Is it perhaps too cruel to focus on one episode that went badly wrong for the candidate? Well, put yourself in my shoes for a moment - the company has advertised for one position and I receive hundreds of applications. I'm looking for reasons to say no to people, rather than reasons to say yes. That's the harsh reality of looking for work today and if you don't like that message, well then please don't shoot the messenger for delivering the bad news. Let me tell you a true story: I once worked with a man, let's call him Ronald - he was good at his job then one day, he found out that his wife was having an affair with his best friend. I'll spare you the details, but he was betrayed by the two closest people in his life. His world fell apart, he couldn't sleep, he couldn't eat, he couldn't focus on his work - he was just so consumed by all the shit that was happening in his personal life. As much as we initially felt sorry for Ronald and his predicament, it was clear that he was in no position to continue working when he could not keep his emotions in check. He realized this as well and agreed to take unpaid leave and come back when he was in a better state of mind to work - well, months passed and he never came back. I found out from a mutual friend that he began drinking very heavily and had become completely dependent on anti-depressants to just get through the day. He has not worked since. Whilst I did feel sorry for Ronald of couse, I also realized that the company really had little choice but to let him go under such circumstances.
Then again, I've had other friends who have suffered far worse than Ronald - my friend Eileen got diagnosed with breast cancer and she never stopped working, she never lost her focus at work, like she didn't even allow herself to be late for a meeting. She told me that it was her way of coping with the cancer because if she had just sat around at home all day, thinking about the cancer, it would just drive her crazy. I have friends who have cared for their children and parents who have suffered serious illnesses and they never fell apart emotionally the way Ronald did. The fact is I want to hire someone like Eileen who has nerves of steel, you can get a cancer diagnosis one day and be back at work the next morning for nine o'clock meeting as if nothing is wrong. And whilst I feel sorry for Ronald as a friend, I did see signs that he wasn't emotionally very tough and would fall apart easily - that's not the kind of person you would want to rely on at work. So even if there is a very valid reason why the candidate performed very badly during his A level (eg. "my parents were going through a messy divorce and I was caught in the middle"), then I would be heartless and say, tough shit, that just shows that I can't count on you to hold your nerve when things get tough. I'm not going to take any chances with you; sorry, I need someone I can count on in a crisis. I want to employ someone like Eileen and not Ronald. I'm sorry if this sounds harsh but hey, welcome to the real world. I would be sympathetic to Ronald as a friend, but I won't employ him.
The fact is, most candidates who have degrees from private universities will never get to plead their cases to me - they would be rejected at the very first stage. I'm just going to assume that either they are stupid or they are not stupid but too emotionally unstable and immature to handle the stress that an important exam may bring, either way, I've found my reason to say no to them. Here's an important thing you need to bear in mind: I'm a gatekeeper, my job is to find fault with my candidates, my job is not to evaluate whether or not your degree programme at your university is well constructed or not. Maybe there's someone else, like a journalist who is trying to compile a definitive guide to help students choose the best universities out there, yeah maybe someone like that would be very interested in whether or not a university like SIM has interesting initiatives to help their students. But why the hell are you telling me about all the interesting new initiatives your university has? The reason why I couldn't be less interested is that it doesn't help me in my job in trying to identify the best possible candidates for the role. I believe in a very simple principle: you can't teach a person how to be intelligent, you can't make shit shine. You can enroll an idiot at Oxford university and after a few years studying there, do you think they are going to turn him into a genius? Nope, that's not going to happen. The whole concept of Oxford university only works because the best students in the world are fighting for a place to study there.
In reality, it isn't hard for the universities at the bottom of the league tables to copy what some of the best universities in the world are doing - education is one industry where it is very hard to keep trade secrets. Many universities are putting everything from their reading lists to their lecture notes and even streaming their lectures live, so you don't even need to be a student at the university to access a lot of the content. Thus it is not surprising at all that a lot of the universities at the bottom of the league tables now proudly claim to be using the same materials or teaching methods as Oxford or Harvard, except of course, Oxford and Harvard accept only the most exceptional, brilliant students and it is extremely difficult to earn a place there unless you're amongst the very best in the world within your cohort. So coming to a gatekeeper like me and banging on and on about just how great the new course content is at SIM still doesn't address one fundamental point: how is all this wonderful course content going to turn you from a very stupid idiot into a brilliant genius? No, it won't have the slightest impact on your IQ I'm afraid, you're still pretty much the same person even after SIM improves the quality of their student experience in terms of implementing a better teaching programme and syllabus.
And even if the courses at SIM are superbly taught, so what? Do you actually think that any of the things the students learn there are going to be relevant for them when they join the work force? The fact is the universities cannot predict what kind of job you may do in the future, so you really have no idea if what you are learning will be relevant after you have taken your last exam relating to that module. Chances are, you will never ever use any of that knowledge: instead, when you start you new job, you will have a whole new set of information you will need to acquire, information that will be directly relating to your employer's products and services. So the fact that the courses were well taught at your university really doesn't help you, it is quite simply irrelevant. But more to the point, this is really the wrong message to send to the gatekeeper when applying for a job. Should you be saying, "hey the courses at my university were really well taught" or should you be saying, "look at me, I am brilliant, I am awesome!" If you're hiding behind the course content of your degree rather than asking me to look at you as an individual, that's when I start wondering: what are you trying to hide? Why are you asking me to focus on something that is totally irrelevant instead of taking a much closer look at you then?
Do I sound really cruel in pointing out that you can't make shit shine? Perhaps. But on the other hand, you have all these SIM students claiming that their course is as good as any course at the top universities in the world, so by that token, SIM graduates are as good as any graduate from Harvard, Oxford or Cambridge. To which I can only smirk and say, yeah if you were that bright, you would have at least earned yourself a place at NUS. It's like an ugly and fat woman watching a video of actress Constance Wu and thinking, oh wow doesn't she look amazing in that dress - if I buy that same dress, I'll look just like Constance Wu. Erm, hello? It doesn't work like that, even if that ugly and fat woman did go get that same dress, people will notice that beautiful dress of course but that fat woman is still the same ugly and fat woman before she got that dress. Sorry if that sounds harsh but it is exactly the same shit going on here with the SIM graduates who are waxing lyrical about how wonderful their courses at SIM are. The expensive dress doesn't make Constance Wu beautiful, she is already beautiful not matter what she wears - likewise the course you study at university doesn't make you intelligent, you are still the same person with the same IQ before and after having studied the course.
To be fair, what can SIM students do to get round the fact that gatekeepers are unlikely to 'forgive' them for having messed up their A levels? Well, there is something actually, but this is not an easy solution. You see, Tan expected someone else to fix his problems, he thinks I would change his opinion of him if I realized he is studying a great course - but he needs to step out of his comfort zone and do something that will well and truly get my attention like go climb Mt Everest, break a world record, volunteer with a charity, start a small business of his own or perhaps take part in a Hackathon and go on to win the grand prize; he needs to do something that he can hold up to the gatekeeper and say, "hey Mr Gatekeeper, look at me, I accomplished this, I did this - no one else has managed to do this, but I managed to smash the competition, I am awesome!" Then I would be able to say okay young man, I'm impressed. Why would going to climb Mt Everest impress me more than completing a very well structured course at SIM? Well, it's the level of entry and the risk of failure. Few people even get as far as climbing a mountain like Mt Everest for a simple reason: it is an extremely difficult task and not many people succeed. However, how difficult is it to enroll in SIM and take a course there? Not difficult at all - all you need to do is pay the fees and they just about allow any idiot to enroll in their course no matter how awful their grades are. In any case, it's not even the students paying for their own education: usually it is their parents spending their hard earned money on that degree. How on earth do you expect me to be impressed by that?
So that's it from me on this issue, what do you think? Can we 'fix' stupid students with poor grades by sending them to universities with really well structured courses with the best teachers? Or is this a problem that is actually a lot harder to fix and that perhaps we're putting way too much faith in the power of these teaches who, let's face it, are just trying to make a living rather than perform incredible miracles everyday at work? What do you think about the quality of the courses at these private universities? Leave a comment below, do let me know what you think. Many thanks for reading.
