From: ret@philabs.philips.com (Robert E. Tjia)
Subject: Re: SGP: NUS students an apathetic lot
Organization: Philips Laboratories, Briarcliff Manor, NY.
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 22:42:41 GMT

(This is my first post to this group. Please excuse any nettiquette
transgressions.)

In article <1992Nov10.100538.26794@nuscc.nus.sg> eng20009@nusunix1.nus.sg (TAN GIM WEE) writes:
>
>class participation and so forth. So, EVERYTHING hinges upon the
>year-end exams. With this kind of system, how do u expect us not to be
>worried about our work most of the time?
>No matter how much I try to say, I guess the best
>thing is for u to personally experience these things yourself, so that u
>understand the constraints faced by students in NUS.

Well, having once been an NUS EE undergrad, I can certainly vouch
for this. Seemed like all the time I was there, I never had enough time to
sleep. In addition to the 27 hours of classes the typical EE undergrad has
to attend, at least a similar amount of time has to be spent preparing
for tutorials and writing up lab reports. Projects are extra.

While this system has some advantages (developing self-discipline is
one of them, learning time management is another), it really doesn't
leave much time for anything else. During my time, those folks who
were actively involved in NUSSU and other associations almost 
inevitably got REs (at least my close friends did). I was involved
in a couple of organizations during my 1st year (Rotaract, CACS, ..)
but gave it up the next year because of time constraints. I don't
know about Arts or Bizad people, but they seem to have a little bit
more time to get involved in ECA. But I can say this for sure,
people who went through the Engineering Department came out
with an enhanced level of nerdiness {1/2 :-)}, myself included,
most of which I attribute to having to spend too much time with books.
Of course, association with fellow colleagues whose standard dress
code seemed to include a striped T-shrirt, flared pants, Japanese 
sandals & thick horn-rimmed glasses help boost the needle up another
notch on the geek scale :-).

Seriously though, I think that overloading NUS students with too much
work has more negative than positive effects. Time should be set
aside for other aspects of personal development & self-improvement.
I also am not too comfortable with other parts of the system, for
example its inflexibility. For instance, an EE student cannot take
'free-electives' from Law or Performing Arts as they can do in the
US. Sure, there is Acc, HRM & Sociology (at least during my time)
but that was just a few subjects and you had no choice anyway.
Even the EE courses are standardized .. everyone takes the same
course (until final year, where you have a little bit of options).

Basically, what I am trying to say is that an educational system which
provides you with a hectic schedule and little encouragement to make 
your own descisions and think for yourself is the major contributing
factor for some of the 'apathy' exhibited by NUS students.

>--
>---------------------------------------------------------
>Tan Gim Wee
>EE Dept, NUS
>internet: eng20009@nusunix1.nus.sg
>bitnet: eng20009@nusvm.bitnet
>"It was a dark and stormy night......"	-  Snoopy

--
Robert Tjia
VLSI & Video Comms.
Philips Laboratories
Briarcliff Manor, NY 10510
ret@philabs.philips.com

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