage Poly Education (for the Dip.) to those who don't do as well in JC to head towards.
And they also need to encourage sec school leavers (quite a lot who do well), to go to Poly, cos the JCs simply do not have the necessary infrastructure to expand and accommodate for the influx of students.
So this "Trend" isn't really a trend. The surge in Poly's popularity has mainly occured during the "baby-boom" years, and I do not believe it to be something that will persist more than 5 years. Instead, it is a series of causes, that have led to this effect.
Of course, don't take my word for it... but instead, look at the intake numbers. Compare the intake of the JCs for the past 6 years. How much increase were there? Look at the Poly Intakes, how much increase were there? What you are looking for is not really the intake, but the capacity to handle large intakes that was created. In that, again, you have to include Poly's total no of students (yes, include FTs), to have a gauge of what its real capacity is.
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I am now currently studying in Ngee Ann Poly taking the course of International Supply Chain Management. Before that in my secondary school days, I have the interest of joining Aviation Management (Temasek Poly) as I like the working environment over at Changi Airport(but don't know for the inside)lol , interested in aviation etc... But this course was hot and the cut off point was low. This made me to search for other courses that I may have interest in by going for open house and consultation from the lecturers, seniors, relatives, family members and also looking at the course modules. From there, managed to find out a few that interest me.
During the PAE period, I decided to give JC a try and chose Innova JC. I found out that it does not suit me as it will be rushing for me and unable to cope well. At the later part saw my friends blog(those who are in JC) ranting on their life in JC being hectic and tiring...
Now in Poly, there are two scenarios that I can be, I can be either the slack one or be those hardworking one. If I am the slack one, I may not score well for my GPA as thus waiting my parents money and effort as they might need to send me to overseas if I want to continue to pursue in my studies. If I am the hardworking one, I can score well get into a local university or maybe get scholarships. But seriously, I am not ambitious now. lol
In Poly, I also able to mix around with students of different ages(some of the age gap may be huge) and also different races and nationalities to understand more of them. This will help me to get ready when I am out in the society or even when studying in University in the future.
To those who are deciding which path to go to, perhaps hunt for a poly course that you are interested in by going for the poly open houses and ask for consultation not only from them but others also(like family, relatives etc...) If the PAE still exists and one is able to meet the criteria, no harm going for a few weeks to try out the JC system. From there make a gauge for yourself and see where do u want to go next?
From what I think, JC is more conservative while Poly is more liberal and open that is why there will be a difference in behaviour when the two groups study in University(like what some forumers have mentioned earlier on)