I am more in the camp that with the right mentors, one can cultivate the appropriate attitudes towards life. The course content is like a "playground" for one to train the student. But the student must realize that the course content is just a "playground", and that employers are more concerned about what else can the student bring to the company. Because if it is just only the course content, the employer might as well, employ the teacher, who is much more well-versed in the content, compared to the student. And the fact that teacher is not being employed by the employer, speaks a lot more about the situation.
Boom! You get the A star from me for hitting the nail on the head perfectly!!! You have summarized it all in one sentence -that about why bother with the student, we may as well employ the teacher if the knowledge is that important but as you've explained, the knowledge is so not important at all. As if all the answers to all our problems in life can be found in a textbook and taught to us in a classroom by a teacher! No, rather the playground simply gives us the training we need to solve complicating problems where there are no simple or obvious answers - the best the teachers can do is give us the training to approach such situations.
But there's a further problem as well - I think Singaporeans are very passive in terms of seeking mentors. Most default to their parents, close family members, maybe neighbours and teachers and if those people are not in a position to mentor them, well, then they're screwed. Imagine if I relied on my uneducated father to be my mentor, LOL.
There is a saying that goes, "Those who know, do. Those who don't, teach."
I find this quite accurate with few exceptions. Most of those who are really good in their fields don't become teachers or lecturers but continue on and up the career ladder.
The few exceptions I mentioned are lecturers who join the school due to certain benefits. Working mothers who have flexible work hours. Or this one guy who i met who used to be a regional IT manager for a bank and joined RGS only so that his daughter could secure a place in it.
That is insane. To give up a good job just to get his daughter into a secondary school. As if that would make ANY difference. I remember one of my juniors at VJC who was from RGS - She wasn't stupid, she was just an emotional wreck, too long a story to tell here. She was a borderline case, couldn't stay on after 3 months, her dad appealed like xiao but to no avail. She ended up in another JC, then same shit happened, smart but didn't study - ended up in some university in Australia at the bottom of the league table, getting a degree not worth the degree it is printed on.
Who gives a shit about what school you go to or what you learn when this RGS girl proved that there's so much more to getting your shit together than actually being smart of being from a good school.
And why the hell are people putting so much faith in teachers to fix their children?!?
I have friends who teach part-time in Polytechnics but they will never give up their full-time job outside. For them, it is more like extra income + break from work + hobby.
The last I heard, that guy left RGS after a few years and went back to the financial sector. With his experience it shouldn't have been too difficult to find a good job.
Then again when it comes to kiasu parents his actions aren't the most extreme. The are more extreme examples of the whole family buying a new overpriced HDB flat near to a good primary school just so their kids could enter that school.
Overseas universities are not hard to get into. In fact, I would argue that there are many less-than-bright students that I personally know who would otherwise have ended up in SIM, are now in KCL/UCL/LSE/ICL. Simply because they have rich parents. This is no minority, but a reflection of how tough the Singaporean education system is.
I was from a good junior college. Quite a number I know who did not make the cut for the JC1 promos ended up being sent overseas by their parents to study in UK/Australia. The A’ Levels there is way easier, and all of them scored well and ended up getting places in top ranking UK/Australian universities. These same people would never have survived in the Singaporean A’ Levels system. Much less get into any local university.
Take a look at the IB program offered by ACSI/SJI. The average scores each year are about 41/45, while the global average is about 30. International exams such as the IB demonstrates how competitive our system is against the rest of the world. Half of the 140 or so 45 pointers of the 100,000+ students who take the IB exam globally come from ACSI. Those who scored below average were thought to be shit. But no, ‘bad’ scores like 36-37 could secure a place in almost all the social science courses in UCL or finance in LSE.
Point being, I do not agree with you using a university’s entry requirements to classify how bloody smart or dumb someone is. It doesn’t make any sense at all. The entry system is not rigid and way more flexible than you think it is. Arguably, our poly grads who don’t make the 3.7 for local U and end up in SIM are smarter than a lot of the guys in UCL. Maybe they fucked up their first year by playing too much. But calling them a piece of shit who can’t be shined? That is absolute bullshit. Maybe you coming from a UK uni yourself gives you the notion that people who did not make the entry requirements are of a lesser calibre. But like I said, using the entry requirement of a university to judge a person’s calibre is like pre-Trump’s immigration policy in the US. It is flexible as fuck.
1. You've lumped all 'overseas universities' into the same category: yeah forget the league tables, Oxford and Cambridge are as good as the universities at the very bottom of the league tables? No way! Look we have 130 universities currently in the UK and I'll like to see you try to get into Oxford if it is so easy to get into it. You need nothing short of straight As, a brilliant track record outside your studies showing a wide range of interesting experiences and talents, ace an entrance exam then there is the interview - you clearly have not even contemplated what it is like to apply to somewhere like Oxford.
2. You are relying a lot on anecdotal evidence: evidence collected in a casual or informal manner and relying heavily or entirely on personal testimony. You're talking about your personal friends - whilst I welcome examples and case studies because they bring a story to life when we see how real people are affected by these issues, you can't base your entire argument on what happened to your friends. No way. It's such a flimsy argument.
3. You're making a wild claim that "the A levels there is much easier" - the A levels exam is the pretty much the same wherever you go in the world. And you're also insulting the intelligence of the admissions department of the universities - imagine say, let's take a country at random: if Macau started being really lenient in the way they set the local equivalent of A levels and all applicants from Macau were applying with straight As, don't you think the admissions department would realize what was going on? There are no short cuts in the admissions procedure - you assume that people at the university admission departments are idiots, but I have news for you: they are not.
Having been educated in Singapore till my A levels and done my university education in the UK and France, I can tell you something which should be obvious to you: the teaching methods differ greatly between the East and the West and you have just assumed that the system in Singapore is the best; but the way I see it, the system in the West is far, far superior and that your friends who were lucky enough to have been sent by their rich parents to Australia and the UK to study were able to benefit from a much better way of teaching, which brought out the best in them. This was especially evident for me when I was in VJC - I spent the first three months in a normal class then after I got my A level results, I got promoted to the class of humanities scholars and then I swapped all my local teachers for Angmoh teachers; that made a HUGE difference. I was lucky enough to have been the beneficiary of that way of teaching without leaving S'pore thanks to the humanities scholarship programme, whilst your friends had to leave Singapore for it.
4. Lyn, I'm much older than you and I am in the position to judge young people for the mistakes they have made, it can be as harsh as deciding whether someone should be granted an interview or just deciding, "nah you're a piece of trash, goodbye!" You're trying to be painfully correct and I question whether or not you even read my article here where I did talk about the various reasons why someone could score badly in the run up to their A level exams - but since you have a serious reading comprehension failure, I shall explain it to you again. You wrote, "Maybe they fucked up their first year by playing too much." Well for me, that's a good enough reason to condemn them. You see, I'm not just looking for intelligence per se, I'm looking for someone with a good attitude, with the maturity to not put themselves in a situation whereby they mess up their exams because they played too much. What you have described can be summarized in two words, "bad attitude". If someone has a bad attitude, if they cannot take their studies seriously enough, don't expect me to be nice and try to fix their attitudes or give them a second chance because they are not stupid. No, why the hell should I do that? Did you mistake me for a doting parent? That's the kind of charitable act that a doting parent would do for their naughty child - "come here, daddy knows you didn't mean it, apologize and all will be forgiven". Nope, I'm not that doting daddy. I'm mean, I'm nasty and I'm looking for reasons to say no, not for reasons to say yes.
5. Put yourself in my shoes for a moment: the company advertises for 1 position and I get 100 applicants. I have to say no to 99 of them. When those are the odds, why should I be nice when I can't give everyone a job? All I need is just one person with not just above average intelligence, but most of all, a good attitude. Have you ever worked with an asshole? Ooooh, I've worked with some very intelligent assholes before, like I don't question their intelligence but oh boy, they had such toxic personalities and bad attitudes. I'm not a primary school teacher trying to be nice to every single student for crying out aloud, my job is to separate the candidates, eliminate the assholes, the idiots, the shitheads, the losers and most of all, anyone with a bad attitude.
