Philosophy?? Disappointing choice
(not really, but
) If you want to talk to someone about the Philosophy course, PM and I'll direct you to someone I know who's doing the course this year.
I'm doing Cosmology this year, and so I'll answer your questions from my point of view.
Workload
Yes, for all courses, there will be a fuckload of work, there is no denying that. However, how much of the content you will actually view as 'work' will depend on how much you enjoy the content of the course. And trust me, you will like the content if you decide to do one of the courses, especially Cosmology, and I'm not biased at all
The courses are done via distance education, so you will, at times, have to find the motivation to do the work. The amount of work you'll do depends on the course you choose (for Cosmology you have to complete 6 assessments in total, 3 of them assessable; 2 exams and a major work in the order of 10 000 words) but the workload in itself should not deter you from doing any of the three courses. The workload won't matter, the courses and their content will make it seem as though you are doing very little work at all, that's how enjoyable the courses are.
Content
The content differs from one course to another, but basically you will be doing work and learning about areas relevant to the distinction course you have chosen. For Cosmology, to use an example, there are 9 modules of work relating from the basics like telescopes, the birth, life and death of a star, so to speak, to areas like general relativity, redshifts, the cosmic microwave background radiation and the Big Bang Theory and the alternative models that have been proposed. You will be forced to look outside of the content that has been given to you in the modules if you want to further your knowledge, and you will be challenged by some of the things you will encounter in your participation in the course, but this will only serve to extend your mind, put it to use in ways that the normal HSC courses would have never extended them (Except maybe extension history, but I'm not too sure about that.) The content is incredibly interesting, and it will only serve to extend and broaden your mind, and that will help you later on.
Experience
To put it simply, the experience you get from doing a distinction course is like nothing else you could experience in the HSC and normal school life. You will never ever regret doing a distinction course, in my mind it has been absolutely worth it, and I would definately do it again, had I the chance after this year :uhhuh: The people that you meet in the course are generally some of the nicest and most genuine people that you meet, along with their extremely high intelligence
The residentials that you undertake while doing the course (Cosmology having 2, 5 days in early February and 2 nights in late June) are some of the best times you'll have while you are in the HSC year. As Bookie (a person who did Cosmology in 2006) put it,
"Now, in all honesty, I had an absolute blast in the first residential. Do cosmology just for this experience. You'll love it. 45 degree temperatues. A 10 hour bus ride to Narrabri. Awesome spot. Sports galore. Late nights playing poker and having an awesome time with other nerds. Cant beat that for 5 nights. And you also tend to spend some nights out under the stars. It's an awesome experience."
I am sure that the experience is similar in the other distinction courses, although maybe not the 45 degree temperatures
You can do the distinction courses alone just for the people and the experiences you'll have while doing the course, that's how I feel about the experience of it all. The interest in the content of the course + the people + the residentials should be something that you, if you are capable of getting into the courses, should not miss out on.
Hope that helped with a few of your queries, PM me and I'll give you a contact to someone who'll hopefully help you with your questions about the Philosophy Distinction course. Also visit the
Distinction Course website for more general information. Hope you do decide to pick up a Distinction course, and see you at the Info Day later this year if you do decide to go for it
