Thursday, June 24, 2010

Importance of selecting subjects for Advanced Level examination

Where to start?

To decide on where to start, I thought I should go back and see what the point where all goes wrong. I found couple of key milestones, where an average person drags his whole life in to a mess, which ultimately leads him or her to an unhappy person. One of those is Advanced Level examination and therefore I thought I should start from there.


Why Advanced Level?

Considering the education system in Sri Lanka, GCE Advanced Level examination is one of the important hurdles of life. I have met several people who made a wrong choice in selecting A/L stream. Some of them managed to get through the examination with flying colors. Some of them failed. Some of them were in between as usual. But, at a later stage some of the persons belonged to all these categories regretted thinking that their lives would have been so different, and they would have been so happy if they have chosen the right path at right time.

There were students who studied commerce subjects who thought, being a Chartered Accountant is the only option available to them. But it’s not the case.

I have found many students who happened to study mathematics subjects on the request of teachers and parents. They were given the task of gearing up the results of the school and bringing the fame to the family. They did get selected to different engineering faculties such as electronics, construction and chemical engineering etc. But after some time I meet them working at banks doing banking exams with the students who did commerce subjects at school.

I have found students who have done Arts subjects because they loved to do it. Later they regret thinking that there are no jobs for what they have studied. One girl told me that she would not select arts subjects. Because she thought, the only possible job for a student who goes in the arts stream is teaching or a lower paid government job.

Recently I met a doctor who never wanted to be a doctor. He wanted to be an engineer. But due to the continuous requests, demands, threats and sobbing of his father, finally he decided to select biology stream subjects in order to get in to medical college. He was too much of a sensitive boy that he could not just bear the cutting of animals and testing in labs and seeing people suffering from illnesses. He was such a brilliant student; he managed to get selected to the medical college. He completed his internship as well, but today he is not working as a doctor. But for a doctor exit strategies are very low or rather not practical. So once a doctor is always a doctor here.

There is a world more than that. There is a much larger world outside which our students have never seen or may never have showed to them. When I was at that age, I never knew how many different opportunities are there in Sri Lanka or how many career paths are there if someone wants to succeed. Money is not required to uplift or be happy. Today I know. Therefore I thought I should share my knowledge with whoever who seek these information.

Importance of selecting advanced level subjects for the higher education
If you are a student with a plan of  doing a degree in a particular field, you should check whether the subjects you have selected fulfill that requirement. For example if you are planning to follow a degree in computer science in many universities around the world (including Sri Lanka) demands that you must have done Mathematics as a subject.

How to apply to a foreign university + to a scholarship for an undergraduate degree ?

If you are planning to obtain for a scholarship to a high ranking university, then also the subjects you do matters. Its always important to go to these university web sites and scholarship granter's web sites and do a pre check as to what their requirements are. I have given some links for this in another article.

 
What’s the plan?

Many people request me to do this. Many well-wishers at different peaks contribute with ideas. Many key people in the country, who think of themselves as successful as well as happy, agreed to help. I hope students in the next era will not fall in to a wrong path, just because they do not have information. I wish students of future will not regret in later stage thinking that they were too late for a key decision in life. Hope this will change a lot. Stay with us. We come with a promise to commit ourselves to uplift your lives. But it will only be guidance and direction. Rest of your life will depend on how you see it and how you want it to be.

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