6. Is the university entry criteria a perfect system for me to use? No, it has its loopholes and can be inconsistent. But, if someone is smart enough to exploit the loopholes to get what they want (ie. a place in a good university), then okay, that still demonstrates that they are good at problem solving and exploiting the system - that is the kind of skill I actually admire. But if someone is dumb enough to rigidly follow the rules without resorting to loopholes to get themselves out of a bad situation, then no, I am not prepared to be forgiving or nice. Let me make one thing clear: I'm not here to fix the problems in society, I'm not here to fix the education system which you clearly think has problems: I'm simply here to select the best candidate for my company/clients when it is time to be the gatekeeper.
7. Oh and please, I need to clarify this: yes I went to a British university, but I got a scholarship to go to UCL. Not just any British university. League tables do matter a lot here in the UK. I'd like to see you apply for a scholarship from UCL, I hope you had straight As and were a national champion in a sport whilst studying for those A levels.
8. Oh and you can bitch all you want about the system, at the end of the day, you're not going to change my mind. You're a young person, I'm pretty old and pretty senior - I'm 42 this year. I'm just here, as a courtesy to you young people, to tell you, hey this is how senior decision makers like me think and how we make our decisions. I'm not here asking for your opinion or advice. This is not up for discussion. If you don't like the way I operate, well you will never get a job in one of the companies I work with because I'm in the position to say, "this person has a bad attitude, we can't hire him/her" and you won't even get to argue your case. Yeah, that's the way it is. It sucks doesn't it, cos what I think matters and what you think doesn't. Boo hoo hoo. The world is soooo unfair.
I will judge you in anyway I like. You may dislike my criteria, you may think I am wrong, but tough shit, you don't get a say.
Cos I'm in a position of power. And you're not.
Life is so unfair Lyn, oh dear. Let me cry you a bucket of tears.
Look, I came from a working class family in Ang Mo Kio with disabled parents who didn't do shit for me. If you're looking for sympathy about life being unfair, you're barking up the wrong tree. I had an awful start to life but somehow, I managed to hustle my way to the top. I expect others to do the same. Just because I came from the gutter doesn't mean I'm this nice guy who's going to give everyone else a chance when they screw up their lives. You think I got to where I am with a bad attitude?
Tsk tsk. That's all it comes down to. Show me you have a good attitude and that you're not some immature spoilt brat who doesn't know the meaning of discipline.
Oh and Choaniki - I don't understand the mindset of the kiasu parents in Singapore. IMHO, yes you want the best for your child, but why put so much faith in the system, in the schools, in the teachers? If you really want to give your kids the best possible start in life, then you need to be the best possible parent and nurture them in a way to give them the best possible childhood. This means spending quality time with your children, making sure you sit down with them to have dinner, knowing if they are getting along with their peers at school, ensuring that they have a good work-life balance, doing sports with them, helping them pursue interests outside their studies, making sure they have the skills to make friends etc. But no, all the interest and focus seems to be on this desperate quest to get straight As. I could forgive my parents' generation for being ill-informed and plain stupid, but surely this generation of parents should be more enlightened?
I'm all for putting my child in a good school, but I am more concerned about providing essential experiences for my child --- family traditions (Christmases and holidays), meals together, travels, conversations, shared memories, watching movies, etc. Do kiasu parents do these things too? I'm pretty kiasu in my own ways, but seriously, a good lunch and a walk in the woods with my child is more important to me than whether my child is a President Scholar! The former, you can bond and cement your relationship. The latter --- just a piece of paper.
Di - you have a common theme in Asian societies. The parents work too hard. In Singapore, typically, parents work so hard they barely spend any time with their kids. But that's nothing compared to say the situation in rural China, where the parents have children then realize oh dear I can't afford to bring up the child - so they leave the village to go find work in the big city far away and the child is essentially brought up by the grandparents. The child has only e-contact with the parents through technology like Weixin, but really, the parents claim "oh I am working so hard and making so many sacrifices for my child" but I think, you barely ever see your child, what kind of relationship is that?
It was like the maid as well who left her village in Indonesia to come to work for my sister, she left her own child behind to care for someone else's child. Don't get me started. Maybe people shouldn't have children if they are unable to raise them without moving far, far away.
@Alex oh you are so wrong my friend. Even though you have been gone from SG some 20 over years some things still stay the same.
There have been numerous initiatives to reform SG education system like teach-less-learn-more, scrapping PSLE point system, etc etc. But nothing ever works. It could be that the ministry is more interested in paying lip service than true reformation, who knows?
PAP have been in power for 50 yrs and would probably remain another 50. Those who have been frustrated at the rate of change in SG have long left. I am now on the 2nd phase of plotting my escape. But probably not to UK since your current PM is so anti-immigration. Maybe somewhere more friendly like Canada.
You mean the current generation of Singaporean parents have simply adopted wholesale the mindset of their parents huh?
As for our PM, she won't be along for long. She is a lame duck. However, as recent election results show, the country is becoming more anti-immigration and this whole scandal about kicking out people from the Windrush generation? Well, that's just a side effect of the policies that the government have delivered on immigration - mind you, this government got into power on an anti-immigration platform, that's what the people voted for. So whilst the stance of the population is unlikely to change in light of Brexit, well, I am not sure Theresa May would be around for long.
1. “Look at the league tables you child”. Ok, Oxford and Cambridge are ranked 1st and 2nd respectively. LSE is ranked 3rd. UCL is 10th. You do not need perfect scores to get into any of these schools. I have friends who scored 85/90 rank points at the A Levels, and another who had scored 43 points in the IB who made it into Oxford and Cambridge. Others with subpar grades (e.g. 37 pointers for IB) made it into LSE/UCL. And no, none had any national gymnastics achievements or whatnot.
“Oooo, don’t get me started on your anecdotal BS”. Sure, have a look for yourself at the entry requirements of any LSE course. http://www.lse.ac.uk/study-at-lse/Undergraduate/Prospective-Students/How-to-Apply/Entry-Requirements Now, repeat that for all the other top 10 universities. It’s not competitive at all considering how easy exams in other countries are (more in point 3). Many require just ABB for A levels (aka 82.5/90 rank points) and 36-38 for the IB exams. Maybe back in your day this wasn’t the case. Then again, that was 20+ years ago so I would suggest against plucking data from the sky, which would be archaic by now.
Possibly, maybe straight As is the requirement for a non-bonded full scholarship by UCL. But that is not what we are comparing are we not? We are comparing universities, and how the ranking of a university determines the calibre (or IQ) of a student. But that is where you are wrong. You do not need to be the brightest bulb by far to get into a good school. Your notion that entry into top-tier UK universities are extremely competitive is sadly, wrong. All you need is a fair amount of money and slightly above average intelligence. Heck, most current SUSS (SIM is now autonomous and the name has changed, just FYI) students who did fairly ok in the A Levels (Bs and Cs), but did not do well enough to secure a place in a local uni, would have no problems getting the As and Bs in the UK version of the A levels. So, if your argument is based on entry guidelines = calibre of students, that is as dumb as judging a person’s IQ by his hairline. So next time a CV slides on your desk, think twice before your prejudice barometer blows through the roof. Better change your tiny lens into a bigger one. 2. Like I have mentioned, I am not undermining the entry requirements of these universities. I am simply telling you how it is right now. In 2018. And it has been at least for the last decade or so. 3. “A Levels is the same everywhere in the world” No. Wrong, wrong, wrong. A Levels in UK is far easier than Singapore’s. Singaporeans take an A Level that is way above the international standard. UK’s version, as well as A Levels in many other countries, have substantially less content than what we take in SG. It is not the angmoh tutor blooming the child like a riped banana. No. Just a simple google search will tell you the major differences in A level difficulty, and why Singapore’s A Level system is way, way harder. And that is not even considering the bellcurve of the country. PS: Why do you think Singapore has dominated in internationally bellcurved exams like the IB? Simple, our academic system is rigourous. A straight-C student has a good chance of being a straight-A student in the UK. Since you claim to be so well-connected, how about reach out to any of your friends who have been through the Singapore -> UK A Level system. I would bet my ass they would say the same thing. Heck, every Singaporean I know who went to OxBridge/LSE/UCL still came back with a 2nd upper. The universities there give out honours like ice-cream. Can’t say the same about the honors system in the local Us.
