Yaya will finish her undergraduate degree this year. She is on Dean’s list and is busy applying for jobs. I have begged and pleaded with her to do her Master’s degree and then look for a job. I strongly believe that it is much easier to continue another two years of study than to work a few years and then go back to study. She doesn’t agree. She says she doesn’t know what she wants to do her master’s degree in and had enough of studying for the time being. She wants to work for a couple of years and then do her Master’s.
She has two regrets. Regret one, I her mother didn’t force her to do UMAT (under graduate medicine admission test0while she was in grade 12. ( i remember taking UMAT ad paper cutting from the courier mail and giving it to her and telling her to give it a go. She said she didn’t want to do medicine and now thinks perhaps medicine has its merit. If she doesn’t get any good job, she is coming back home, studying for 6 months and write the GAMSAT ( post grad Med entrance exam)
My son. He is now second year of his Engineering degree. He took Civil stream. He missed being put on the academic probation by 2%. One of the most fascinating conversation I overheard went like this.
Yaya, “One of my classes had mandatory attendance and it was 5% of the marks and I had to get up at 7 am every Thursday”
Toothless. “You are a wuzz, I had one class with mandatory attendance and it was 15% of the marks and it was on Monday at 9 am. I couldn’t be bothered to get up, so I never attended”
Yaya. ” You gave up 15% easy marks that you would get just for turning up for the class?”
Toothless “Yeah”
Now, you can understand why my son nearly was placed in academic probation. The entire first year, he was drunk, high or both. This semester he seems to have got his acts together. He really wants to do well. No idea what changed.
My youngest completed grade 12. She is the smartest of the three and studied exactly for 3 weeks for her final IB exam and expected a miracle. I had always felt that sometimes life gives opportunities to learn lessons. My youngest did learn when she got 35 for her IB. Both her siblings got distinction