Short cuts, SIM and gatekeepers again

Stop the press! I was busy at work today and then I checked the traffic to my blog - holy shit, there was a huge spike to my blog due to an old piece being featured in Reddit. I am glad that my old pieces from last year are still being read out there, I do spend quite a lot of time writing these pieces, so it is good to know that some people are still using the information. That piece did prove to be both controversial and popular when I wrote it and it looks like it is still a hot topic today, so what I am going to do in this piece is to deal with some of the things that people have said in that Reddit page and deal with some of the questions as well as the bullshit. Allow me to clarify that I do not - I categorically do not, ever - take part in such forums. Reddit seems a bit more civilized compared to a number of others out there, but good grief I have no desire to interact anonymously with a bunch of strangers on such forums. Hell no. I do take part in a small amount of discussions with my friends on Facebook, but otherwise I am happy to chat to my readers and have my say on my blog. I don't want to struggle to get my voice heard in a crowded forum and pick fight with complete strangers when I already get a few thousand readers a day on my blog. But to kick us off, here's the original question posted on Reddit:

Is there a short cut to a respectable degree?

Crazetorn79 said: Finished A levels last year and currently serving NS. Didn’t do well at all CDD/CE. I was wondering what’s the difference between going overseas uni and getting the degree cert there or going to private uni in SIM Global where they have some overseas uni degree cert offered locally. Are the certs essentially the same? Aside from the overseas experience and all that.

Now I did thoroughly address that issue in my original blog post on the issue - but in short, no way the certs are completely different because of the stigma of having settled for a private university. The question is not whether or not you have studied the same syllabus or have taken the same exams for the course - the problem is the signal you send when a gatekeeper sees that you have such poor grades that you had to resort to going to somewhere like SIM to get a degree. SIM has notoriously low barriers to entry whilst a lot of these universities abroad (who are supplying the syllabus) are actually fairly hard to get into. Let me ask you a simple question: why is Oxford university so prestigious? Simple: it is very hard to get into Oxford since they only accept the very best students in the world, hence it is a very elite, special club and if you can get in, that sends the message that you're amongst the best of the best, the cream of the crop. Likewise, SIM's entry standards are so pathetically low that it does the complete opposite - it is not exclusive, it is not special, it doesn't impress. The higher the entry standards, the harder it is to get into the university, the more it will impress. And if you think this shouldn't matter, then let me remind you that for you young graduates and students, there is very intense competition for all the best jobs out there. In life, you want the odds in your favour, not against you. 

Enterland said: Although I do agree with some points, we shouldn't condemn the students who attend private universities. There is just no middle ground for those who are average. Society emphasize so much on being "extraordinary" that average is the new bad.

Are SIM students average or very much below average?

I am not condemning students who are average; let's get this clear. If you are just plain average, you would be able to get into some of the less prestigious courses at NUS, NTU or SMU like arts & social science or business administration. Or at the very least, settle for a university ranked somewhere like 65th or so like Bangor, Edge Hill or Falmouth - these aren't great but they're not that bad either. You see, there are a total of 129 universities in the UK, so if you're average, then you'll end up in a university in the middle of the league table. If you end up in a university ranked beyond 100th, then yeah, you're terrible, you're so bad that any gatekeeper would shake their heads and think, "oh dear, what happened?" Enterland seems to think that SIM students should be considered average when given how low the entry requirements are compared to the 129 universities in the UK, really, it should be placed at the very bottom of the pile. SIM students are not average at all, oh no - they are way below average. It almost gets to the point where I wonder why they would even bother to get a degree not worth the piece of paper it is printed on because let me tell you this - you're not fooling any gatekeeper with your SIM degree. I'm very fair to students who are average but SIM students are way below average. 

Bruindke said: He has no expertise whatsoever in pedagogy nor is he a social scientist. He's clearly intelligent, but would you allow him to diagnose your liver condition? Or trust him to negotiate North Korea's denuclearization? The answer should be a resounding no. Though smart, he's not an expert in either of those things. The subject of Education is no different.

Oh dear. I shall refrain from insulting this guy - but the important question I want to ask is this: if I as a gatekeeper am not in a position to talk about young people applying for jobs, if the person who decides who gets the interview and who doesn't isn't qualified enough to talk about the relative values of SIM degrees, then who can? An expert in pedagogy? Now that refers to the method and practice of teaching, especially as an academic subject or theoretical concept - which is totally irrelevant in this case. We're not talking about how the students are taught in the university - that's the stuff that pedagogy is concerned about. We're talking about what happens after the student graduates and tries to apply for a job, then submits his CV to the gatekeeper of the company who decides which one of these candidates even gets an interview. Hello, if you haven't realized how important the gatekeeper is, yeah this is the time for you to wake up and smell the coffee. Quite frankly, most of the time, we don't give a shit what the students have studied in university or how they were taught - that's pedagogy and we're not concerned with that. Most of the stuff you've studied at university is almost going to be irrelevant to what you are going to do at work, so we are really just looking for evidence that you can pick up new concepts quickly, that you're a fast learner and when faced with a steep learning curve, you can climb that faster than most people. The clever kids go to the top universities and the dumb ones end up in SIM: that is blunt but fair.