1. I say you're presenting a straw man's argument. Your major gripe is that you don't need to be super intelligent to get into some of the best universities in the UK. My reply is, yeah, so what? My point is that I am far less fussed about intelligence per se than a sense of being street smart, being able to look at a complex system, work your way around the rules, exploit loopholes, discover the easiest route to go from A to B. That in itself is a test of your problem solving skills - you're just sitting there going, "teacher teacher liddat not fair one" - and I'm like, so? Did I ever claim the system is fair? No, life is extremely unfair, but we do what we can to help ourselves. I have stopped worrying about whether something is fair or not and just got on with life - you should see some of the super rich kids I had to go to university with or had to work with later in my life, the amount of wealth and privilege they had compared to me. I had nothing in Ang Mo Kio whilst they had the best of everything given to them on a silver platter. I learnt that resenting my poor start in life would not help me, so I learnt to let it go. I can see that you're resenting the system for being inherently unfair - let it go, there's nothing you can do to change an unfair society. Just focus on yourself.
1a. Yes rich kids get a brilliant start in life because their parents' money buys them experiences that go on to enrich their lives whilst us poor kids got rocks for Christmas (well, that's just an expression - my family didn't celebrate xmas). But those wonderful experiences (such as extensive foreign travel, learning musical instruments, sports and other expensive things) do make their CV stand out and do to a large degree make them better people to hire. Yeah if you're saying that poor kids get a rough deal, I totally agree: I had to struggle twice as hard as those rich kids I had to compete with. But again, that's a straw man's argument. Your point is that society is unfair, life is unfair and I'm like, that's not what I was talking about: I have long accepted the unfairness and it no longer bothers me. You're still begging me to be more merciful the next time a CV slides onto my desk (it's usually in electronic format, I get them by email) and I've made it clear: I'm not interested in using my position to fix the 'unfairness' in society that seems to bother you so much.
1c. If this is really an issue that you feel that passionately about, maybe you should do something about it - like start a charity to help kids who grew up in broken families to make sure that their poor start in life does not hold them back from achieving their full potential in this competitive world, where rich kids do have an unfair advantage, thanks to their parents' money. That can be your mission - but please let me clarify that it is not mine. I'm not interested, no thanks - but hey, you go ahead.
3. OK I am reading what you're writing and learning a thing or two - the fact is, I'm not the kind of gatekeeper who would go down into details and demand to see your A levels, O levels and PSLE results. I'm not interested, I only check if the candidate has gone to a good university - remember, I'm NOT looking for reasons to say yes, but always looking for reasons to say no. I'm not some kind of fairy godmother looking to help kids who have had a rough deal from the unfair system - you're quite mistaken. Like I said above, I'm looking for someone who is mature enough to study the system, understand how things work in the wider picture and find a route within this inherently unfair system. Why? Because the business world is inherently unfair too! Oh the amount of nepotism and shady dealings, nobody is going to do business with you simply because your IQ is high, no, it's far more complex than that. So if you think the university admissions process is highly unfair, then the business world is 10 times or a 100 times worse when it comes to being unfair. Just because you work hard or just because you have a high IQ doesn't mean you will succeed. I'm looking for someone who has that maturity to understand this basic principle and it seems you don't - you're just so focused on the 'it's not fair' part you never see the bigger picture.
Someone like me would have ended up in SIM if say, I ended up with Bs & Cs for my A levels - my family couldn't afford to send me abroad. So with my back against the wall, it was do or die and I knew the stakes were high. So I had the maturity to do whatever it took to get the grades I needed in order to get where I wanted and my parents were like, look you have to give up gymnastics to focus on your studies and I refused. So I had to give up my social life, I trained, studied and barely slept for those 2 years. It was a horrific two years in terms of what I put myself through but yeah it paid off. National champion + the grades I needed for a scholarship to UCL. Was it intelligence? No, I am not more intelligent than you or anyone else around me. It was a good attitude. It boils down to that. How many times can I stress this to you? Having a good attitude is important.
@Lyn You are correct to say that the current O and A levels in SG are different from the UK but that change was recent. They have been delinked in 2006 and 2002 respectively (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore-Cambridge_GCE_Ordinary_Level, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore-Cambridge_GCE_Advanced_Level)
As to which is more difficult, anecdotal evidence shows that the SG version as having a higher level of difficulty (https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=2396666). This might be due to grade inflation but UK is going to reform their exams pretty soon to increase the difficulty as well (https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/education/british-exam-reforms-wont-affect-spore-students)
Then again as LIFT had pointed out the world isn't fair. If you have rich parents you might have been able to ace your A levels overseas and enter a top university. How did you think GW Bush managed to enter Harvard? He certainly didn't have the smarts for it.
But it boils down to connections and wealth in the end. No one in the working world cares what your O or A levels scores are. I know someone who graduated from NUS computer science who is struggling to find a job and hopping from contract job to contract job. In this previous company I worked freelance with, I met an IT director who didn't even graduate from university. His previous company (US MNC) fully paid for him to get an IT certification in the UK at the British Computer Society. He subsequently rose thru the ranks by taking more certification courses all fully company funded. And he isn't even a graduate. So life is never fair.
Many thanks to Choaniki for the excellent points you have made. Allow me to respond please:
1. The fact that they have been delinked means that they can no longer be treated the same - much like the situation in Macau and Hong Kong were the currencies were delinked. So the HKD (HK$) is stronger than the MOP (Macao Pataca) but the vendors and taxi drivers in Macau will gladly take your HK$s on a 1:1 basis given that most tourists go to Macau on a daytrip and won't bother getting local currency. But how much stronger would the HK$ have to be before the day trippers start realizing they're being ripped off and going to the Money Changer?
Likewise, if the Singaporean A level grade is worth more than a British one, then that's no different and just like the tourist on a day trip from Hong Kong, the admissions experts at the universities will stop treating them 1:1 if it is clear that they are delinked and are not worth the same. In any case, the offers made at the university level are individual offers: in the British UCAS system, you apply and the university evaluates each applicant on an individual basis and then you get an offer which can be unconditional or conditional: the latter would be like, "if you get AAB you have a place". So if the UK is indeed suffering from grade inflation, then the student in England will be asked to produce say AAA whilst the Singapore student be asked only do produce AAB or ABB to secure the same place in the course to take into account that the grades are not the same given the different system in Singapore.
2. Furthermore, when I was in VJC doing A level geography, my expatriate geography teacher from England gave us all these case studies to use from places in not just England, but near Cambridge so the person marking our scripts in Cambridge would be able to relate to these case studies. Other local teachers were giving their students case studies in places far away, so they were less familiar to the teachers marking the scripts. At the end of the day, having an Angmoh teacher who knows the mindset of the person marking the script can help a lot - not just in terms of having a superior method of teaching, but just knowing the system inside out.
3. And yes, the world isn't fair. It's not just about rich parents, I'll also be talking about caring parents who know how to nurture their children. We don't get to choose our parents, yet they have a massive impact in the early part of our lives. The world is massively unfair and I'm sure you realize that, but don't expect the universities or the gatekeepers of the world to rectify that problem. The only person who can help you is yourself.
4. Point taken. But we were all young and dumb at 16/17 years old. Not fair to paint all people who messed up their first year not knowing how the GPA system works with the same brush. Many of the brightest bulbs I know made big mistakes. Don’t pretend you are sitting on a high horse of superior morals and attitude. Heck, even the POTUS was part of a weed smoking clique. Wonder what kind of great childhood you had, mugging your ass off and doing jumping jacks on a trampoline. No one is telling you to be a doting father, if you are even one. But if you cannot accept the fact that uni rankings are not the be all end all, so be it. You are not the only gatekeeper in the world, and it’s not like you are working for Goldman anyway. 5. You do your job. But you are in UK. I doubt you’ve even seen a single SIM applicant to your company. Funnily enough, UK boutique originators/syndicates (like the one you work in) still hire many lower tier UK uni grads. These are the same unis that offer their distance-learning courses under SIM-GE. LOL. Unless your whole firm actually came from OxBridge, I don’t see where your prejudice actually stems from. So yes, you are not qualified to have that false sense of grandeur. As if you are the gatekeeper in front of the biggest gate around. 6. If you are referring to loopholes as to going overseas to study and getting into a top tier school, then the issue is parent’s money. If it is something else, it is too vague. Be more specific. 7. I already mentioned, it is not hard to get into UCL. Maybe straight As for a non-bonded scholarship. But beyond that, you don’t have to be the brightest bulb. Just have a rich dad. 8. Don’t worry, I am not applying to your no-name firm anytime soon.
