"I'll never to know this when i leave school!"

[Danny]

We've all said it, in some cases it turns up how you wouldn't expect, want to make a movie thats set in real life and not pay attention to psychs your gonna have the mythbusters hot on your ass. That said it occurred to me today that its actually pretty true in a more intrusive way for me. I got a surprise among my highest g.c.s.e scores with design technology, which is basically shop class with a bit more carpentry and theory than just building nicknacks in wood and the like as tv shows and films make american shop class outside of working on vehicles appear to be, but im digressing. I didnt hate the class, it was way more laid back, everyone laughed and joked but the teacher was a mean old curved spined bugger with a wizard beard and an evil glare. but it was fun, i didnt give two shits about it though, i wanted to make films, so it whent with sports, geography and religious education in the "yeeeeah,no." pile.
I never gave it a second till im working with some now ex classmates from uni on a project and were making some cheap ass dolleys and crap, as you do when your broke, and im talking about mortis and tenon joints and bollox and its like im speaking spanish -which was my only f at secondary school by the way:lol:, and it was odd to see i was handy with the tools, working on the sets and effects plans and stuff and these basic techniques that i thought were common sense were new to everyone else. -the course i was SURE in my teenage arrogance would have nothing to do with my life, as i had thereby decreed and prophesied it to be, and it was a major leg up in a filmmaking project.
Not on a large scale, but for a small indie film piece my "never gonna use" class actually turned out to be useful just like the teacher said.

-same with the psychs wiz whos been working on some of the stuff with us.

So this the same for anyone else?, hate a class in high school?, swear it'll never bear any relevance to you and now its part of your daily doin's?

[Mike70]

maybe you are just naturally good with your hands and have an aptitude for that sort of thing. you might not have realized it before but now you are putting it to use, it's rearing its head. just a thought.

along those lines:
i've always been a nerdy egghead and never thought that shop class or mechanics would be of any use. welp, i had to take a class in one of those, chose mechanics, loved it and much to my surprise had an aptitude for it that i would've never believed. it has come in handy more than once, that's for sure.

i've often thought about throwing it all in and making a living fixing transmissions. :lol:

[Danny]

maybe you are just naturally good with your hands-

no, if you knew me in person you'd laugh at the suggestion.

if theres a pile of anything within 3 feet of me i dont even need to touch it to knock it all spilling across the floor, im naturally clumsy as fook.

id definitely be the guy who trips on his own feet in a slasher flick:lol:

[blind2d]

I'm not sure if learning the circulatory system in pigs will be useful in the future...

[Danny]

I'm not sure if learning the circulatory system in pigs will be useful in the future...

then one day you get caught by jigsaw and the keys in a maze puzzle based on a pigs circulatory system

"FUCK!"

[Chic Freak]

Interesting question!

These are the GCSEs I took, the grades I got, and whether I have used any of the info I learned in them. How well I did at a subject seems to bear no relevance to how useful that subject was in later life!

English language (A): no.
English literature (A*): no, except for understanding Lord of the Flies references in social psychology textbooks.
Maths (B): no.
Biology, chemistry and physics (all B's): no.
French (A): yes, every time I go to France!
Music (B): no.
Religious studies (A*): no.
Graphics (A): vaguely useful because I now design my own business cards etc.
Business studies (A): no, despite the fact that I have been running my own business since I turned 18!!

Worryingly, I know I did another subject, but can't for the life of me remember what it was. I assume this means it hasn't been particularly useful to me!

[Danny]

my class did lord of the flies for GCSE too!, everytime i watch lost i expect hurly to stumble on a talking pigs head,lol.
English rocked for me, my teacher was one of those "crazy" types with short spiky neon orange hair and more jewelery than im sure is legal on one person, she was like one of those college professors in those american flicks that try and inspire the students rather than just teach, great teacher who actually got me into writing.

-and gave me the highest grade in the free choice portion of the coursework for writing a lovecraft inspired horror piece:D

[blind2d]

Awesome, hells! Lord of the Flies.... mmmmm, good times... meh, if I was in a jigsaw puzzle, i'd be cool with dying. Stressing about it would just make it worse, like on a game show. If you don't know, you don't know.

