Student Loans

In many cities and towns across the UK over the last week you will have noticed that its that time of year again as students descend on University for Freshers Week and to start their term. This year there has been a record number of students applying for University and getting placed so there will be even more of them wondering around your local area.

However due to the record uptake and the recession it has caused problems with student funding with many students still waiting to receive their allocated student loan. Without student loans many people would be unable to afford to go to University and it is causing many problems and stress for students up and down the land. Some students don’t even know yet how much they will be receiving in payments so can’t even budget yet as they have no clue how much they will be entitled to.

The University year doesn’t get delayed because of students not getting student loans so students have been forced to try and get money from other areas whilst they wait for the money to come in. Some are getting loans from high street banks, some are having to get jobs and some are having to borrow from friends and family. These solutions are only going to add to their long-term debt or affect their ability to achieve on their course.

Universities still expect their fees, landlords still expect their rent and other things have to be paid for including food, bills, books and all other imaginable essential living items regardless of whether your student loan has come in or not. This means that some people will leave University in more debt than they should do or even worse still have to leave the course because they can’t afford to be on it without the student loan.

Many of the current MP’s got their University education for free so its about time they did something to help put pressure on the loan companies to sort this out or find a way to deal with the problem as if it isn’t rectified it could lead to a brain drain from University with high achieving students being forced to quit their course. If left any longer this problem will have unfair affect on students from poorer backgrounds, those who don’t have friends or family who can lend them money, or savings they can dip in to. Students from wealthier backgrounds may be able to deal with the situation and keep on going but University should be for everyone regardless of their financial situation.

Have you been caught up in the Student loans problem? If so we would like to hear what you think and you can share your views by going to:

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=780

Adam Sibley
Founder of the Talented Young People organisation
www.talentedyoungpeople.com
"Envisage it, Believe it, Achieve it!"
”Shaking up the Youth of Today”

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.blogspot.com

Excuses

I personally think that excuses stop us from achieving so much in life and I think we are growing in to an excuse culture. In sport if a team or an individual loses they say its not because the opponent was better than them but instead blame it on things they did wrong or other factors like the referee. If somebody doesn’t do well at school it can be the school system, their background, teachers or anything else that their parent can think of which is to blame. I think it is about time we got out of this excuse culture.

In sport I think if you can’t see or admit when a team is better than you, you will never succeed. Saying a team is better than you can be a positive experience if done right as you can use that team as your motivation to get even better than them. The high majority of sporting matches are won by the better team and with only a few really being down to bad referring decisions or other circumstances. If you make excuses it stops you from improving or working hard which is the only way you are going to become the best if not you will be making excuses all season.

I think it is also time that we stopped blaming our situation in life or our background and using that as an excuse to why we don’t achieve. There aren’t many people in the world who’s life is actually perfect and there will always be someone better of than you or worse off than you. Everyone has problems of some kind and normally it’s the ones that don’t about them who have the biggest.

If you want to succeed in life you have to cut out the excuses because they only stop us from reaching our full potential. I would rather achieve something than have to always be coming up with excuses. You have to remember that the more you make excuses the less people care and in the real world excuses don’t cut it.

Adam Sibley
Founder of the Talented Young People organisation
www.talentedyoungpeople.com
"Envisage it, Believe it, Achieve it!"
”Shaking up the Youth of Today”

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.blogspot.com

Pushing it too far

Now if you have been talking about TV this week the chances are you have been talking about Derren Brown and his lottery trick. Last week live on TV he put together a show where he proclaimed to have managed to predict all six lottery numbers that were going to be drawn. On the show you saw a set of balls on screen but could not see the numbers and then after the lottery had happened Derren turned them around and they did in fact match the lottery numbers that were shown, however this doesn’t mean he predicted them.

Regardless of whatever technique you were to use to predict the lottery numbers the percentage chance you had of predicting them all correctly would still remain the same which is approx 1 in 14 million as there are that many different combinations that can come out. However Derren’s show was crafted so well that he got many people believing he had actually predicted the numbers.

This isn’t the first stunt Derren has pulled, over the last few years he had done Russian Roulette and a show on mind control how he managed to get people to do things they wouldn’t normally do. Now both of these tricks might like his recent stunt be fixed but these two were plausible that he could actually pull them off, with Russian Roulette you never have a worse than fifty percent chance of getting it wrong and the idea that you could through the art of suggestion get someone to do something is again very plausible. However with the lottery stunt I think he has tried to push the envelope too far and it has come unbelievable.

In the human spirit there I something that wants to believe that there is someone out there that could do something amazing and we would all love to be able to predict the lottery which is where Derren gets his fan base. I think if Derren tries too many of these stunts, too often I think he will lose any credibility he has. In my opinion Derren is a great TV presenter an a great illusionist but as for having the powers he proclaims I’m not too sure, I will however give him one thing he is great at getting people talking and if this show has caused people to try their hand at maths and problem solving to try and prove or disprove his trick it will have done something good.

I think it is a wise lesson for young people to learn from Derren Brown that if you push things too far that you may become unstuck so always be sure to think about what you are going to do and your next move before you do it because as soon as you lose your credibility then you’ve got problems.

Adam Sibley
Founder of the Talented Young People organisation
www.talentedyoungpeople.com
"Envisage it, Believe it, Achieve it!"
”Shaking up the Youth of Today”

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.blogspot.com

Motivation, Politics and the classroom

The President of the United States of America Barack Obama has been making headlines this week for a speech he made which was broadcast to schools across the country. In this speech he encouraged children that if they want to achieve anything they will need an education to do it and that the future of the country depended on their educational achievement.

Many people in the US have been unhappy with his speech, as they believe he is trying to indoctrinate young people in to his political agenda. Instead of bringing politics in to the classroom he has brought himself in to the classroom with a motivational and inspirational message.

Now I am all for public and famous figures doing all they can to inspire and motivate young people to achieve all that they can and I think more people should use their fame or stature to do this. I think where Obama has come unstuck is when he says that the future of the country depends on you. No matter how true I think this statement is I think he should have gone down the route of encouraging young people to work hard to see what they can achieve in their own life and not tagged on the message about the country.

In the UK will we see Gordon Brown trying a similar thing and if he did what would the reaction be? I think Obama is in a unique place as I think he is one of the most liked and recognized world leaders amongst the young community that there has been so young people in America are probably more likely to listen to him than say if Gordon Brown tried the same thing over here.

Overall I think world leaders should always be doing more to help and inspire young people but it needs to be for the right reasons not for point scoring or some other hidden agenda and as Obama has found out the way the message is delivered is so important as young minds are very impressionable.

Adam Sibley
Founder of the Talented Young People organisation
www.talentedyoungpeople.com
"Envisage it, Believe it, Achieve it!"
”Shaking up the Youth of Today”

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.blogspot.com

Competitiveness against intelligence

Schools were once seen as a place of learning where young people could experiment and explore. A place where young people could feed their minds with knowledge and where they were given freedom to research and study things which interested them. Now to me as an outsider looking in Schools seem to be more about competition than anything else.

With more people looking to stay in education after school due to the lack of jobs out there, there is a higher level of competition for these places. To get funding and a good reputation schools are pressured in to getting their grade averages up so now many schools will choose to offer subjects where it will be easier for their students to get good grades in. GCSE and A Level results can give off the illusion that the school is improving where in actual fact it could just mean less students are doing so called harder subjects or that the exams themselves are getting easier.

Now I am one for competition as young people need to know how to achieve in a competitive world as that is what the outside world will bring them after they leave education but competition shouldn’t take the lead over learning. Real intelligence can’t be measured by exam scores. If you get good grades but haven’t come through a school system which has nurtured your intelligence development it may mean that you struggle on that A Level of University course you have applied for. A grade is just a means to get on to another course or a job but if you aren’t prepared for that course or the job you are going to fail in the next stage of your life.

I think it is quite ridiculous how we can live in a world where sports days are getting banned or changed to take away competitiveness from it yet school grades and league tables are plastered all over local and national media for all to see as each school tries to out do the other.

Do you think School exams are getting easier? We would like to know your thoughts and you can share them by joining in our topic of the week by going to:

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=770


Adam Sibley
Founder of the Talented Young People organisation
www.talentedyoungpeople.com
"Envisage it, Believe it, Achieve it!"
”Shaking up the Youth of Today”

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.blogspot.com