What is the point of all that education? To get a job!

This is when I am going to take your pedagogy and stuff it where the sun don't shine - after all, the best teachers in the world cannot turn a stupid student into a brilliant scholar even if they have the best pedagogy practices at the university. In short, you can't make shit shine. The reason why Oxford produces so many brilliant graduates is not because they have the best pedagogy practices, no! It is because they are already attracting the very best students from each cohort anyway, so when you are working with such brilliant talents, you just can't go wrong and you don't even need the best pedagogy gimmicks. Teachers - particularly those dealing with average or below average students - are the ones who need to concern themselves with pedagogy; what I do as a gatekeeper is something else altogether and it has nothing to do with pedagogy. And no, I am not a social scientist and I imagine a social scientist is someone who sits in a university doing academia - such a social scientist probably has no freaking clue what young people have to go through to get a job interview with a reputable company these days. Gatekeepers like myself on the other hand do know exactly what is going on. You want answers, you go to a gatekeeper - not a teacher, an academic or a social scientist. Bruindke is focused on the wrong end of the process - it doesn't matter how good the quality of the teaching at the university is and what really matters is whether or not your degree is going to help you get a job out there in the big bad working world. 

Imagine if a university at the wrong end of the league table decides to do something about the situation and invests a lot of money in pedagogy - they hire the best teachers out there, reduce the student teacher ratio, they hire the best experts from the industry to revamp their syllabus to make it directly relevant to the world today and they invest heavily in IT so as to make sure every student has access to the best technology available for every aspect of their studies. So from a pedagogy perspective, they are excellent - but there's still one thing money can't fix: the reputation of the university. If the university has been associated with the wrong end of the league table for years, then it will have an image problem of having always attracted students who are below average (or at least those who have messed up their A levels for some reason). From the gatekeeper's perspective, the fact that the university has made massive investments is neither here nor there - we just want to know if it has had the desired effect: have they managed to make a degree at that university so attractive that highly intelligent students, those with straight As, have started applying there? If not, then all that investment in pedagogy, has been a total waste as far as we're concerned if it fails to attract a better calibre of students.

What is the link between pedagogy and getting a good job?

Bruindke wrote: He claims he is merely interpreting the data, but I found most of his links and sources either direct to another blog post he wrote, link to Wikipedia, or are just simply anecdotal. He doesn't explain his methodology or his data sets. There's no exploration of different variables.

In case you haven't noticed, I am not writing this as an essay to be submitted to a university tutor to be graded. I am however, sharing with you valuable insight as a gatekeeper. And furthermore, I am not trying to justify why the system works this way or why gatekeepers make this kind of judgement calls - I am merely telling you the facts about the situation. Now imagine if I state a fact like Canberra is the capital of Australia - you can then bitch about why I have failed to account for why Canberra is the capital instead of Sydney or Melbourne; you can even bitch that it makes no sense for Canberra to be the capital when Sydney would make a lot more sense. At which point, all I can say is I'm telling you the facts, I didn't choose to put the capital in Canberra, so why are you asking me to justify all that? You may not like what I have said about the way SIM students are treated in the eyes of the gatekeeper, but as in the case of Canberra, I am just telling you what is happening out there in the world. If you don't like the message, don't shoot the messenger. 

Bruindke wrote: We just have to take his word that only stupid and underperforming students attend private universities in Singapore. Stupid in, stupid out. Even if that may be true, that's not how you carry out a study. You can't make claims based soley on your assumptions and internal logic.

Great, so perhaps you want to tell me if there is a good case of a straight A student rejecting offers from Harvard, Cambridge, Yale and Oxford and choosing to go to SIM instead? There's no smoke without fire. Bruindke seems insistent that my assumptions and logic are flawed, but he cannot offer any evidence to support his argument that some clever students with excellent results willingly go to a private university like SIM. Hell no. That's not what logical people do. If you have straight As, you don't work your butt off for those brilliant results only to apply to SIM. You try to get a scholarship to go to Oxford if you are really that brilliant. And even if you are average, you then try to go to the best possible university your grades can get you into - you don't give up and settle for SIM which is the last resort for those who have no where else to go after the have applied to every last half decent university in the English speaking world. 

Why doesn't SIM attract intelligent students with straight As then?

Bruindke wrote: But there is no rational connection between that and "private uni students are stupid and second-class." This article only confirms societal assumptions and stereotypes rather than any real empirical and verifiable truth, exacerbating the problem instead of appropriately framing what I think is a very important conversation in Singaporean society. Find a legitimate source that can help you determine the value of your degree, not what is only a deliberate attempt at political incorrectness and so-called "tough-love."

