Why are we not performing?

An oft-heard lament especially in NUS Engineering is that the foreigners are the ones who get all the good grades. Well, checking out the Dean's list, I found to my surprise indeed that most of the names are local (or Malaysian - which can be considered 'local' in this context) sounding names. Especially for my year, there were only one or two names which were distinctly foreign. Even for those so-called 'foreigner strongholds' like EE and Chem Eng, majority of the names are still local...

The conclusion? We are not working hard enough... Then when we get poor results, we blame it on the international students who 'spoil market' which is a fallacy in itself.

True? I guess it's just that we are unwilling to blame ourselves for not working hard enough. If other locals can do it, why can't we?

So it's not the foreign students who kick the butts of the local students. That's a fallacy. So we must stop having this inferiority complex / defeatist mindset that "we are no match for the foreign students talent..."

Another myth I believed in is that those who stay in hall will not have good grades. Disproven by the dean listers i have met who ALSO are active in hall (two were even from JCRC, you know who you are...)

So the bottom line is why are we believing in all these myths and having defeatist mindset when the truth is that we can do as well as we want to?