[SymphonicX]

This thread is indicative of a statement I wish to make to all those who potentially makes the same mistake as me:

Don't buy a property unless you gain SOME experience from CDT lessons...I p*ssed about with that in secondary school and as soon as I've bought a house I don't have the first f**king clue on how to do even basic DIY things. Yep. I admit it. I'm a DIY failure.

I definitely should have listened more in CDT classes.

[MinionZombie]

Interesting question!

These are the GCSEs I took, the grades I got, and whether I have used any of the info I learned in them. How well I did at a subject seems to bear no relevance to how useful that subject was in later life!

English language (A): no.
English literature (A*): no, except for understanding Lord of the Flies references in social psychology textbooks.
Maths (B): no.
Biology, chemistry and physics (all B's): no.
French (A): yes, every time I go to France!
Music (B): no.
Religious studies (A*): no.
Graphics (A): vaguely useful because I now design my own business cards etc.
Business studies (A): no, despite the fact that I have been running my own business since I turned 18!!

Worryingly, I know I did another subject, but can't for the life of me remember what it was. I assume this means it hasn't been particularly useful to me!

Surely English Language has been very useful - you speak and write English. :D

With Maths, like you, I've had little benefit from all those years of classes. Mostly due to the way it's taught in schools, and has been for a long time - by which I mean, cramming information, splurging it onto an exam paper, then immediately forgetting it all.

Year 11 Maths, our teaching was rubbish, so I crammed two years of GCSE maths in under a month, got a B grade (the highest you could attain on the paper I took - there was one above for the highest-of-the-high-skilled-at-maths students).

Beyond the basic "four rules", which I learned in Primary School, I've not had call to use anything from my Maths lessons.

Sciences wise, again, the same poor method of teaching has left me with vague-to-non-existent understanding of science, even though I did very well in the double science exam at GCSE. A/S Level Biology was a joke though.

French - again, piss-poor teaching method. It was essentially pointing at shit and grunting the name in French. We had no understanding of how to structure a sentence in French, and the style of learning was rubbish - so again, despite getting a B grade, I can't remember a jot of it.

R.E. - I only did the GCSE of that because I wanted to remain in the class with my mates, rather than not doing the GCSE and going into the other class that was filled with wankers.

Actually, that class was more along the lines of theology, rather than RE, quite often, and it has definitely added to my overall attitude to life. Hard to explain, but it's definitely been important to my formative years - and I am an atheist, and was before taking the class too, just FYI. :D

I also took Graphics, but again, shoddy teaching methods left a distinctly bad taste in my mouth when my coursework was 'moderated' (by an ELECTRONICS teacher) to a fucking "E" grade. Naturally this was COMPLETE WANK, so I had it re-moderated by someone who had a shred of common sense, and I got the grade I should have gotten for the coursework (an A or a B, I can't remember which).

It is embarrassing, isn't it, when you can't remember all the GCSEs you did, let alone which grade you got where.

I got, if memory serves, 3x A*, 3x A, 5x B - 11 GCSEs...

Art 3-D (Pottery/Sculpture etc)
Art 2-D (Drawing/Painting etc)
French
History
Science ("Double Award" thingy, i.e. two science exams)
English...

Fuck, can't remember the list properly. :D

...

A-Level wise though, which is far easier to remember, was:

A/S Level Biology - D - and I had the sixth highest grade out of everyone who took it (of which there was at least 40 people). The curriculum for it was total PISH, and everyone got ass-fucked over it. 1x A, 1x B, 1x C, 6x D, everyone else E's and Fails.

Needless to say, I dumped that course as fast as I could when you chose which of the four you'd dump to take on to full A-Level. I'll also add that my year, was the first year to do the then newly introduced (and fucking useless, disorganised, and generally shit) A/S Levels.

History - B - did well, but History hasn't been taught correctly in Britain in a very long fucking time. We need narrative, more generalised History, not what I had for years on end, which was constantly talking vaguely about World War 2, but forgetting Winston Churchill almost completely, and then obsessing over Henry VIII, and then during A-Levels ... the bain of my life at the time ... Calvinism. *shudders*

Narrative, all-encompassing, generalised History is desperately necessary.