Sounds like political correctness gone mad. You can say all kinds of nice things about SIM graduates on the internet but at the end of the day, unless your kind words can somehow help them get a job or even score a job interview in this competitive market, then guess what? Your nice, encouraging words mean nothing. Sounds like Bruindke probably went to SIM and is very defensive about me attacking SIM. Indeed, a legitimate source that can help determine the value of your degree would be someone who can tell you how the graduates are treated in the job market, you know, like that crucial moment when they apply for a job and submit their CVs to the company - what happens next, when that gatekeeper person looks at the tons of CVs and decides who gets invited for an interview and who is rejected at that stage. If only I could talk to someone who plays that vital role - oh wait, I am that freaking gatekeeper! That's why I wrote that piece in the first place because I'm the right person to tell Bruindke what his/her degree is worth (probably shit, if it is from SIM). You may not like what I said, you may not even like me but I'm still the right person to ask for his opinion. 

Myepicdemise wrote: He is an elitist who is well aware about winning the genetic lottery just fyi (he went to UCL himself). NTU was also not spared from his disparagement in some of his blog posts.

Am I elitist? You can call me whatever you wanna call me. But what you have to realize is that I am talking not about my personal opinion but rather what the situation is out there in the job market today. I am just a part of the system as I work in corporate finance and yes, in my line of work, we tend to hire the very best talents. In fact, we recently hired someone in my company and you should have seen some of the people we had to say no to - they were all excellent candidates which brilliant CVs, but we only had one vacancy, we couldn't hire them all. Such is the reality of the situation when it comes to my industry - I'm not working for a charity trying to help disabled people or refugees, in corporate finance, we're trying to make money, a lot of it rather than try to make the world a better place. And if by being a part of this industry makes me elitist by association, then guilty as charged. I am more than aware about winning the genetic lottery - totally, you should meet my parents who are autistic. I don't take that for granted - somehow I won the genetic lottery, hurrah. Limpeh tiok buay pio as we say in Hokkien Yes I went to UCL, but you left out the part that I went there as a scholar. However, I really don't recall having said anything bad about NTU? Like honestly, I don't have anything against NTU. 

Myepicdemise said: Live and worked in London for 15 years, so not really in touch with the employment situation in Singapore. For example, in one of his blog post, he thinks that students who can't make it to local unis should either enter poly or enter the workforce, and both are clearly ridiculous choices if you have an A level cert.

Firstly, I have lived outside Singapore for 20 years (I left Singapore in 1997) though not all of that time has been spent in London. Just to name a few other places where I have lived and worked: Paris, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Cologne, Berlin, Prague, Istanbul and Dubai. What this means is that I bring a real international perspective to the issue - the situation in Singapore really isn't that unique because you guys are going back to the bullshit notion that, "oh in Singapore must have degree, don't have degree cannot find work." That's bullshit, because that's a total misinterpretation of the facts! Yes, having a good degree from a respectable university helps if you want to get a good job in Singapore, but say you messed up your A levels real badly and find yourself in a terrible situation, going to get a degree not worth the paper it is printed on isn't going to solve the problem because gatekeepers are simply not going to let you off the hook and treat an SIM degree with the same respect as say one from NUS. Is that elitism? Of course it is. The world is elitist and the only way to protect yourself is to make sure you get into a good university, so you can then avoid discrimination altogether.

I never said "oh you've fucked up your A levels, now don't bother with university, go get a job." My advice for anyone who has seriously fucked up their A levels is to take a year out, retake your A levels and do not squander that second chance - fingers crossed, you will get the grades you need second time round to get into a decent, respectable university. You are effectively hitting the reset button, control-alt-delete and having a second chance to make things right. Doing that would make so much more sense than giving up and settling for SIM. Otherwise, going to poly and excelling in a course there is also a very good option because it broadens your horizons and gives you an alternative route to a degree at a respectable university. Another option would be to explore other routes that involve getting some kind of technical training that may not involve a degree - such as training to become a plumber, an electrician or chef. These are very respectable careers that could be lucrative if you are very good at what you do; but pursuing these careers paths could mean years of additional training before you can become fully qualified. Certainly going into the work force with just A levels makes no sense and no, I never advocated that on my blog. Seriously, has this person even bothered reading my blog at all? 

Not all degrees are equal! Not all graduates are equal.

What I did say many times is that SIM degrees are useless because you're always going to be at the back of the queue behind graduates from universities like NUS, NTU, SMU and other better foreign universities. In Singapore, yes there is a box-ticking exercise when having a degree may put you on a different pay scale - but that's a moot point because you need to get the job in the first place before we can even talk about your pay scale. The existence of this box ticking exercise in the pay scale system doesn't mean that there is a level playing field when it comes to all degrees: an Oxford or Harvard degree is always going to trump an NUS and an NTU degree. And the NUS or NTU degrees are always going to trump those from private universities like SIM. In short, there is a pecking order and you don't want to find yourself at the very bottom of the food chain with your SIM degree. Such is the system in Singapore - if you think it is elitist, then I can suggest either starting your own business so you can be your own boss and not worry about how others view or judge your degree, or going to work abroad, in a country where people are far less fussed about paper qualifications. 

MyEpicdemise wrote: he works in corporate finance (capital markets), an industry full of ivy league and Oxbridge graduates. So he was stating his point of view as a hiring manager in this highly selective and elitist industry, which is irrelevant considering sim grads won't stand a chance of breaking in.

