> In university the expectations were drastically higher.
Well duh. I don't know where/what you studied, but I did physics and yeah, it was balls-fucking hard some times. I think the vast majority of freshman physics/maths/engineering students experience a similar feeling where there's a huge jump in challenge going from school-level to uni-level.
Whether this means there is a case for narrower, more focused "elite" schools in maths, or in say music, for high-performing students in those areas, is of course an interesting discussion :)
If the goal of the school was to prepare me for university
Well it's not. You studied a narrow subject at university, but during the ~12 years of schooling you studied many other subjects. The goal of schooling is to make you a complete citizen (in an ideal sense, I'm talking :)). Not sure how the system is where you live but where I come from the first 9 years have a fixed curriculum, and it's only during the last 3 years (high school) that you pick subjects in the areas relevant to your university aspirations (or you pick a vocational course).
Well duh. I don't know where/what you studied, but I did physics and yeah, it was balls-fucking hard some times. I think the vast majority of freshman physics/maths/engineering students experience a similar feeling where there's a huge jump in challenge going from school-level to uni-level.
Whether this means there is a case for narrower, more focused "elite" schools in maths, or in say music, for high-performing students in those areas, is of course an interesting discussion :)
If the goal of the school was to prepare me for university
Well it's not. You studied a narrow subject at university, but during the ~12 years of schooling you studied many other subjects. The goal of schooling is to make you a complete citizen (in an ideal sense, I'm talking :)). Not sure how the system is where you live but where I come from the first 9 years have a fixed curriculum, and it's only during the last 3 years (high school) that you pick subjects in the areas relevant to your university aspirations (or you pick a vocational course).