where to go after year 11?

Freddie589 said:
your all saying it, but why not :) it sounds like a great job i love building and doing it for a job would be amazing :)
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Get this idea out of your head right now. I had this stupid moment in my life where I wanted to build bloody car audio systems, when I was thinking of what do to after year 11. What a silly thought that was, and good that I look back at it and that I didn't take it anywhere. I also thought of building computers too.

Best thing I did was stay in 6th form. Frankly 2 great years where you will build more solid relationships with your peers than you ever have before and just get your A levels, at which point you can then leave with some form of decent qualification to get yourself a much better paying job, or go study at university to get a degree in something specific you find yourself being interested in.

People here build and own nice computers here because they have worked / studied hard and managed to get well paying jobs.You gotta realise here, you'll spend THE REST OF YOUR LIFE building bloody computers. How do you know where the technology will be in 5 or 10 years time? They have god knows how many factories in China where they build prebuilt systems they sell in Currys and the like, and frankly thats what I'd say the majority of computer users buy. It's just factory style work, and you'll be making sod all money from it.

Stay in 6th form and pick the lessons you feel you will enjoy and do well in, and really think about what you want to do with your life. Nothing to say you couldn't perhaps build and sell computers in your spare time for enjoyment, but trust me don't do it as a career.

I have a friend who after 6th form wanted to skip uni and set up a computer building company. I think he made 1 computer and lost money on it, then ended up going to Uni a year later than the rest of us.
 
Get onto the best A-levels you possibly can. Whatever you think you want to do now, in a few years you will have new ideas and could be doing pretty much anything. The only thing that is certain is that you have almost limitless opportunities.

Just as an example, I almost failed AS-level maths and physics and at one point wanted to switch to some other silly worthless A-level. Now I'm in the final year of a physics degree heading for 65% :)
Even at this point, my future is as uncertain as ever.
 
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Go to college/stay in sixth form.
Knuckle down and pay attention so you can get your A-Levels or some other higher education.
Definitely go to uni if you have the chance.

When I started sixth form I wanted to be a pilot. After three years of messing around, I ended up failing Maths (Can't be a pilot without it) and psychology. I got an easy B in A2 computing and scraped an E at AS Level for Physics.

A year later, I'm in a dead-end IT support job, earning <£20k, doing the same thing every day and trying to save money to go back and actually get some relevant qualifications. By now, I've forgotten half of the useful stuff I learnt in sixth form (I was great at programming, even if it was just VB) and I'm struggling to learn it again in between work and getting enough sleep.

Take the opportunity while you have it. After a year or so working for hardly any money, you'll definitely want to move up to something else with more responsibility and better pay. You'll almost certainly want something that can't be replaced by a robot ;)
 
trigger-happy said:
Mostly people go to college's because they specialise in a subject.
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Or because they're sick to death of schools and want something at least a little bit different? That's what happened to my brother, he did a year of sixth form then couldn't carry on, and transfered to college. He's now at university.

Not entirely sure what i'll do, i'm considering College but it depends what kind of person you are. Try to attend as many taster sessions as you can, see what appeals to you.
 
Go to 6th form.

When I left school in 2005, I don't know if 6th form existed then? Or if it was just my school did not have one, it's screwed me over that's for sure, I never really knew about 6th form tho.

A levels give you UCAS points, and if you ever get in the position like me, in Uni, wanting to apply for a 1 year placement/internship, your choices are EXTREMELY limited as allot are looking for 300+ UCAS points, and unless you do a National Diploma and get like DDM or something you're not gonna get enough points.
 
Building PCs is unskilled labour. Viglen have a load of young Eastern European women churning out normal PCs all day with a few specialist server engineers for more specialist builds. As a career it SUCKS.
 
The advice to aspire higher than system building is sound - look at the increase in the proliferation of laptops in the last few years. Desktop building in big ol' ATX cases isn't going to be around forever.

Don't necessarily listen to the 6th form pressure, consider the pros and cons of staying at school or going to college. Some people thrive in a college environment compared to school. I was at a grammar school where there was a general expectation that you'd go to sixth form, but frankly, I couldn't stand the classroom any longer. University is still a viable pathway from college with the right choice of course and decent grades.

Finally, get yourself some professional careers guidance, which you should've had access to during Year 11.
 
There's no long term career in system building but it's somewhere to start in IT.

I started system building for an ocuk competitor who've won various competitions beating some of the major system manufactures. They were building custom built concept water and peltier cooled systems. Even after a year I moved on, it was fun but there's no real money in it nor was it a challenge.

MW
 
Do your A-levels and perhaps get a part time job in PCs? You could also apply for work experience in that area too if you can. You'll then realise that doing your A-levels will be the best decision you ever made! People will say do this and that, but unfortunately the world we live in is one where you need these bits of paper that say you can do stuff. It'll make your life a lot easier, even if it doesn't seem like it now.
 
willhub said:
Go to 6th form.

When I left school in 2005, I don't know if 6th form existed then? Or if it was just my school did not have one, it's screwed me over that's for sure, I never really knew about 6th form tho.
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I don't understand this. How could you not know there was school you could attend after year 11?:confused:
 
As an IT teacher who does teach BTEC, the course isn't well regarded and pretty easy/boring. If it's the new diploma that's 18 units, chances are there will be a good portion of units you won't like. If you're good academically, do A-Levels if you're not, get a job.
 
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