Sociology - B - did well here, but again due to the fallout from the A/S Level introduction debacle, my coursework - on motherfuckin' video nasties (which you all should know, I am well versed in, as a topic) - got graded "E" (!!!:eek:!!!). The teacher knew this was complete shit (others got similar retarded marks), and he tried to appeal it, but unsurprisingly - being the public sector - fuck all happened.

Sociology was a good class though, but I have forgotten a lot of the detail now ... I'd have to dig out all my notes again, but it definitely helped a lot in my formative years and has fed in to who I am now.

Art - A - I was 3 points away from getting a perfect grade!!! :eek: The examiners remarked, more than once, about the quality of my sketch pads (chock full, lots of detail etc), and indeed, this was my favourite subject.

The teaching of art's history was problematic though, as it had been throughout school, we never really understood the connection between what we were doing ourselves, and artists put in front of us ... i.e. how to really evaluate art, to read it, understand it, appreciate it etc.

My final pieces were definitely never as good as I wanted them to be, and I wasn't as sure of what I wanted to ultimately create at the end of the sketch pad process as I would be now. As such my sketch pads were always better quality than my final work, but my final work was, evidently, very much up the standards for that top grade.

I did Art throughout my entire time at high school & sixth form (all seven years), and it's been the one that's had the most impact on me and my life. Although by the end of A-Level art I was quite sick of the process ... each topic we got given to cover did become very process-like, which stifled my creative flow, and it did bum me out quite a bit.

As such I don't really do much art these days, but then again, all my creative juices have been re-directed into filmmaking (which had hugely influenced my art over all those years).

[Chic Freak]

Surely English Language has been very useful - you speak and write English. :D

Lol, well I was pretty good at that already before I started my GCSE ;) Tbh I can't even remember what was taught in GCSE Language.


With Maths, like you, I've had little benefit from all those years of classes. Mostly due to the way it's taught in schools, and has been for a long time - by which I mean, cramming information, splurging it onto an exam paper, then immediately forgetting it all.

That summarises how I managed all of my maths tests! I never actually understood why I was following a certain formula or what the result actually meant so I soon forgot once the exam was over.


Year 11 Maths, our teaching was rubbish, so I crammed two years of GCSE maths in under a month, got a B grade (the highest you could attain on the paper I took - there was one above for the highest-of-the-high-skilled-at-maths students).

I also got a B, and no excuse- I took the higher paper, so I must have got less than 50% of it right :stunned:


French - again, piss-poor teaching method. It was essentially pointing at shit and grunting the name in French. We had no understanding of how to structure a sentence in French, and the style of learning was rubbish - so again, despite getting a B grade, I can't remember a jot of it.

I was lucky because I went on holiday to France with my family every year since I was born and was always encouraged to try and speak a little while I was there, so my classes were really just polishing up and formalising what I already knew.


As such I don't really do much art these days, but then again, all my creative juices have been re-directed into filmmaking (which had hugely influenced my art over all those years).

Sorry if you've already posted the links 90 million times, but can I watch any of your stuff online?

[MinionZombie]

Sorry if you've already posted the links 90 million times, but can I watch any of your stuff online?

Yes you can my lovely - gaze yonder into my signature, follow the link "My YouTube" and you'll see a whole bunch of my videos all in one place. :cool:

I'm gonna be adding a new one in the next few days actually, an entry for the "1 Minute To Save The World" competition, (which is gonna be called "Doing Our Bit"), that The Guardian is running - I'll be seeking folks here to help me out and give it top marks on the competition site as-and-when. :sneaky:

[Chic Freak]

Yes you can my lovely - gaze yonder into my signature, follow the link "My YouTube" and you'll see a whole bunch of my videos all in one place. :cool:

I'm gonna be adding a new one in the next few days actually, an entry for the "1 Minute To Save The World" competition, (which is gonna be called "Doing Our Bit"), that The Guardian is running - I'll be seeking folks here to help me out and give it top marks on the competition site as-and-when. :sneaky:

Of course ;) Added you on youtube.

[MinionZombie]

Of course ;) Added you on youtube.
Noiiice. Consider yourself 'Tube-Friended'. :cool: