Catholic Junior College (CJC)
Table of Contents
0. Introduction
1. Describe your school culture
2. Why did you choose CJC?
3. How is the academic rigour? Is everyone fixated on results?
4. Was the it tough to get into a CCA?
5. What is the class size and gender ratio?
6. Are the tutors easy to approach and open for consultations?
Introduction
This section is written by Teleschope
CJC is the third-oldest junior college in Singapore with 15 affiliated Catholic secondary schools. With a English Studies Centre, CJC is 1 of the 3 schools that has the English Language Elective Programme which offers the English Language Elective Scholarship. Motivated by the broad Catholic principles of Truth and Love, they aim to create a values-centred environment that balances academic, character and spiritual development. CJC’s promise is that every CJC student will become a thinker with a mission, leader with a heart — a key to success in a globalised, fast-changing world.
Disclaimer: Any views or opinions in this article are from either current or past students from the respective schools and do not represent those of Teleschope, unless explicitly stated. All students have been anonymised for privacy reasons.
Q1. Describe your school culture
“ The people are generally…
very friendly and very nice to be with and you feel comfortable around most of the people
I cant speak for the whole school but in my class there is a..
very severe issue of segregation between groups of friends
as in my class is very bonded in groups of friends but my class won’t unite as one. As the home tutorial councillor, I have also initiated a lot of class activities but some of the people just refuse to be accepting towards the other people in class who are not in their friend group. I mean it is perfectly normal to have cliques in class because it is inevitable and people can’t be close friends with everyone. But I think it is not good when it is to the extent where the class management committee find it extremely difficult to work with the class because people won’t coorperate and prefer to just goof off in their own friend groups. There is also feedback saying that this segregation issue is making them feel like shit in class, which makes it an issue worth addressing but unfortunately people would not coorperate.”
Q2. Why did you choose CJC?
“ The two main reasons why I chose JC over poly is because firstly I would want to take a university course so going to JC would provide a faster route as compared to poly. and the other reason is because my family wants me to go jc as all their friend’s kids are in jc and they kind of don’t want to lose out hahahaha
Actually I made the decision to go cjc at the very last minute because I underperformed for my actual o level, so I cannot make it into any of the jcs I primarily chose to go because those jcs were chosen based on my school results which are better than my actual o level results. I chose cjc out of all the possible jcs i can go as first, it is the nearest to my house, and when i look at cj’s website i thought the website is very well organised and maintained, and a lot of info can be found there so that sort of left me a good impression on cj. Actually there isn’t so much reason as to why I chose cj, because when I was choosing the schools, I was in a very frustrated state (cuz of my results) and I was really like “whatever la just go to any jc that caught my eyes on the first glance” HAHA and cj was that school la ahhaha.”
Q3. How is the academic rigour? Is everyone fixated on results?
“
The academic rigour in cj is tbh not that high.
People all just hope to pass the exams then very happy already. Perhaps there is a difference between j1 and j2 but I’m not so sure how it is like in j2. I think probably in j2 it will be more rigorous because sometimes when I walk past their classrooms I see them all doing their own practices during break times or in the morning, and they’re very disciplined. In j1 the teachers would also give us some pressure from time to time, but in the end a lot of people still dont do their work and take academic very lightly.”
Q4. Was it tough to get into a CCA?
“ For me it wasn’t very hard. I got into choir, and honestly they really make the auditions sound very scary… like there are two rounds of auditions and for the first round we need to prepare a song, then the second audition is with the choir conductor and to me it feels scary because 2 rounds of audition was a bit intimidating, and also I’ve met the conductor before and I know he is very very strict, and he didnt really like my singing skills when I met him the last time before I went to cj. But in the end I still got into choir because the choir leaders were very impressed at my high notes and the conductor suddenly decided that i can sing very well AHAHHA. So in the end it wasn’t so hard. As for the pre-requisites part, I kind of forgot what were choir’s pre-requisites but in the audition forms, they asked us if we play any instrument and whether we have any music background etc. That was scary for me too as the only “music background” i have, is being in choir for CCA ever since primary school. But as long as your vocal abilities can make up for that, you’ll be able to get in. So for me it wasn’t very hard to get into a cca. “
Q5. What is the class size and gender ratio?
“ Each class usually have around 20 people, and the…
gender ratio is very varied
For some classes the gender ratio is quite equal, but for some classes the gender ratio is actually very not well distributed. For my class (BCME/L/G) we have 24 people and only 7 guys in my class. The class next door with the same subject combination has only 5 or 6 girls and the rest are all guys. There is also a class that I know of, they only have 2 girls in their class. “
Q6. Are the tutors easy to approach and open for consultations?
“ Yes the tutors are..
very easy to approach, most of them are very friendly and can relate very well to the students
They’re very open for consultations, if you ask for one they will definitely arrange a slot for you.”
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