The first day going into Leaving Cert already seems like a distant memory. It was a good summer though, wasn’t it? Nice weather, lots of festivals, etc. Anyway, I was expecting the first day back to be fairly hectic, with teachers making passionate speechs with lots of “if you don’t work this year you’re all gonna fail and be worthless for the rest of your life” and so on and so forth. Thankfully, it was a gentle entrance. The first day back felt like a continuation of 5th year, it was even easy talking to people I hadn’t so much as heard of in the three months of summer. So, off to a flying start then! Since then, it’s all been going quite well, I’ve been easing myself gently into study, not worth getting too stressed over it this early in my opinion.
Anyway, who am I and what am I doing here? I’m a first-time Leaving Certer (as opposed to a repeat), I’m 16, 17 fairly soon and I’m from the south-west region of Ireland. I hope to study medicine (another one!), probably in either Galway or Cork, which means this year I have the infamous HPAT to contend with as well as the Leaving Cert. I’m still not sure what my strategy is for the HPAT. I’m a bit reluctant about prep courses, it’s hard to find solid information on them, like whether they work or whether they don’t, except for the information distributed by the companies that run HPAT prep courses themselves. Getting reliable information off the internet from discussion forums and the like is also tough, since you never know really to trust anyone in case they’re merely advertising for a HPAT prep company. I know people who got into medicine without them, and people who didn’t get into medicine with them (and people who did get into medicine with them). I’m sceptical as to whether they’re worth shelling out 200/300 Euro for if you’re not gauranteed to do well after them. Anyway, enough HPAT ramblings for now!
Fairly predictable subject choices for someone going for med, I’m doing honours in everything EXCEPT Irish. Some people love Irish, but I really couldn’t stand it! I found learning off reams of essays, Stair na Gaeilge and stuff on An Trail impossible. The new course coming in next year sounds much better, but hopefully I will never get to do it! Anyway, my subjects are:
- English
- Irish
- Maths
- German
- Physics
- Chemistry
- Biology
If I had to pick a favourite, it’d be a toss up between chemistry or biology. I’d probably go with biology if I had to choose. I have a very nerdy curiousity for everything about the human body and more strangely diseases and the like. One of the reasons I’m hoping to do medicine! I don’t like Irish and German is a bit dull, as I said, I don’t like learning off reams of stuff, but my German isn’t too bad thankfully.
Anyway, hope my first blog post wasn’t too dull! Not much too report in school life and leaving cert at the moment, things are very calm and nice. The calm before the storm, maybe? Perhaps when Christmas tests, mocks, CAO forms, HPATs, orals and the leaving cert itself approach, I’ll be changing my tune! I hope to treat this year as a bit of an adventure, so many people after the leaving cert say it was the best year for them, hopefully I’ll say the same. The teachers are nicer this year and seem more like regular people rather than authority figures, but that change came last year, since most of my subjects are minority subjects with small classes.
Seems like what was formerly leaving-cert.net has undergone a cool transformation this year, with lots of new bloggers! Will be interesting to see how we all get on this year. Anyone feeling like a lab rat yet? 😛
Anyway, that’s all for now. Best of luck to everyone!
Woot, Doctor Dick has arrived! 🙂
Woooo, gwan dick 😛 Good first post ! 🙂