I work in corporate finance, specializing in asset backed securities. Yes, the industry hires the very best brains, the most talented of the lot. And yeah it can be quite intimidating to work with so many highly intelligent people all the time. It is an opportunity to make an obscene amount of money very quickly. My friend JD just closed a deal and made a cool US$1.2 million just in a matter of days for being a middleman - that's the kind of money we're talking about in corporate finance and JD closes deals like that every few weeks. That insane kind of money is very attractive and loads of young people want to make that kind of money - so naturally, when a lot of people apply for the good jobs that come up in the corporate finance world, the gatekeepers will only create a shortlist with the very best candidates and reject the rest. And even if you have made the shortlist, you could still fall at the final hurdle if someone else is just a bit more brilliant than you and the company is only hiring one person. So yeah, SIM graduates won't even stand a chance in breaking into the ranks, they'll never get past the first post - they would get rejected automatically at the application stage when they are up against Ivy League and Oxbridge graduates. Even Oxbridge graduates get routinely rejected in my industry - that's how competitive it is. If you want a good job, then you can expect competition to be intense; why am I stating the obvious? 

Don't we all want a good job that pays well?

But don't we all want good jobs? Don't SIM graduates also want good jobs? I'm sure even SIM graduates dream about making good money, having an exciting job in a company that is doing well and making the headlines in the industry. So unless SIM graduates are going to go for the most lowly paid, undesirable jobs with long hours and nasty conditions, then they will have to face a hard fight in the competitive job market for those good jobs - sure it may be in a different industry, but I can assure you it will be just as competitive if the job is a good one. Myepicdemise does really sound like an SIM graduate at this point. Oh but at least Myepicdemise has finally acknowledged my 'gatekeeper' status - I never used the words 'hiring manager' because that's not my job title. Indeed, that almost suggests that I get to decide who gets hired and no, actually I don't have that power to grant someone a job As I have explained, the gatekeeper cannot say yes to hiring you but he sure can slam the door in your face and makes sure you get no further in the process. 

Myepicdemise wrote: For someone so highly intelligent, he should know better than to argue using opinion rather than facts. It's 100% true that private uni grads have an uphill battle to fight in the job market, but he seems adamant that they couldn't possibly make a good living and will be poor and unhappy. Perhaps his definition of success is breaking into medicine, law or corporate finance (M&A, capital markets), but by that definition, majority of NUS grads would also be considered failures. I don't see what's so enlightening about that blog post, since he clearly wrote it to feel good about himself. It's not merely "harsh but truthful".

Now once again, this guy is just putting words in my mouth - I am merely saying that in life, you want the odds to be in your favour, not against you - that's all. Perhaps that's stating the bloody obvious, but a lot of these young people are oblivious to that. They will take some success story of an SIM graduate who has gone on to achieve a lot and say something like, "see? This guy went to SIM and still made a success of himself, that proves that it is not the end of the road for you if you go to SIM." But how many SIM graduates actually achieve that level of success with the odds stacked against them in the job market? It is a huge blind spot for a lot of students who have decided to pursue the SIM route instead of rolling the dice with a retake - after all, you could waste a year of your life doing a retake only to end up with similar or worse results. Don't forget, this will be an expensive mistake for their parents because it will be their parents' money they are spending to get this useless degree. For those who have already done an SIM degree, then okay it's too late - all I can say is good luck as you will need it. But in this case, this guy is still in NS and his options are still open!

SIM degrees will not serve you well in your job hunt.

As for what my definition of success is - it only really matters if you want to impress me. If my opinion doesn't matter to you, if you're not my friend, if you don't even know me personally, then why should what I feel matter to you? Look, different things matter to different people - a religious person may care far more about spiritual matters than how much you earn or how many degrees you have; we all tend to judge others according to what is most important to us personally. I even know of a nutritionist who judges people by their dietary choices - quirky but true. I have a fairly open mind when it comes to which industries you choose to make your career in, as long as you're able to make a decent amount of money. You see, money matters to me: I am a capitalist so rather than judge you by whatever industry you work in or your job title, I'd judge you by your bank balance (or as we say in private banking, your personal net worth.) After all, there's no point in having the best degree in the world if you're not able to capitalize on it to make money.

Perhaps you will say, urgh how crass, he judges people by their wealth - but let me make it clear: I judge people by their ability to make money so if they inherited a lot of money from their parents then that doesn't really count. I grew up in Ang Mo Kio, I remember what it was like in my childhood to be told by my parents that I can't have something because we just didn't have the money - we weren't poor but we certainly couldn't afford luxuries. I remember when I was like 8 years old, for some reason I thought hey can we get some Christmas decorations, this looks so festive! My parents shot me down and said no, my tactful sister had to cook up some story about why certain kinds of Christmas decorations were considered '不吉利' (unlucky/inauspicious) and thus my parents were being somewhat superstitious, that was why we couldn't get those Christmas decorations. It was years later that I found out that my parents said no to those decorations because they were worried about making ends meet and that we simply didn't have any money to spend on impractical things like Christmas decorations. My sister had cooked up that story to spare my feelings as she didn't want me to feel poor or that I didn't deserve to have fun things whilst the other kids in school could. Yeah, that's my childhood for you.