PS: For a 42-year old to tell a young padawan like me how to live my life. How I am a nobody and you are the judge, jury and executioner. How you are a success who blames your parents for being autistic...
All I can say is... ok, good for you buddy. LOL. Time to grow up. Age and mental maturity are not always correlated. As in the real-life case study here.
4. Aaah this is where we have to disagree - I don't believe we were all young and dumb at 16-17. I have seen 9 year olds with a stunning degree of maturity and I've seen 25 year olds acting like dumb kids. Whether you end up with a good or bad attitude really depends on the way you were nurtured in your younger days - your parents will be the main determinant of that, but otherwise you have teachers, coaches, other uncles & aunties along the way as well as older siblings/cousin who will set the mould for your young mind. Growing up, acquiring a good attitude is not something automatic like the onset of puberty, no the emotional process is quite complex and that's why we have a range of different kinds of attitudes out there - some good, some bad but not all the same.
4a. Now can someone who is immature at 15-16-17 years old grow up and attain a better attitude by the time they reach employment age in their 20s? Yes, that is entirely possible. But then again, I'm looking for faults, I'm looking for reasons to say no, I'm looking for signs of imperfection and weakness. I do look at the bigger picture and as you clearly cannot read, like dude, serious reading comprehension failure - I have stated that I do look beyond university ranking at things like sports, music, work experience and anything else that can give me a good idea of what kind of person I am dealing with, especially when it comes to soft skills.
4b. I had a horrible childhood - let me be the first to admit it, it was grim, it was horrible. I had to make a lot of sacrifices because my parents were terrified of my gymnastics getting in the way of my studies and I had to constantly score straight As every step of the way, every test, every exam just to prove that I can cope with the demands of competitive sport at the highest level in the country whilst not letting my grades slip. I'm no paragon of virtue- I was the kid who suffered so much because the odds were stacked against me every step of the way.
4c. Sure some bright people have made mistakes along the way - but like I said, it's not for me to forgive them or redeem them. They have to do that for themselves, now that's not a point you seem to be able to grasp. Of course they can redeem themselves and prove themselves to be a success - but that's not my job to make that happen. I'm not a charity worker to help people like that.
4d. I'm merely telling you how people like me think - that's not all about me, me, me - I'm giving you an insight about what happens on my side of the table when we receive 100 or even 500 applicants for one position advertised. That is the reality with the big banks like Goldman Sachs, they probably get 10,000 applicants or more with each graduate position. So how do you go from 1,000 to one when you're trying to give everyone a chance and the benefit of the doubt? People like me are in the position of power, we're the decision makers, you may not like what we do but I'm like, tough shit, I don't even need to share our methodology with you because I don't need your permission or approval at all - you're not part of my world.
5. SIM represents just one of many private universities, there are plenty of other private universities like SIM out there. And it takes me a moment to work out the entry requirements for each university.
5. We have a comprehensive system when it comes to selecting the best candidates for the job - few candidates actually join us straight out of university, most have had a few years work experience at least and that counts for far more than the degree per se. So please don't just to wild conclusions based on what you think you know, just ask me and I'm happy to explain. There is more way to prove yourself capable in the eyes of a gatekeeper than getting into a good university - I have already covered this in the article, but clearly, it is another case of reading comprehension failure on your part.
5a. You're once again shooting the messenger for the message - a lot of young people have no idea why they are rejected when they apply for a job. Gatekeepers rarely do more than send out a standard email with the line, "the position has been filled". I'm offering you a rare insight into how we operate - this is not, however, an invitation for you to challenge the way I operate. I think you're mistaken, if you don't like what I do, then I can only shrug my shoulders and say, tough shit. I can live with that.
6. Like I said above, find a way to impress the gatekeeper beyond your grades. This has been covered in the article already. You clearly speak English, but the issue here is reading comprehension failure on your part. You're so keen to attack me you don't even read what the hell I wrote.
7. Having rich parents are a blessing, for the rest of us, get over it. Life is gonna be harder. We just have to work harder to keep up with those blessed with rich parents.
8. Let's put it this way: even if you do have the grades to be granted an interview, you'll be weeded out early in the interview process for your bad attitude. And I'm not just speaking about myself, I'm talking about how gatekeepers operate in general. They are not here to offer the job to the smartest applicant with the highest IQ or the most deserving young person - no, they're here to weed out people like you with an attitude problem. I don't think you're stupid, not at all, but your attitude is your biggest enemy. I've already struggled enough over the last few decades to get to where I am, so I can be a complete dick to you but you still have to swim through many rivers of shit and face so many gatekeepers before you can arrive at a senior position in your life. I don't envy you.
Bonus point for you: I have two friends who are around my age and they've left investment banking with some of the world's biggest investment banks to set up their own smaller, more esoteric companies. The reason why they left was because they were frustrated at how slow things moved in a big company like that - if you have a new concept for a new product, then the many layers of approval you need to obtain before you can pursue is frustrating. Whereas in a smaller company, you're the boss, you get to call the shots, you get to move fast in a dynamic business environment: an opportunity opens up, you swoop in and make a killing quickly before the guys at the big investment banks can write a report about it to present to the MD.
You seem to think that big = better in the world of banking; that's clearly a fallacy. It is a different kind of ball game altogether - when you work for a big bank, they have deep pockets and they take all the risks but things move at a glacial pace sometimes because of the bureaucracy. In smaller companies, things are a lot more dynamics, though pockets are less deep - different people choose different work environments that suit their personalities. Bigger isn't better - it's just different.
The fact is a big bank like Goldman Sachs can employ a lot of lowly paid staff at the administrative level and they handle boring tasks like processing the huge volume of paperwork/data that passes through their trading floors. I have a colleague who left his job in one such big, impressive investment bank to work with my company now and at first I was like wow, you left that bank? But so many people wanna work there - turns out, he was one of those paying his dues, doing a boring job there, now he's got that on his CV and has moved upwards and onwards to earn far more money with us, in a far more senior position.
At the end of the day, there's no correlation between the amount you earn and the number of staff in your employer. You can be a small fry earning peanuts at Goldman doing a mindnumbingly boring task. Or you can be the king of your castle, doing something quite niche and esoteric but still raking in the millions because you're just so good at what you do.
That's something for you Singaporean students to think about.
Whoever Lyn is, that person is just spamming LFT with personal attacks. LFT is highly respectable for his calm in handling this and he is someone who is gifted and is contributing profitably to society. He simply has the courage and generosity to share his knowledge and experience - if he were selfish he could have just not responded. LIFT is an example of success of the education system, and it so deeply silly for mockers to gang on him. He has greatly benefited from the UK education system, from UCL a prestigious institution, just like the several capable UK-educated ministers in SG. If mockers are that jealous, they should try going UCL themselves rather than saying his friend this, his friend that. If only anyone can just get anything with money, even the kind of skills LIFT has. But if LIFT were rich to have got himself a place but yet also managed to be able to demonstrate his capabilities in holding himself well and excelling that he credits to his education from a top UK institution, then all the more he is very huat. SG is fortunate to have gifted leaders lead SG, but there are several countries which do not, but are led by half-bakes, cowards and the ungifted (which hindered the development of countries which would have a lot of potential due to their size, resources, etc.), and this is very dangerous for society. A lot of mockers also criticise these ministers not realising the futility of it all and the hazards that could be caused to stability of a small country like SG. That's why it is such a hard job for these ministers that only being paid well could be an incentive for them to continue in political roles rather than the private sectors. Those like Lyn - and there are many - should instead concentrate on being kind, so as to better society. Suppose that the poster went to a private uni, there is no point being defensive. They are already not comparable to NUS/NTU graduates, and it is actually hard for anyone to witness them try to victimise and make personal remarks on learned individuals like LIFT, it is very regrettable. There is already full of that going on in society: under-achievers blaming/finger-pointing at others for causing them to have been like that or putting over-achievers down - all these you would already have experienced yourselves through kindergarten, primary school, secondary school, JC, uni, basically every part of society where everyone around you freely acts openly without the responsibility to act as adults yet in the professional world. The only thing LIFT has probably "overlooked" is that he is too direct and frank, but this if it is a problem then it is a western world problem of political correctness that hasn't been doing much to efficiency.
