why do A-Level Students Look Down on BTEC's?

Because when yo think of a btec, you think of some jumped up media student raving about how a BTEC is worth 3 A levels or whatever it is. No my friend, btec media, or btec design is not worth the same as an a level in maths, chemistry and physics.

Engineering is different. If someone said they were doing a btec in engineering I wouldn't look down on them for that. Engineering carries weight behind it, something which you'll notice at university as well, as engineers are respected for doing a prestigious difficult course.

Because when yo think of a btec, you think of some jumped up media student raving about how a BTEC is worth 3 A levels or whatever it is. No my friend, btec media, or btec design is not worth the same as an a level in maths, chemistry and physics.

Engineering is different. If someone said they were doing a btec in engineering I wouldn't look down on them for that. Engineering carries weight behind it, something which you'll notice at university as well, as engineers are respected for doing a prestigious difficult course.

I do think those BTEC courses are worthless but I do find that quite an unfair comparison.

ahaha its essentially what they are though :') ITS WORTH THREE A LEVELS!

Like a guy at my college got a distinction in his btec media, and he was like, yeah I basically got three A*'s at A level. I was like..

NO

Because when yo think of a btec, you think of some jumped up media student raving about how a BTEC is worth 3 A levels or whatever it is. No my friend, btec media, or btec design is not worth the same as an a level in maths, chemistry and physics.

Engineering is different. If someone said they were doing a btec in engineering I wouldn't look down on them for that. Engineering carries weight behind it, something which you'll notice at university as well, as engineers are respected for doing a prestigious difficult course.

Exactly, but then thats the same for A levels, you wouldnt say some one doing A levels in like Media, Film and Business is equal to someone doing physics, chem, maths even though they are all A levels.

but then BTECs in Engineering, Science and IT/Computing are more respected than some other BTECs because you cover the same topics as the A levels equivalents closest to them i.e Engineering covers calculus, complex numbers, mechanics and thermodynamics, Science covers topics covered in Chem/Bio (not so much physics, but there are some physics based units) and IT/Computing covers Programming, Hardware, Logic, Networks, Software development etc.

.....but even so a Media BTEC will still cover the same as A level Media, Film studies etc. so it is still equivalent but obviously not to A levels in Maths/Sciences.

Generally speaking. If you do a BTEC, you're less intelligent than someone doing the equivalent A level.

Does apply to OP, as you can't do an A level in engineering.

18 units, 1 year.

Just wondering why people seem to think A-Levels are superior?

I'm on a Level 3 Extended for EEE Engineering, backed up with a A-level in Maths, planning on going to University of Southampton for EEE...

Just to be clear, I have nothing against A-Levels.. What's your opinion on the whole A-Level > BTEC thing?

That's crazy, did you do any of the programming ones?

Yeah I did the Object Oriented Programming and Event Driven Programming modules, both in C++ (I'm good at programming )

I also did the maths modules too (they were a pain)

Translation: I realize I was wrong and as a result I have failed to come up with a reasonable response.

Ah nice! I did procedural and EDP wish I could have learnt OOP in college would have been good prep for uni, are there any resources you used for C++? I'm looking to learn it over the summer

are you studying/looking to study Comp Sci at uni?

OOP is probably the most useful as you take a lot of practical experience away from it, not just clicking and dragging stuff together like EDP can sometimes be, its focused around designing data structures that can be used to dynamically output data when you're learning the basics and it tends to become really useful in large applications too. I don't think you need to learn OOP before uni, they teach you from the ground up (which is good, as the people with more experience can relax haha).

For C++ I recommend using Visual Studio and it's Visual C++ as a starting point. Actually no, C++ is really difficult to learn first hand, start off with Java using Eclipse or C# using Visual Studio. Set yourself targets to meet, like start off with a simple Hello World program then start moving onto more difficult things like abstraction and inheritance and then like exploring code efficiency. I think YouTube is great for learning programming first hand, they do tend to take a long time on what would seem really basic concepts but you make a lot of progress over time, learning programming on your own can get confusing and you can get stuck overtime.

I hold an unconditional to study Computer Science at Warwick, how about yourself? Are you looking into studying Computer Science or similar?

Haha yeah I have taken a module in OOP now as I've done 1 year at uni, I would have just preffered to do the BTEC unit too, i was reffering to learning C++ over the summer, I'm currently a Computer Science undergraduate at Royal Holloway.

Yeah I'm familiar with Java, Python, Pascal and Visual Basic. Ive also opted for a module next year in C programming so that should be good.

Nice Warwick is awesome, you could go pretty much anywhere tbf with the equivalent of 7 A levels, what grades did you get if you don't mind me asking?

Haha yeah I have taken a module in OOP now as I've done 1 year at uni, I would have just preffered to do the BTEC unit too, i was reffering to learning C++ over the summer, I'm currently a Computer Science undergraduate at Royal Holloway.

Yeah I'm familiar with Java, Python, Pascal and Visual Basic. Ive also opted for a module next year in C programming so that should be good.

Nice Warwick is awesome, you could go pretty much anywhere tbf with the equivalent of 7 A levels, what grades did you get if you don't mind me asking?

OOP is probably the most useful as you take a lot of practical experience away from it, not just clicking and dragging stuff together like EDP can sometimes be, its focused around designing data structures that can be used to dynamically output data when you're learning the basics and it tends to become really useful in large applications too. I don't think you need to learn OOP before uni, they teach you from the ground up (which is good, as the people with more experience can relax haha).

For C++ I recommend using Visual Studio and it's Visual C++ as a starting point. Actually no, C++ is really difficult to learn first hand, start off with Java using Eclipse or C# using Visual Studio. Set yourself targets to meet, like start off with a simple Hello World program then start moving onto more difficult things like abstraction and inheritance and then like exploring code efficiency. I think YouTube is great for learning programming first hand, they do tend to take a long time on what would seem really basic concepts but you make a lot of progress over time, learning programming on your own can get confusing and you can get stuck overtime.

I hold an unconditional to study Computer Science at Warwick, how about yourself? Are you looking into studying Computer Science or similar?

YouTube is a great resource, but the people who normally post the content have no clue what they're doing. They often teach bad programming habbits. A more reliable method is to pick up an eBook or book that was written by someone who knows what they're talking about.

However, I disagree with you saying you should not touch programming before you get to university. I think you should do as much programming as possible. The better you get the better you will do yourself a favor. Universities will not spoon feed you, they will expect you to do a lot of the individual work yourself.

But yeah you're right, if you're one of those students who know a lot of programming beforehand then you can chill for the whole year or two depending on how good you are.

Oh nice, so what is the principle language at RHUL? Java?

Yeah they're all the nice and easy programming languages, C is a lot of low level stuff which gets a bit horrible when you get a stack pointer problem and you have to literally draw it out and find out what the problem is. Assembly is like that aswell (I know quite a bit of ARM Assembly, horrible stuff )

Yeah I know but I want to go Warwick because it's close to where I live and I can just study from home and not have to worry about any overheads like accommodation or food or anything. I got D*D*D* in the IT L3, then A*(M), A(FM), A(Comp) and A(IT). Bad grades for IT and Computing I know haha, but my exam boards have seriously high grade boundaries and really strict examiners and urgh they're just a pain.