I didn't have a lot of money growing up.

So that was why when I was growing up, one of the things at the back of my head was to one day become so rich I could walk into a big department store and buy anything I liked - it wasn't even like I had something specific I wanted to buy or that I've always wanted, it was just that need to banish that feeling of "I can't afford this, I'm so poor, we don't have enough money" In fact, I often enjoy spending money to help my friends, because just being in that position to be able to help them financially brings me joy. As the saying goes in Chinese, 助人为快乐之本. Oh I am very practical and I had been involved in start ups in the past so I do not believe that you should limit yourself to certain careers paths as long as you can become very successful in whatever you pursue. Like if you can make your fortune by being a K-pop superstar, then respect to you because it is incredibly hard to rise to the top of any industry and be that successful. But hey, that's just my standards and it shouldn't bother you unless you (for some bizarre reason) want to win my favour and approval. But by that token, as long as you have your own way you make your fortune, I really don't care or mind which route you've taken as long as it is legal - as long as you're doing something like dealing drugs, you know, it's all cool with me.

Preaselor wrote: Guy's a certified narcissist and a cunt. Watched a few of his videos and he sounds and acts exactly how I'd imagined him to be. 

His entire post can be summarised into "degrees from better ranked unis will give you a better chance at a job than one from lower ranked ones". 99% of the other content is essentially drivel about how he's so much smarter than you are. I'm getting personal here, but for a polyglot he speaks English like an Ah Beng fresh out of an intensive course at the British Council who's been forced to give a presentation at the office. His writing is uninspired, humourless and drier than an encyclopedia about dust.

LOL! If this guy Preaselor really loathes me that much, if my accent is so grating then why did he even watch a few of my videos? Look, if I watched a Youtube video and didn't like it, I wouldn't even get to the end of it. I would just go watch another video altogether, never mind watch a few more videos made by the same guy. Like seriously, is this guy even rational? Does he even know how Youtube works? And if he thinks I'm a narcissist from my Youtube channel, wait till he checks out my Instagram account. Likewise, if he hates my writing that much, then why did he even read my blog? Look if you eat a piece of bread and you realize it is stale, do you spit it out and throw it away once you realize it is stale - or do you eat the entire loaf of stale bread and then complain about it tasting bad later? This guy seems to have subjected himself to a lot of my social media just for the sake of bitching about how much he didn't like it? Who does that? Does he even realize how irrational he sounds? Like is he 12 and doesn't know how to use social media? Somebody help him.

Perhaps stating that degrees from better ranked unis will give you a better chance at a job than those from lower ranked ones is stating the obvious, but we have so many delusional strawberry generation teenagers out there looking for short cuts, thinking that they can coast through an SIM degree and still be treated with the same kind of respect as someone who worked hard to get into a respectable university? Perhaps it is because I did come from a very humble family, my parents were not highly educated, they were not graduates and thus couldn't offer any advice or help when it came to either my higher education or offer any kind of meaningful career advice. Yeah, so I can see why some kids today are totally clueless and are trying to find the answers - so maybe what I am saying does sound pretty obvious to some of you who are more clued up about this aspect of finding a job but you're not the kind of people I am writing for. I was lucky enough to have received help from various people in my life when my parents were in no position to help me, so I am merely returning that favour by trying to help others who were in my position when I was 18. I believe it is good karma.

I have received a lot of help, so I am helping others.

In any case, if I am going to dish out some hard truths along with career advice, then there is the question of credibility. After all, it is scary the amount of half-truths, lies, fake news and misinformation out there when you go to a forum (such as the one on Reddit amongst others) where everyone is anonymously offering you some opinion and advice but who do you listen to? Who knows what they are talking about and who's just spouting crap? Would you for example take career advice from my 14 year old nephew who has never even contemplated what it would be like to find a job? No, he's too young, he's not the right person to listen to. What about my mother who's a retired primary school teacher? No, with all due respect to my mother, she has never had to find a job since she started teaching back in the 1960s and has long since retired - again, she is so out of touch that she is in no position to offer any kind of constructive or practical advice. Yet both my mother can anonymously go onto that Reddit thread, join in the discussion and offer advice to anyone there. At least in using my blog and offering some information about who I am and what I do, there's far more credibility so you at least know whose advice you're taking. If you have a problem with the fact that I am successful at what I do, then you need to take a look in the mirror and think about why you are uncomfortable dealing with people who are successful. 

Lucied666 wrote: The piece of paper is the same but employers will always ask if you studied on campus or did distance learning so there might be some prejudice. My recommendation is to go overseas if possible as you will probably pick up life skills such as independence and money management. Can also pick up useless stuff like fake accent.