I wouldn't put UCL on a pedestal - I think I learnt a lot from the experience but it was more a matter of being in a place like London, being taken out of my comfort zone, being able to meet a wide variety of people from different countries, from different backgrounds and really opening my eyes beyond what I grew up with in AMK. As for Lyn, here's the thing, I don't know anything about him/her - I don't even know his/her gender, never mind the first thing about his/her background, education or achievements. It is easy for him/her to hide behind a pseudonym and poke holes in my CV but ultimately, I'm the multi-millionaire in London who is working like 20 hours a week and taking about 12 weeks of holiday a year. So by all means find fault with me and criticize me for all the mistakes I've made but I'm not doing too badly at all. I'd love to see Lyn come out from behind the shadows and see what kind of degree s/he has and how much money s/he is making currently - because I'm sure quite a few of us would suspect that s/he isn't making much money, hence the bitterness and this rage, this motivation to attack me. Here's the thing: people who are perfectly content and happy with what they have don't feel the need to attack others like that, so one can only wonder what the hell is happening with Lyn's life.
I am more in the camp that with the right mentors, one can cultivate the appropriate attitudes towards life. The course content is like a "playground" for one to train the student. But the student must realize that the course content is just a "playground", and that employers are more concerned about what else can the student bring to the company. Because if it is just only the course content, the employer might as well, employ the teacher, who is much more well-versed in the content, compared to the student. And the fact that teacher is not being employed by the employer, speaks a lot more about the situation.
ReplyDeleteBoom! You get the A star from me for hitting the nail on the head perfectly!!! You have summarized it all in one sentence -that about why bother with the student, we may as well employ the teacher if the knowledge is that important but as you've explained, the knowledge is so not important at all. As if all the answers to all our problems in life can be found in a textbook and taught to us in a classroom by a teacher! No, rather the playground simply gives us the training we need to solve complicating problems where there are no simple or obvious answers - the best the teachers can do is give us the training to approach such situations.
DeleteBut there's a further problem as well - I think Singaporeans are very passive in terms of seeking mentors. Most default to their parents, close family members, maybe neighbours and teachers and if those people are not in a position to mentor them, well, then they're screwed. Imagine if I relied on my uneducated father to be my mentor, LOL.
There is a saying that goes, "Those who know, do. Those who don't, teach."
DeleteI find this quite accurate with few exceptions. Most of those who are really good in their fields don't become teachers or lecturers but continue on and up the career ladder.
The few exceptions I mentioned are lecturers who join the school due to certain benefits. Working mothers who have flexible work hours. Or this one guy who i met who used to be a regional IT manager for a bank and joined RGS only so that his daughter could secure a place in it.
That is insane. To give up a good job just to get his daughter into a secondary school. As if that would make ANY difference. I remember one of my juniors at VJC who was from RGS - She wasn't stupid, she was just an emotional wreck, too long a story to tell here. She was a borderline case, couldn't stay on after 3 months, her dad appealed like xiao but to no avail. She ended up in another JC, then same shit happened, smart but didn't study - ended up in some university in Australia at the bottom of the league table, getting a degree not worth the degree it is printed on.
DeleteWho gives a shit about what school you go to or what you learn when this RGS girl proved that there's so much more to getting your shit together than actually being smart of being from a good school.
And why the hell are people putting so much faith in teachers to fix their children?!?
I have friends who teach part-time in Polytechnics but they will never give up their full-time job outside. For them, it is more like extra income + break from work + hobby.
DeleteThe last I heard, that guy left RGS after a few years and went back to the financial sector. With his experience it shouldn't have been too difficult to find a good job.
DeleteThen again when it comes to kiasu parents his actions aren't the most extreme. The are more extreme examples of the whole family buying a new overpriced HDB flat near to a good primary school just so their kids could enter that school.
Overseas universities are not hard to get into. In fact, I would argue that there are many less-than-bright students that I personally know who would otherwise have ended up in SIM, are now in KCL/UCL/LSE/ICL. Simply because they have rich parents. This is no minority, but a reflection of how tough the Singaporean education system is.
DeleteI was from a good junior college. Quite a number I know who did not make the cut for the JC1 promos ended up being sent overseas by their parents to study in UK/Australia. The A’ Levels there is way easier, and all of them scored well and ended up getting places in top ranking UK/Australian universities. These same people would never have survived in the Singaporean A’ Levels system. Much less get into any local university.
Take a look at the IB program offered by ACSI/SJI. The average scores each year are about 41/45, while the global average is about 30. International exams such as the IB demonstrates how competitive our system is against the rest of the world. Half of the 140 or so 45 pointers of the 100,000+ students who take the IB exam globally come from ACSI. Those who scored below average were thought to be shit. But no, ‘bad’ scores like 36-37 could secure a place in almost all the social science courses in UCL or finance in LSE.
Point being, I do not agree with you using a university’s entry requirements to classify how bloody smart or dumb someone is. It doesn’t make any sense at all. The entry system is not rigid and way more flexible than you think it is. Arguably, our poly grads who don’t make the 3.7 for local U and end up in SIM are smarter than a lot of the guys in UCL. Maybe they fucked up their first year by playing too much. But calling them a piece of shit who can’t be shined? That is absolute bullshit. Maybe you coming from a UK uni yourself gives you the notion that people who did not make the entry requirements are of a lesser calibre. But like I said, using the entry requirement of a university to judge a person’s calibre is like pre-Trump’s immigration policy in the US. It is flexible as fuck.
Lyn, some points for you.
Delete1. You've lumped all 'overseas universities' into the same category: yeah forget the league tables, Oxford and Cambridge are as good as the universities at the very bottom of the league tables? No way! Look we have 130 universities currently in the UK and I'll like to see you try to get into Oxford if it is so easy to get into it. You need nothing short of straight As, a brilliant track record outside your studies showing a wide range of interesting experiences and talents, ace an entrance exam then there is the interview - you clearly have not even contemplated what it is like to apply to somewhere like Oxford.
2. You are relying a lot on anecdotal evidence: evidence collected in a casual or informal manner and relying heavily or entirely on personal testimony. You're talking about your personal friends - whilst I welcome examples and case studies because they bring a story to life when we see how real people are affected by these issues, you can't base your entire argument on what happened to your friends. No way. It's such a flimsy argument.
3. You're making a wild claim that "the A levels there is much easier" - the A levels exam is the pretty much the same wherever you go in the world. And you're also insulting the intelligence of the admissions department of the universities - imagine say, let's take a country at random: if Macau started being really lenient in the way they set the local equivalent of A levels and all applicants from Macau were applying with straight As, don't you think the admissions department would realize what was going on? There are no short cuts in the admissions procedure - you assume that people at the university admission departments are idiots, but I have news for you: they are not.
Having been educated in Singapore till my A levels and done my university education in the UK and France, I can tell you something which should be obvious to you: the teaching methods differ greatly between the East and the West and you have just assumed that the system in Singapore is the best; but the way I see it, the system in the West is far, far superior and that your friends who were lucky enough to have been sent by their rich parents to Australia and the UK to study were able to benefit from a much better way of teaching, which brought out the best in them. This was especially evident for me when I was in VJC - I spent the first three months in a normal class then after I got my A level results, I got promoted to the class of humanities scholars and then I swapped all my local teachers for Angmoh teachers; that made a HUGE difference. I was lucky enough to have been the beneficiary of that way of teaching without leaving S'pore thanks to the humanities scholarship programme, whilst your friends had to leave Singapore for it.
Part 2 coming up.
4. Lyn, I'm much older than you and I am in the position to judge young people for the mistakes they have made, it can be as harsh as deciding whether someone should be granted an interview or just deciding, "nah you're a piece of trash, goodbye!" You're trying to be painfully correct and I question whether or not you even read my article here where I did talk about the various reasons why someone could score badly in the run up to their A level exams - but since you have a serious reading comprehension failure, I shall explain it to you again. You wrote, "Maybe they fucked up their first year by playing too much." Well for me, that's a good enough reason to condemn them. You see, I'm not just looking for intelligence per se, I'm looking for someone with a good attitude, with the maturity to not put themselves in a situation whereby they mess up their exams because they played too much. What you have described can be summarized in two words, "bad attitude". If someone has a bad attitude, if they cannot take their studies seriously enough, don't expect me to be nice and try to fix their attitudes or give them a second chance because they are not stupid. No, why the hell should I do that? Did you mistake me for a doting parent? That's the kind of charitable act that a doting parent would do for their naughty child - "come here, daddy knows you didn't mean it, apologize and all will be forgiven". Nope, I'm not that doting daddy. I'm mean, I'm nasty and I'm looking for reasons to say no, not for reasons to say yes.
