I have a daughter in Yr 11 who wishes to attend university after her HSC. She wants to study psychology.
She really struggles with Maths and said in the first Term that she isn't understanding anything. The careers advisor told you need to do Maths for her HSC to get into the course.
She has spoken to her teachers who suggested she could change subjects to something fun and do a bridging course after Yr 12 but she wants to keep doing Maths and I'm now looking into tutoring to help her through.
Has anyone got any advice or has been in this situation? I didn't attend uni and I really don't know anything about it.
Uni - Psychology - Maths struggles
Uni - Psychology - Maths struggles
Posted in:
Education
6 Replies
Honestly, it's less pressure to do a bachelor of arts, choose easy subjects including 1st year psychology units (also fairly easy) and transfer in if your GPA is high enough. She'd need to check if she needed maths to do it that way. But I understand her not wanting that. Maths tutors are common in senior highschool. Ask around locally. She'll have a statistics course in her psychology degree that will need decent math skills
Don’t give up now! It’s true there are bridging courses and options, it’s not the absolute end if she doesn’t get it - but it’s a challenge so why give up when she’s still at school - the school should have sessions where she can go and find out info on the maths that she’s not understanding. You go and meet with the teachers - explain to them how important it is that she pass and question why they told her to give up? Have a real conservations. If you’re involved it holds them accountable too, let them know you’re on board and she will be practising at home; if you put the work in they will too. She’s sounds driven and committed, I don’t understand them telling her to just give up???
Not the op....This is the way it is in high schools now. They don't even let a lot of kids do an atar, this is in public schools. They also have prerequisites like getting a B in a certain subject to be allowed to continue on, otherwise you have to sign a contract saying how you plan to improve and they have to approve it. If you don't get good marks, they basically send you over to the alternative routes like Tafe, traineeships etc. A lot has changed, I assume you don't have high school kids in public school. All they try to do is make sure everyone gets their qce/VCE whatever state, but forget about doing atar subjects and going to uni if you aren't performing well.
Oh wow. That’s sad. I mean, it’s great there’s alternative pathways and I myself have gone through alternative pathways my whole lifetime: but speaking from that experience - it’s not always the easiest route and the more removed you are from ‘mainstream’ the harder it is to commit and stay on course. This kid sounds like she has drive though, I guess just keep guiding her and I hope she doesn’t lose it.
I 100 percent agree with you. It's actually at the point at my children's school (low socioeconomic area) where alternative routes is the mainstream and atar is for the "smart" kids. Offering alternative routes, I agree is great, but I believe the pendulum had swung too far the other way and they are making it difficult and discouraging the average kids from going to uni. They also offer ridiculous subjects from year 10 that don't advance to atar subjects, which already puts kids out of the race to go to uni and any kids put in remedial maths/english classes, also can't get an atar. The school can basically block kids from doing atar subjects in year 10. I don't know if it's because they want good results for year 12, if they get more funding for vocational or if there are just less uni places these days. I really don't know, but yeah, they do basically give up on kids regularly. Additional options have made it easy for year 11 and 12 teachers, as they are only teaching to kids who are at least up to B/C level from the beginning.
Agree, it’s great for kids who aren’t academic. But if she wants to be a psych, and needs maths, she goes to school and getting her the education she needs right now up to grade 12 should be their role.