Any gatekeeper who values his/her job would make sure that they find out whether you did the degree via a distance learning programme or if you actually earned yourself a place in the real university. That's not called prejudice, that's called gatekeepers doing their jobs properly. If you think they won't check or that you'll somehow get away with it, then no, you're completely wrong. Studying abroad may be fun, but you're still stuck with the same problem - this guy who asked the question Crazetorn79 had done very poorly for his A levels and with those grades, he has little prospect of getting into a decent university. So you can try to apply to the top universities in the UK and US but guess what? They won't accept him. So he'll have to resort to applying to those nearer the bottom of the league table and those are no better than SIM. His best option is to hit the reset button by retaking his A levels and hoping for much better results the second time round.  And I shall ignore that last comment on the fake accent - sounds like a pathetic attempt at humour. 

Did you think we'll offer you a job without first checking your background?

Crazetorn79 wrote: I’m just quite annoyed by the fact that I’m going the same pathway as my friends who got E and S for their A levels despite me getting Cs and Ds. Even though I did better, both my friends and I are unable to enter local uni and have to resort to going overseas or private. Also, if I have found out earlier that I could have just gone for the foundation studies in UK right after O Levels, I would have probably done that instead. Right now for the better UK unis, I need to do foundation term which is as good as me not having any A level grades.

Right, even Crazetorn79 has acknowledged that SIM is the last resort for those who have royally fucked up their A levels (with E and S grades!) and he still somehow managed to get Cs and Ds - so there's a certain reluctance on his part to go down that same path. Look, the top universities do not offer this foundation studies pathway, only some of the middle to lower ranking universities do and it is a scheme to attract more foreign students who pay a lot to participate in this programme. Sounds like money isn't a problem for your family but if it is, then retaking your A levels whilst in Singapore is probably a cheaper (but riskier) option to improve your chances of getting into a good university. The foundation term option is not ideal, there are no short cuts to a good degree. The best case scenario I can see is for him to get into a university ranked somewhere between like 60 - 80 on the UK league tables with those kinds of grades - not ideal but definitely still better than SIM by a long way.  In my opinion, this is probably the best compromise and least bad solution. 

Onescrewloose wrote: I took a degree from sim. I spoke to a local lecturer (who used to teach in NUS) about the course content. Was told that the course content was the same, but NUS set slightly harder exams.

Vaguejizz wrote: I took a degree from NTU. I spoke to a local lecturer (who used to teach in Harvard) about the course content. Was told that the course content was the same, but Harvard set slightly harder exams.

It's not about the course content - it's the caliber of the students at the uni!

See? If we followed that logic, then SIM degrees are just the same as Harvard degrees right? If the course content is all the same. Wait, but why do the brightest students go to Harvard and the dumbest idiots who have fucked up their A levels end up in SIM as a last resort? You can see the kind of bullshit that SIM students are told to convince them that they have no just shot themselves in the foot by doing an SIM degree. Look, the bottom line is that the course content is not important at all. As a gatekeeper, I just want to know an important piece of information: are you stupid or are you clever? Because clever people tend to go to Harvard or at least NUS whilst stupid idiots end up at SIM. Can an idiot actually somehow accidentally stumble his way into Harvard law school? No. Would a straight A student choose SIM over Harvard? Again, no that just wouldn't happen. Us gatekeepers use the university as a simple measure to find out if you're clever or stupid - it really boils down to that. We're not there to be nice to you, we're there to judge you very, very harshly and that's the reality in a very competitive job market today. But therein lies the problem: SIM students are going to the wrong people for advice, of course their lecturers and classmates are not going to tell them they are making a horrible mistake, but are those the people who are going to give them a job in the future? Clearly not. You need to be talking to a gatekeeper like me. This is why these forums are to be avoided - any idiot can go there and spout bullshit. 

Crazetorn79 wrote: I know I won’t be able to focus well if I retake. I have a hardworking friend who is retaking this year as private candidate, he said he won’t do as well as he did last year (He got all Cs). Also, I have friends who went back to school to retake again but also may not be able to do better.

No one said retaking would be easy but it does seem like the 'least bad' option - going to SIM may let you off the hook in the short run, you may not have to worry about the A levels again and you won't be a year behind your peers. But kicking the can down the road is an extremely bad idea because this will come back to haunt you in a few years' time when you start looking for a job and you are always going to be at the back of the queue behind those who have more credible degrees from better universities. That is when you are going to realize how foolish and childish you were to settle for SIM just to spare yourself the hard work necessary for a retake. Talk about making a dumb mistake, I can't save you from your own stupidity but if you actually believe that there are short cuts in life, then I question the upbringing you've had and why you are naive enough to try to seek a short cut. Who are you trying to kid? Do you honestly think the gatekeepers you are going to encounter in the future are going to let you off the hook and not work out what happened? Yeah right. Retaking is a tough option of course but going to SIM on the pretext that it is a shortcut is just sheer lunacy. 

Are there easy short cuts when it comes to one's degree?