Delete5. Put yourself in my shoes for a moment: the company advertises for 1 position and I get 100 applicants. I have to say no to 99 of them. When those are the odds, why should I be nice when I can't give everyone a job? All I need is just one person with not just above average intelligence, but most of all, a good attitude. Have you ever worked with an asshole? Ooooh, I've worked with some very intelligent assholes before, like I don't question their intelligence but oh boy, they had such toxic personalities and bad attitudes. I'm not a primary school teacher trying to be nice to every single student for crying out aloud, my job is to separate the candidates, eliminate the assholes, the idiots, the shitheads, the losers and most of all, anyone with a bad attitude.
6. Is the university entry criteria a perfect system for me to use? No, it has its loopholes and can be inconsistent. But, if someone is smart enough to exploit the loopholes to get what they want (ie. a place in a good university), then okay, that still demonstrates that they are good at problem solving and exploiting the system - that is the kind of skill I actually admire. But if someone is dumb enough to rigidly follow the rules without resorting to loopholes to get themselves out of a bad situation, then no, I am not prepared to be forgiving or nice. Let me make one thing clear: I'm not here to fix the problems in society, I'm not here to fix the education system which you clearly think has problems: I'm simply here to select the best candidate for my company/clients when it is time to be the gatekeeper.
7. Oh and please, I need to clarify this: yes I went to a British university, but I got a scholarship to go to UCL. Not just any British university. League tables do matter a lot here in the UK. I'd like to see you apply for a scholarship from UCL, I hope you had straight As and were a national champion in a sport whilst studying for those A levels.
And finally:
Delete8. Oh and you can bitch all you want about the system, at the end of the day, you're not going to change my mind. You're a young person, I'm pretty old and pretty senior - I'm 42 this year. I'm just here, as a courtesy to you young people, to tell you, hey this is how senior decision makers like me think and how we make our decisions. I'm not here asking for your opinion or advice. This is not up for discussion. If you don't like the way I operate, well you will never get a job in one of the companies I work with because I'm in the position to say, "this person has a bad attitude, we can't hire him/her" and you won't even get to argue your case. Yeah, that's the way it is. It sucks doesn't it, cos what I think matters and what you think doesn't. Boo hoo hoo. The world is soooo unfair.
I'm the judge, jury and executioner.
DeleteYou don't get a lawyer.
I will judge you in anyway I like. You may dislike my criteria, you may think I am wrong, but tough shit, you don't get a say.
Cos I'm in a position of power. And you're not.
Life is so unfair Lyn, oh dear. Let me cry you a bucket of tears.
Look, I came from a working class family in Ang Mo Kio with disabled parents who didn't do shit for me. If you're looking for sympathy about life being unfair, you're barking up the wrong tree. I had an awful start to life but somehow, I managed to hustle my way to the top. I expect others to do the same. Just because I came from the gutter doesn't mean I'm this nice guy who's going to give everyone else a chance when they screw up their lives. You think I got to where I am with a bad attitude?
Tsk tsk. That's all it comes down to. Show me you have a good attitude and that you're not some immature spoilt brat who doesn't know the meaning of discipline.
Oh and Choaniki - I don't understand the mindset of the kiasu parents in Singapore. IMHO, yes you want the best for your child, but why put so much faith in the system, in the schools, in the teachers? If you really want to give your kids the best possible start in life, then you need to be the best possible parent and nurture them in a way to give them the best possible childhood. This means spending quality time with your children, making sure you sit down with them to have dinner, knowing if they are getting along with their peers at school, ensuring that they have a good work-life balance, doing sports with them, helping them pursue interests outside their studies, making sure they have the skills to make friends etc. But no, all the interest and focus seems to be on this desperate quest to get straight As. I could forgive my parents' generation for being ill-informed and plain stupid, but surely this generation of parents should be more enlightened?
ReplyDeleteI'm all for putting my child in a good school, but I am more concerned about providing essential experiences for my child --- family traditions (Christmases and holidays), meals together, travels, conversations, shared memories, watching movies, etc. Do kiasu parents do these things too? I'm pretty kiasu in my own ways, but seriously, a good lunch and a walk in the woods with my child is more important to me than whether my child is a President Scholar! The former, you can bond and cement your relationship. The latter --- just a piece of paper.
DeleteDi - you have a common theme in Asian societies. The parents work too hard. In Singapore, typically, parents work so hard they barely spend any time with their kids. But that's nothing compared to say the situation in rural China, where the parents have children then realize oh dear I can't afford to bring up the child - so they leave the village to go find work in the big city far away and the child is essentially brought up by the grandparents. The child has only e-contact with the parents through technology like Weixin, but really, the parents claim "oh I am working so hard and making so many sacrifices for my child" but I think, you barely ever see your child, what kind of relationship is that?
DeleteIt was like the maid as well who left her village in Indonesia to come to work for my sister, she left her own child behind to care for someone else's child. Don't get me started. Maybe people shouldn't have children if they are unable to raise them without moving far, far away.
@Alex oh you are so wrong my friend. Even though you have been gone from SG some 20 over years some things still stay the same.
DeleteThere have been numerous initiatives to reform SG education system like teach-less-learn-more, scrapping PSLE point system, etc etc. But nothing ever works. It could be that the ministry is more interested in paying lip service than true reformation, who knows?
PAP have been in power for 50 yrs and would probably remain another 50. Those who have been frustrated at the rate of change in SG have long left. I am now on the 2nd phase of plotting my escape. But probably not to UK since your current PM is so anti-immigration. Maybe somewhere more friendly like Canada.
You mean the current generation of Singaporean parents have simply adopted wholesale the mindset of their parents huh?
DeleteAs for our PM, she won't be along for long. She is a lame duck. However, as recent election results show, the country is becoming more anti-immigration and this whole scandal about kicking out people from the Windrush generation? Well, that's just a side effect of the policies that the government have delivered on immigration - mind you, this government got into power on an anti-immigration platform, that's what the people voted for. So whilst the stance of the population is unlikely to change in light of Brexit, well, I am not sure Theresa May would be around for long.
1. “Look at the league tables you child”.
ReplyDeleteOk, Oxford and Cambridge are ranked 1st and 2nd respectively. LSE is ranked 3rd. UCL is 10th. You do not need perfect scores to get into any of these schools. I have friends who scored 85/90 rank points at the A Levels, and another who had scored 43 points in the IB who made it into Oxford and Cambridge. Others with subpar grades (e.g. 37 pointers for IB) made it into LSE/UCL. And no, none had any national gymnastics achievements or whatnot.
“Oooo, don’t get me started on your anecdotal BS”.
Sure, have a look for yourself at the entry requirements of any LSE course. http://www.lse.ac.uk/study-at-lse/Undergraduate/Prospective-Students/How-to-Apply/Entry-Requirements
Now, repeat that for all the other top 10 universities. It’s not competitive at all considering how easy exams in other countries are (more in point 3). Many require just ABB for A levels (aka 82.5/90 rank points) and 36-38 for the IB exams. Maybe back in your day this wasn’t the case. Then again, that was 20+ years ago so I would suggest against plucking data from the sky, which would be archaic by now.
Possibly, maybe straight As is the requirement for a non-bonded full scholarship by UCL. But that is not what we are comparing are we not? We are comparing universities, and how the ranking of a university determines the calibre (or IQ) of a student. But that is where you are wrong. You do not need to be the brightest bulb by far to get into a good school. Your notion that entry into top-tier UK universities are extremely competitive is sadly, wrong. All you need is a fair amount of money and slightly above average intelligence. Heck, most current SUSS (SIM is now autonomous and the name has changed, just FYI) students who did fairly ok in the A Levels (Bs and Cs), but did not do well enough to secure a place in a local uni, would have no problems getting the As and Bs in the UK version of the A levels. So, if your argument is based on entry guidelines = calibre of students, that is as dumb as judging a person’s IQ by his hairline. So next time a CV slides on your desk, think twice before your prejudice barometer blows through the roof. Better change your tiny lens into a bigger one.
