random ramblings

i am thinking of asking mr yong for a break from st john. after all, it is really too busy... and i doubt that i am accepted by NPCC anymore as no one has got back to me about the collection of uniforms. Let it be then. I probably will formally give up my place, whether or not the St John unit in NUS gets set up, because my main focus now is not on co-curricular activities.

It is on my studies, getting a high CAP, and getting into the Masters programme. In this age whereby just any Tom, Dick and Harry can get into university, a basic bachelor's degree simply won't cut it anymore.

Think about it. It may not be easy to get into an Ivy League university, or NUS, NTU or SMU for that matter. But there's always places like SIM and MDIS, which offer degree programmes, and if one cannot even gain admission to these places, there's always overseas. This translates into B.*. degrees being so common. One needs at least a double degree, or a masters, to at least distinguish himself from the crowd. Sad, but that's the fact of life. I don't know if the craze will eventually catch up to the Ph.D. level though. By definition, a doctorate is the highest academic degree that can be conferred by a university. If a Ph.D. becomes as common as air, how then will people distinguish themselves in terms of their qualifications? Post-doctoral, i suppose..... But this has got to stop somewhere. If this continues, somewhere down the line people will spend half their lives in school which simply cannot happen.

I came into NUS with an aim to graduate with 1st class honours at the end of my fourth year. The proliferation of foreign scholars, especially in the Engineering faculty, and my dismal understanding of the concepts, have dampened my hopes somewhat.

Now I am going on a tirade against the foreign scholar system in Singapore. If you are a foreign scholar reading this, no offence intended. I love you just the same, my gripe is not with you, but it is with the system.

In sec 3, i was supposed to do triple science. But what happened is that back then, there were about 50 PRC students posted to my school, and by default all of them take triple science. One class, 3C, was meant to be solely for the PRC students. But as the maximum class size was 36, some of the students had to spillover to 3D, which was the class i was posted to.

They took out some local students to make space for the PRCs. I was one of them.

If not for the system, i may very well be doing medicine instead of engineering by now. But given the punishing workload of medical students, perhaps it may not be such a pleasant alternative though. The workload of engineering students is far from perfect though...

Actually, from asking around i have heard the faculties in NUS (in order of siong-ness) are as follows...

SIONG
Medicine
Archi
Engine
SDE

NEUTRAL
Science
Law
Biz
SOC

SLACK
Arts

'nuff said.