What do you want to hear? If I told you, hey you fucked up your A levels, but hey don't worry, there's a short cut you can take. You can breeze through an easy distance learning programme that is stress free and still get the respect as if you were a scholar who went to a top university abroad! Anyone in his right mind would ask, "what's the catch?" Or in Hokkien we would say, "oo'iya boh?" (Are you for real?) When something looks too good to be real in life, then guess what? It is probably too good to be true. If you were to go to SIM students (past and present) and ask them for their opinion, what do you expect them to say? "I fucked up and now I'm worried about my future." Nah, even if they are thinking that, they are unlikely to want to admit that to you. If you ask a gatekeeper or anyone in recruitment/human resources, then you're far more likely to get an honest answer about what your degree can do for you when you are looking for a job in a few years' time and the implications of getting an SIM degree. Look if everyone who fucked up their A levels can go get an SIM degree and pass themselves off as a respectable graduate from a decent foreign university, you think the gatekeepers won't notice this masquerade? You think people who work in recruitment are that stupid?

MartinRouter wrote: Don't tell yourself you won't do well before you even start. It's HARD but doable. Have heard of many friends who retook and failed to improve. But i also have 2 freinds who retook and did better, one of them almost got straight As. How did he do it? He fuck care everything and just worked hard. Very very hard. And he believed in himself. Whichever path you choose is up to you, but you need concrete determination and believe if you want to succeed. Don't let this results set back your confidence!

Very well said Martin. It seems like Crazetorn79 doesn't want to face the daunting task of having to do the retake - look, I sympathize. I remember how I put my life on hold in the final months when working for my A levels and it was very hard work. That's one thing I don't miss about student life, that pressure of having to perform well for exams like that. Of course it is a difficult challenge with no certainty of a positive outcome, but guess what? That's the real world for you, that's exactly the kind of tough choice you'll have to face when you're in the business world. I'm currently working on a big investment deal in India and if it goes through, I'll be richly rewarded and laughing all the way to the bank by Christmas. If it falls through, then all the hard work will be for nothing. If I had settled for something less challenging, like becoming a primary school teacher like my parents - they had far less uncertainty in their line of work, even if the students gave them problems, they were still paid a salary at the end of the month regardless of whatever happened in the classroom. Now that arrangement suited their characters so well but it would have just frustrated the hell out of me.

Retaking his A levels would be the least bad option for now.

This theory has been put to me by one of my readers before: are you are maximizer or a settler? A maximizer is someone who would take risks just to make the most of whatever opportunities he has, he would gladly gamble for gain - whilst a settler is someone who is very risk-averse, hates uncertainty, would rather avoid any kind of gambling and thus would be more suited to do a job like a primary school teacher. Look, it is hard to get into jobs in investment banking for example because they are highly lucrative and competition is very intense, but if you're a settler and say you want to become a primary school teacher, then guess what? There is far less competition for those kinds of jobs or at least you're never going to compete with Oxford and Harvard graduates to become a primary school teacher. I may see Crazetorn79's search for a short cut as a shortcoming in his character, but at the end of the day, if he is genuinely a settler who will never ever be a maximizer, then so be it. Settle for SIM in the knowledge that he's effectively saying no to many options that his maximizer peers can go for. But if he is happy doing that, then so be it - I hope he finds contentment and the relief of sparing himself the retake is worth it. I just don't want him to be kicking himself a few years from now and regretting this terrible decision of going for SIM when he realizes that he is at a massive disadvantage trying to compete against NUS and NTU graduates in the job market. Pick the option that best suits your character.

Milo_peng wrote: If you have a choice, do it overseas and you will enjoy the experience of learning. As for employability, it is really up to your career path. I did a part time degree from an Australian university more than 18 yrs ago. From those classmates whom I see keep in touch, our career trajectory goes many directions. I have a friend who never used his degree, and because a security manager with a local property firm, another poly class mate in who did a distance learning programme is a VP in a local bank. As for myself, I am doing ok too. When u reach a certain point, most hiring managers are not looking at the paper but the experience.

Some very good points there indeed Milo. There is a short cut that Milo didn't mention though: nepotism. Look, my parents are retired primary school teachers from Ang Mo Kio, that was something I was never ever going to benefit from but in the world of banking, I see loads of nepotism. For example, I saw this rich kid end up in a university at the bottom of the league table in the UK because he was too busy partying and chasing girls. He wasn't stupid per se, he just couldn't be asked to study as his family was rich. His academic record was a mess - all that money and he still couldn't get decent grades, but his wealth meant that he really couldn't give a damn about studying hard. Then he graduated and needed a job, his daddy (who's an extremely rich and powerful man) made a few phone calls and boom - just like that - got him a job in one of the top investment banks because someone there owes him a favour. In Singlish, we call that 'pull-string'. and yeah, it happens all the time. So if Crazetorn's parents are rich and powerful, then go ahead, do what the hell you want and then daddy will pull some strings for you to get you a job when the time comes and you can disregard everything I said. But if your parents are not rich and powerful, if they are ordinary folks from Ang Mo Kio like my parents, then you might wanna heed my advice. I am the Ah Beng who triumphed against the odds given my social background.

