the guy who killed himself

wiensta

Apparently some poor bloke hung himself yesterday before the english paper.. poor guy.

It was on the front of the Sun, i never read the article though. Anyone know anything about the guy?

Its things like this that should make the dept. of education reconsider how the leaving cert is presented. I personally am under no pressure, because I can see how meaningingless the whold thing is (well at least it is for me).

In general though, people are made see it as a huge accomplishment in life, thus, they weigh an enormous amount of pressure on themselves.

Any views on this?

ballooba

Younger brother of a bloke in my year hung himself three days before english. The guy in my year never recovered. Met him a few months ago (3 years later) and I casually asked him how he was. He told me he was struggling.

Sarky

The leaving cert is without a doubt the most pointless waste of time I ever sat through. It puts stupid workloads on students, most of it has no practical relevance whatsoever, and it's ridiculously complicated.

StickyMcGinty

i'll prob feel like that after history. there should be class exams every 4 months in school, and then have a state exam at the end, that makes up roung 30% of the total. much better

lordsippa

It's funny though... <not the suicide mind> but everyone I've talked to so far seems to be breezing through the exams. Keeping nicely relaxed and so on...

It's been good so far.

Sarky

I think parents are at least partially to blame in this too. My own parents respected what I did or didn't do, but a lot of them pile on ridiculous pressure, with the whole "If you don't do well you'll never amount to anything, and I'll be disappointed in you" routine. That's never healthy for a growing lad/lass to hear, especially as the leaving isn't all that important in the first place.

Sorry, this whole thing has made me mad this time evey year since I actually sat the damn thing.

adjodlo

Yeah I dont know about you guys but I don't know what I'm going to do next year and I don't really care...it's prob gonna be fun newayz

The LC is sooo over-rated, but the only problem is that I just couldn't motivate myself at all to study...I just wasn't worried


ever feel like everything is just in preperation for something else?

you go to kindergarten to get prepared for school
you go to secondary school to prepare for college
you go to college to prepare to get a job
you get a job to prepare to settle down, buy a house(yeah right)
you settle down so you can prepare to retire
you retire so you can prepare, in peace, to die


fun fun

Funkstard

This kind of thing should be a wake-up call for the dept. of education. An exam where the pressure is needlessy applied it results in people killing themselves rather than face potential failure.....

Failure of what though? Not cramming enough in the weeks before? Not studying as much as you possibly can, for a few tests that you won't even remember the results of in 30 years? Go on, ask your parents, mine can't remember what they got in the L.C.

The leaving cert is designed to test you on how much you can study, which is ridiculous. It should be examining how intelligent you actually are . It's ridiclous that it's come the state where it needs a major overhaul to stop teenagers committing suicide......


My 2 cents

Celtic Tiger

IMHO the LC should be spread out more..........I have maths, history, french and geography all in just two days ffs

Repli

Oh come on.. you don't honestly think this guy killed himself because of the leaving cert alone? He was obviously mentally sick already.. and the LC was one of the factors that pushed him over the edge..
You don't just kill yourself like that over an exam.. Imo the LC is good preparation for life.. If you can't handle the stress/pressure of a few exams, how are you going to manage when you go out into the big bad world of work?

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

the LC isn't a terrible preperation, but there are some people out there who just can't handle exams.. a bit of continous assesment in the lC course would be nicer for people

Repli

Well then do the LCVP or LCA or something

ballooba

Originally posted by lordsippa
It's funny though... <not the suicide mind> but everyone I've talked to so far seems to be breezing through the exams. Keeping nicely relaxed and so on...

It's been good so far.

Maybe thats cos the ones who are stressed are holed up in a dark room with their eyes clamped open and a torch lighting a copy of their geography case study.:ninja:

ella minnow pea

Originally posted by Funkstard
This kind of thing should be a wake-up call for the dept. of education. An exam where the pressure is needlessy applied it results in people killing themselves rather than face potential failure.....

i think the they announced it was going to be changed recently didnt they

Sundy

Originally posted by Repli
Well then do the LCVP or LCA or something

Thats a bit narrow minded, most people under preform because associated with the leaving. And why should somebody who suffers from stress be punished because of an outdated exam system?

Trebor

people who think the LC is a waste of time will regret it later.

when i did the LC i thought it was a waste of time and didn't do much work for it but now i am trying to get a decent job in computers and nobody will talk to me unless i have a degree so i now have to go back and repeat the LC.

adjodlo

BS you could easily get into a plc or diploma course then move onto a degree in computers and skip the first year of the degree course.


Did you honestly expect to get a job straight out of school?

BArra

LCVP isnt something that takes pressure off, its an add-on that u do 2 classes a week in

write out driving test thingy
write report on a visit from someone in a business that visited
write report on ur work experience

and finally the exam itself

doing lcvp isnt going to releive any pressure, its worth what 50 points maybe to a IT, 70 if u get full marks, college dont even accept those marks, much lower afaik

lc is a joke, need to re-evaluate it totally

PHB

The leaving cert has one purpose,
to decide who gets what college courses.

The colleges don't want people who say that they are smart yet don't have the cop on to do any work, nor do they want someone whos not smart but does lots of work[but they'd prefer the later]

The leaving cert gives good grades to people are are really smart and do a little work, or people of average intelligence who work their asses off and get the points they need.

Colleges want the really smart people or the average people who work hard, they dont want the slackers who bitch about the system.

IMO the leving cert works, but I would like to see a little less emphasises on the final exam, with maybe 30% on a field report, or maybe a series of exams instead of one big one in one go.
I'd really oppose anything like continual assesment simply because it would either be incredibly expensive[constant examiners coming in all the time] or else they'd make the teachers do it, which would be ****ing stupid.

