Study/work towards electrician profession

I had no matric exemption I was a 30%er at school with math because my teacher at high school was extremely bad at her job.
In the July of my matric year my parents told me I would go to college, so I packed up my books and decided f**k-it. Never opened a book further and didn't give a schitt about HS anymore. I passed with a technical matric, and pretty bad marks, yet the college were OK with it and admitted me directly to N4.

my maths was LG if I recall correctly.
My matric year was 1996, where the dept of education in all their wisdom decided to experiment that year (after trying to retrench all the white teachers) where nothing counted for the year except your matric final exam, and to keep an exemption (cherry on top) I was allowed to fail one HG subject (biology) which I got a 0 for, well not quite, I got bourd waiting for the minimum wait time so I answered one or 2 questions, which gave me about 10%. Naturally, the who year I did fokkal, only "studied" for science "phsicics", as I sucked at the "chemistry" part, was like biology to me, so I got 100% for physics, and )5 for chem, so 50% for "science".

Only other subject on SG was maths. I came from passing std 9 at KES and moved back down to dbn but I had to do std 9 again because they said the syllabus was too different. Also a dbn thing as I was on HG in jhb.

Boy were they right! I was rocking biology in jhb and was on maths HG but round 2 in dbn, biology was like HHHHG and maths HG was like WTF, so I chose the path of least resistance and took maths as my one allowed SG subject.
 
Flip. I had similar thing happen to me. Went to a fairly good school that I was told I'm extremely lucky to go to but couldn't cope with academic stuff. Got sent to FET college in grade 10 and went from there.

Always felt ashamed of it but it's awesome to see I'm not the only one.

Some of us are just built differently, some can push number on paper others work with our hands
I wish I went to a tech school like George Campbell, but instead I went to those "larney" schools like DHS and KES.
 
Industrial Electronics as a subject in these N-courses was some of the same content that you learn for a Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering - in other words:

* RC circuits
* Op-amps
* Transistor circuits
* Network theorems
* Semiconductor theory
* Thyristor 3 phase control theory
and much, much more

In N6 it got more intense, so we had to know
* NDT
* X-rays
* Intrinsic safety (Ex)
Now you're just speaking Greek to me.
 
In my day the main issues with school that made it extremely difficult for me to cope was the following:
* The incessant bullying
* The poor quality of teaching. Many of the teachers I later would find out, were idiots (no surprise)
* The constant peer-pressure to be in the ruckby team
* The looming prospect of national service
* The stress about all the change happening in SA at the time
My solution to bullying was to act bat **** crazy.

It worked wonders.
 
My matric year was 1996, where the dept of education in all their wisdom decided to experiment that year (after trying to retrench all the white teachers) where nothing counted for the year except your matric final exam, and to keep an exemption (cherry on top) I was allowed to fail one HG subject (biology) which I got a 0 for, well not quite, I got bourd waiting for the minimum wait time so I answered one or 2 questions, which gave me about 10%. Naturally, the who year I did fokkal, only "studied" for science "phsicics", as I sucked at the "chemistry" part, was like biology to me, so I got 100% for physics, and )5 for chem, so 50% for "science".

Only other subject on SG was maths. I came from passing std 9 at KES and moved back down to dbn but I had to do std 9 again because they said the syllabus was too different. Also a dbn thing as I was on HG in jhb.

Boy were they right! I was rocking biology in jhb and was on maths HG but round 2 in dbn, biology was like HHHHG and maths HG was like WTF, so I chose the path of least resistance and took maths as my one allowed SG subject.
I failed HG science, so they converted it to a pass on SG. Maths I scraped through with 36%
The rest was 40-50% marks. I never bothered to collect the matric certificate and I've never had any need for it ever! Never ever! My N6 certificate has only ever been asked for.

The thing with me was, I had already been tinkering with electronics since I was 10 years old, so by the time N4 rolled around I could handle it, the maths was my only downfall but we resolved that by means of a patient lecturer and extra lessons
 
My solution to bullying was to act bat **** crazy.

It worked wonders.
I couldn't find an escape, the only escape I had to was to feign illness whenever I could so I would not have to go to school.
it had a profound effect on me, and my younger years were spent trying to get over it, about R300k spent in therapy.
And today none of those bullies can be found anywhere. Not on LinkedIn. Some have met their just desserts though, being blown away by other people whom they tried to beat up, and generally karma
 
I failed HG science, so they converted it to a pass on SG. Maths I scraped through with 36%
The rest was 40-50% marks. I never bothered to collect the matric certificate and I've never had any need for it ever! Never ever! My N6 certificate has only ever been asked for.

The thing with me was, I had already been tinkering with electronics since I was 10 years old, so by the time N4 rolled around I could handle it, the maths was my only downfall but we resolved that by means of a patient lecturer and extra lessons
My problem was I didn't even know what a N4 was back at that stage in my life.
 
I couldn't find an escape, the only escape I had to was to feign illness whenever I could so I would not have to go to school.
it had a profound effect on me, and my younger years were spent trying to get over it, about R300k spent in therapy.
And today none of those bullies can be found anywhere. Not on LinkedIn. Some have met their just desserts though, being blown away by other people whom they tried to beat up, and generally karma
If you and I were friends, I would have saved you R300k.
 
My parents divorced in primary school. Money became an issue that effected even food at home so much it wasn't just stress on my mum it was on me too.

Due to that I got alienated at school because it was all wealthy kids and I never had money to join in. Being an outsider I also had my fair share of bullies. Often wonder were they are now some seemed destined for jail.


To top it off the school decided we needed more beeee teachers, and i think my maths teacher knew less than me and e couldn't speak English properly.

All this didn't help with my focus .

Corporal punish was taken away and the students started running wild during the 2000s ,we had a male English teacher that called the female teachers to keep us in check.
 
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Some of my books I still have. Some fared better than others
 
My parents divorced in primary school. Money became an issue that effected even food at home so much it wasn't just stress on my mum it was on me too.

Due to that I got alienated at school because it was all wealthy kids and I never had money to join in. Being an outsider I also had my fair share of bullies. Often wonder were they are now some seemed destined for jail.


To top it off the school decided we needed more beeee teachers, and i think my maths teacher knew less than me and e couldn't speak English properly.

All this didn't help with my focus .

Corporal punish was taken away and the students started running wild during the 2000s ,we had a male English teacher that called the female teachers to keep us in check.
Thank goodness I was out of the system in 1996 before the ANC really got their grubby fingers in.

If I had the wisdom is possess now, those days would have been a cake walk:

Also came from broken home, parents divorced when I was 6 (1983).
 
That's a good song.

It's all part of life ,the events we go through shape us to who we are.
I often think what I would do knowing what I know now but im not sure if I'd change anythingmight end up worse off
 
That's a good song.

It's all part of life ,the events we go through shape us to who we are.
I often think what I would do knowing what I know now but im not sure if I'd change anythingmight end up worse off
I did most of my growing after I took drugs.

True story.
 
Durban Homosexual Society :whistling:
Say what? but yes, the stigma of going to a technical school was real.

I always went to all boys schools all my life.

Northway Primary, Chelsea Senior Primary, WHPS, KES, DHS.

Only met the gays when I started going to 330.

The gay clubs had the best music.
 
Did you never hear that more colourful explanation of the DHS acronym?
 
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