Milo is right when he said that when you reach a certain point, we're not looking at paper qualifications but your work experience. What that means is that if you are able to get a decent first job and prove yourself there even with an SIM degree, then moving on from there is going to be a lot easier. All you need is to get your first step onto that career ladder then at least climbing it will be a lot easier - however, let's not underestimate how hard that first step will be. Have you thought about what your first job will be? Do you want your first step to be with a good company where you can get the best training in a conducive environment? Or do you want to settle for a poorly paid job in a lousy company that can't even offer job security, never mind career prospects? Even if you have a good degree from a top university, guess what? There is still very intense competition for the good jobs and what irks me is the fact that a lot of students do not even think that far ahead about their job prospects when making important decisions about their education today. Like Milo said, you may end up doing something unrelated to your degree, but you want the odds to be in your favour with every step you take, you don't want to be struggling against the odds to prove that even an SIM graduate can succeed.

rainb0wrobot wroter: I have friends with both local and private uni. For me of course local uni is better in a sense that it is cheaper. Also people view it as more prestigious ? because to get in is tougher. Competition is steep too. Where else private uni, you have money confirm can go in. However at the end of the day for job hunting. We are all more or less the same. Luck plays a big role. And depends on how you sell yourself and whether the hiring manager likes you. I have friends who are doing super well even with private degrees and friends who are doing subpar with a local degree. Or vice versa. It's really depends. Oh and having good social network can be a great help too in securing a job.

That is a very fair point - there is a huge gap between the life we lead as students and what we do out in the working world. After all, nobody is going to pay you to study and take exams: you are hired on the basis of being able to generate some kind of revenue for your employer. Now a waiter is paid very little because the service he provides isn't deemed say as valuable as the head chef whose cooking skills are a lot more fundamental to whether we want to dine at that restaurant. Some young people don't quite know what they want to do with their careers and they unfortunately do not receive any help from their families, that's when they either stumble into low-paid jobs and wonder why they are not earning as much as their peers despite having had good results at school; or they end up changing jobs a few times, trying to figure out what they really want to do. But as rainb0wrobot said, it is not just about having good results - knowing how to sell yourself to the hiring manager and gatekeepers is vital and then having a good social network, let me translate that, is there someone who can pull some strings for you, call in a favour to help you get your foot in the door?

What kind of job do you want to have?

Anothersgguy wrote: I am a private degree student who later made it to LSE for my masters. Generally speaking, private uni students tend to be less intelligent than their counterparts in local unis and is rather understandable why the public stereotypes continue to exist. But the situation is not entirely hopeless for private students. Talented ones continue to do well in their careers, getting jobs in graduate programmes and even consulting firms. However, such occurrence are extremely rare and probably only happens to a handful of students each cohort. My personal advice is for you to retake a levels during NS and get into a local uni. But if you fail to accomplish this, don’t waste your money on overseas unis that will accept bad A level grades. Work hard in a private uni and doors will eventually open for you.

Finally, a private degree student who isn't coming out all defensive and bashing anyone who dares to say anything bad about SIM. Yes some private university graduates have gone on to do great things, but they are the exceptions rather than the norms - in the words of Anothersgguy, "such occurrences are extremely rare and probably only happens to a handful of students in each cohort". Great odds eh? So if only a handful of students in each cohort go on to be successful like that, what do you think happens to the rest then? Likewise, sure I even know the opposite to be true - I actually know of one Oxford graduate who struggled to get a job, I even worked with him years ago and he got fired for being useless at his job. He was a very pleasant, very posh and charming guy -  we were good friends and I adored him. The problem was that he was a history graduate who was good at studying history, writing long essays but had no idea how to adapt himself to the business world. He was like a fish out of water and I thought he would have been better off trying to become an academic at a university for he wasn't stupid it all, he just went down the wrong career path. But people like my Oxford graduate friend are the exception rather than the norm - the vast majority of all Oxford graduates are highly successful people earning tons of money. It boils down to whether you want the odds in your favour or set against you?

Even Anothersgguy agrees with me that the best option is to hit the reset button by retaking your A levels  - likewise, he has also flagged up an important point: not all 'overseas unis' are the same! Let's take the UK for example: we have a league table, currently there are 129 universities in the league table and of course, the top two are always Oxford and Cambridge. It takes a few seconds to look up the latest league table on the internet and any half-decent gatekeeper would do that, to verify if you went to a respectable university near the top of the league table (or at least in the top half) or a disgraceful one languishing near the bottom of the league table. There has been a lot of chat about 'going overseas' but there's a huge difference between going to Oxford as a scholar and going to one of those universities ranked beyond 100th like Bolton, Suffolk or Cumbria. Quite simply, do you honestly think that a gatekeeper doesn't know the difference between Oxford and Bolton university? Even if some of you may not know much about the universities in the UK, guess what? This information isn't secret, the league tables are just a Google search away. If you think that going to a university like Bolton after you've fucked up your A levels is a short cut to a respectable degree, then no, you're so totally wrong.

Are the odds in your favour or not?

Okay, so that's it from me on this topic. What do you think? Apart from nepotism, are there any real short cuts that young people could take advantage of? What should someone with very poor A level grades do, apart from retaking their A levels? Would you seek advice on such important matters from some random strangers on a site like Reddit? What do you think about SIM degrees? Let me know what you think, leave a message below please. Many thanks for reading.