The leaving cert is a means to an end, the end being getting the college course you want. It also gives you a decent education in multiple areas of study so even though you might go off and do maths in college you still know a bit about history and english and geography etc.

Trebor

Originally posted by adjodlo
BS you could easily get into a plc or diploma course then move onto a degree in computers and skip the first year of the degree course.


Did you honestly expect to get a job straight out of school?

yeah i could get on to A degree course but not the one that i want. and btw i finished the LC 4 years ago have done 2 FAS courses and a host of private course and have been refused by two colleges already. so you should attempt to get the best marks you can, it might be a fcuked up system but it's the system that you have to deal with.

just because you think it's a waste of time ( i still think it is, it's just regurgitating fact ) doesn't mean that it's irrelavent.

Tyrrial

if anyone how hasn't does there leaving is saying it's a wast of time, your'll find out what a wast of time is when you have to spend 2 years in a course just to get to college and another 4 years getting a degree. while people that understood that the leaving is an important stepping stone and did some work are either in well paid jobs or finishing off their masters.....

Sundy

Engineer is a good example of a spread out subject but then it applies to it well.

We had to do:

1) A project. This year it was an air compressor. Difficult enough but given about 5 months to do it.

2) A six hour practical exam to make a mechinism. Brings the best out of your practical work under time pressure.

3) the written exam.

This was a fair way of given everybody a chance to prove themselves wit less pressure. Other subjects should be set out sumtin similar

lordsippa

I think I've gotta agree on the idea of them being spread apart a bit... maybe only an exam a day or something.. I dunno.

As far as suicide goes, didn't the Irish Times have an article about it being not at all related? Then again, personally I think that it can be WAY overrated in peoples minds. Some people just see it as life or death, and the people who tend to discredit this theory are usually people who saw it as a challenge and not a HUGE deal. But, again, this is all just my theory...

And as far as it being a waste of time... well it depends what you want to do with your life really doesn't it? Want a good career, a nice house, a family, prospects, etc? Work hard in your leaving so. Wanna do something else? Then just do it ffs.

bkehoe

I wouldnt go around beleiving everything printed in the tabloids. He was only in 5th year, not doing the LC.

Funkstard

Oh, he was only in fifth year? ok....

PHB

And as far as it being a waste of time... well it depends what you want to do with your life really doesn't it? Want a good career, a nice house, a family, prospects, etc? Work hard in your leaving so. Wanna do something else? Then just do it ffs.

Not sure if you're saying this but just a general point that when people say "oh hes working hard for the leaving, hes the type hes gona get a nice job, have 2.5 children" etc. its incredibly moronic. Most people working hard for the leaving are doing it to move onto bigger things, and in all likely hood more of them are going to succeed, unless they suddenly gain the ability to work hard after school.

Its all well and good to say this system sucks, but you gotta realise you're stuclk in the system and the only way out of it is to move country or work the system

adjodlo

Originally posted by PHB
Not sure if you're saying this but just a general point that when people say "oh hes working hard for the leaving, hes the type hes gona get a nice job, have 2.5 children" etc. its incredibly moronic. Most people working hard for the leaving are doing it to move onto bigger things, and in all likely hood more of them are going to succeed, unless they suddenly gain the ability to work hard after school.

Its all well and good to say this system sucks, but you gotta realise you're stuclk in the system and the only way out of it is to move country or work the system

I feel your whole "working hard" vibe, but I have to ask you - where is working hard going to get you? So you work hard all through school, then through college with a bit of partying thrown in. Then you get a job. You feel the need to reach the top so you work hard for years getting promotions etc etc, then by the time you're 50 you can retire - congrats, your officially too old to have any sort of decent fun.


I honestly don't know what I'm going to do after college, and I can't see how people can be stuck in the whole "work till you die of a heart attack and you sill succeed" mantra at such a young age...maybe I'm just weird, but we can all agree that nobody who does shít even in the lc is gonna die of hunger or anything

PHB

I'm loving the assumptions here.

congrats, your officially too old to have any sort of decent fun.

So lets get this straight, if you actually work hard sometimes its not possible to have fun?
You'll find most people who worked hard for the leaving did it on weeknights and took the weekend off and had lots of fun,
Well everyone I know did that.

I plan to hopefully go onto bigger things after college but if I end up just working in a job, thats fine by me, I'll get my money during the weekdays and have lots of fun at the weekends.

Budgeting your time people!!!

adjodlo

If you're gonna want to break minimum wage you're gonna be dictated to what days you work...and this will, in this day and age, involve working on saturdays/sundays

PHB

You assume too much really.
You don't think if you have a good degree you can get a job that suits you?

Some people live to work, and I dont like that and I think its probably going to be unhealthy.
Some people work to live, and thats what I hope to do. And I don't want to have to work 9-5 in a ****ty job on minimun wage every day so I can have fun at the weekend, if I get it off. I want to have a nice comfy 9-5 job that is interesting and well paid so I can have a good time.

adjodlo

You say I'm the one who assumes, so I'm assuming you're 50 and you've already been through this? O wait...you havn't...pity



You're the one who's *assuming* that the LC will get you into a good degree which will in turn get you a "comfy 9-5". lol...Is there such a thing? You're saying that you have to work hard to "succeed" and "move onto bigger and better things", yet you're expecting to have a nice little comfy 9-5 weekends off job waiting for you when you finish your degree...

who is the one who's delusional here?