2. Like I have mentioned, I am not undermining the entry requirements of these universities. I am simply telling you how it is right now. In 2018. And it has been at least for the last decade or so.
3. “A Levels is the same everywhere in the world”
No. Wrong, wrong, wrong. A Levels in UK is far easier than Singapore’s. Singaporeans take an A Level that is way above the international standard. UK’s version, as well as A Levels in many other countries, have substantially less content than what we take in SG. It is not the angmoh tutor blooming the child like a riped banana. No. Just a simple google search will tell you the major differences in A level difficulty, and why Singapore’s A Level system is way, way harder. And that is not even considering the bellcurve of the country.
PS: Why do you think Singapore has dominated in internationally bellcurved exams like the IB? Simple, our academic system is rigourous. A straight-C student has a good chance of being a straight-A student in the UK. Since you claim to be so well-connected, how about reach out to any of your friends who have been through the Singapore -> UK A Level system. I would bet my ass they would say the same thing. Heck, every Singaporean I know who went to OxBridge/LSE/UCL still came back with a 2nd upper. The universities there give out honours like ice-cream. Can’t say the same about the honors system in the local Us.
Lyn, allow me to reply to your points:
Delete1. I say you're presenting a straw man's argument. Your major gripe is that you don't need to be super intelligent to get into some of the best universities in the UK. My reply is, yeah, so what? My point is that I am far less fussed about intelligence per se than a sense of being street smart, being able to look at a complex system, work your way around the rules, exploit loopholes, discover the easiest route to go from A to B. That in itself is a test of your problem solving skills - you're just sitting there going, "teacher teacher liddat not fair one" - and I'm like, so? Did I ever claim the system is fair? No, life is extremely unfair, but we do what we can to help ourselves. I have stopped worrying about whether something is fair or not and just got on with life - you should see some of the super rich kids I had to go to university with or had to work with later in my life, the amount of wealth and privilege they had compared to me. I had nothing in Ang Mo Kio whilst they had the best of everything given to them on a silver platter. I learnt that resenting my poor start in life would not help me, so I learnt to let it go. I can see that you're resenting the system for being inherently unfair - let it go, there's nothing you can do to change an unfair society. Just focus on yourself.
1a. Yes rich kids get a brilliant start in life because their parents' money buys them experiences that go on to enrich their lives whilst us poor kids got rocks for Christmas (well, that's just an expression - my family didn't celebrate xmas). But those wonderful experiences (such as extensive foreign travel, learning musical instruments, sports and other expensive things) do make their CV stand out and do to a large degree make them better people to hire. Yeah if you're saying that poor kids get a rough deal, I totally agree: I had to struggle twice as hard as those rich kids I had to compete with. But again, that's a straw man's argument. Your point is that society is unfair, life is unfair and I'm like, that's not what I was talking about: I have long accepted the unfairness and it no longer bothers me. You're still begging me to be more merciful the next time a CV slides onto my desk (it's usually in electronic format, I get them by email) and I've made it clear: I'm not interested in using my position to fix the 'unfairness' in society that seems to bother you so much.
1c. If this is really an issue that you feel that passionately about, maybe you should do something about it - like start a charity to help kids who grew up in broken families to make sure that their poor start in life does not hold them back from achieving their full potential in this competitive world, where rich kids do have an unfair advantage, thanks to their parents' money. That can be your mission - but please let me clarify that it is not mine. I'm not interested, no thanks - but hey, you go ahead.
3. OK I am reading what you're writing and learning a thing or two - the fact is, I'm not the kind of gatekeeper who would go down into details and demand to see your A levels, O levels and PSLE results. I'm not interested, I only check if the candidate has gone to a good university - remember, I'm NOT looking for reasons to say yes, but always looking for reasons to say no. I'm not some kind of fairy godmother looking to help kids who have had a rough deal from the unfair system - you're quite mistaken. Like I said above, I'm looking for someone who is mature enough to study the system, understand how things work in the wider picture and find a route within this inherently unfair system. Why? Because the business world is inherently unfair too! Oh the amount of nepotism and shady dealings, nobody is going to do business with you simply because your IQ is high, no, it's far more complex than that. So if you think the university admissions process is highly unfair, then the business world is 10 times or a 100 times worse when it comes to being unfair. Just because you work hard or just because you have a high IQ doesn't mean you will succeed. I'm looking for someone who has that maturity to understand this basic principle and it seems you don't - you're just so focused on the 'it's not fair' part you never see the bigger picture.
DeleteSomeone like me would have ended up in SIM if say, I ended up with Bs & Cs for my A levels - my family couldn't afford to send me abroad. So with my back against the wall, it was do or die and I knew the stakes were high. So I had the maturity to do whatever it took to get the grades I needed in order to get where I wanted and my parents were like, look you have to give up gymnastics to focus on your studies and I refused. So I had to give up my social life, I trained, studied and barely slept for those 2 years. It was a horrific two years in terms of what I put myself through but yeah it paid off. National champion + the grades I needed for a scholarship to UCL. Was it intelligence? No, I am not more intelligent than you or anyone else around me. It was a good attitude. It boils down to that. How many times can I stress this to you? Having a good attitude is important.
@Lyn You are correct to say that the current O and A levels in SG are different from the UK but that change was recent. They have been delinked in 2006 and 2002 respectively (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore-Cambridge_GCE_Ordinary_Level, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore-Cambridge_GCE_Advanced_Level)
DeleteAs to which is more difficult, anecdotal evidence shows that the SG version as having a higher level of difficulty (https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=2396666). This might be due to grade inflation but UK is going to reform their exams pretty soon to increase the difficulty as well (https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/education/british-exam-reforms-wont-affect-spore-students)
Then again as LIFT had pointed out the world isn't fair. If you have rich parents you might have been able to ace your A levels overseas and enter a top university. How did you think GW Bush managed to enter Harvard? He certainly didn't have the smarts for it.
But it boils down to connections and wealth in the end. No one in the working world cares what your O or A levels scores are. I know someone who graduated from NUS computer science who is struggling to find a job and hopping from contract job to contract job. In this previous company I worked freelance with, I met an IT director who didn't even graduate from university. His previous company (US MNC) fully paid for him to get an IT certification in the UK at the British Computer Society. He subsequently rose thru the ranks by taking more certification courses all fully company funded. And he isn't even a graduate. So life is never fair.
Many thanks to Choaniki for the excellent points you have made. Allow me to respond please:
Delete1. The fact that they have been delinked means that they can no longer be treated the same - much like the situation in Macau and Hong Kong were the currencies were delinked. So the HKD (HK$) is stronger than the MOP (Macao Pataca) but the vendors and taxi drivers in Macau will gladly take your HK$s on a 1:1 basis given that most tourists go to Macau on a daytrip and won't bother getting local currency. But how much stronger would the HK$ have to be before the day trippers start realizing they're being ripped off and going to the Money Changer?
Likewise, if the Singaporean A level grade is worth more than a British one, then that's no different and just like the tourist on a day trip from Hong Kong, the admissions experts at the universities will stop treating them 1:1 if it is clear that they are delinked and are not worth the same. In any case, the offers made at the university level are individual offers: in the British UCAS system, you apply and the university evaluates each applicant on an individual basis and then you get an offer which can be unconditional or conditional: the latter would be like, "if you get AAB you have a place". So if the UK is indeed suffering from grade inflation, then the student in England will be asked to produce say AAA whilst the Singapore student be asked only do produce AAB or ABB to secure the same place in the course to take into account that the grades are not the same given the different system in Singapore.
2. Furthermore, when I was in VJC doing A level geography, my expatriate geography teacher from England gave us all these case studies to use from places in not just England, but near Cambridge so the person marking our scripts in Cambridge would be able to relate to these case studies. Other local teachers were giving their students case studies in places far away, so they were less familiar to the teachers marking the scripts. At the end of the day, having an Angmoh teacher who knows the mindset of the person marking the script can help a lot - not just in terms of having a superior method of teaching, but just knowing the system inside out.
3. And yes, the world isn't fair. It's not just about rich parents, I'll also be talking about caring parents who know how to nurture their children. We don't get to choose our parents, yet they have a massive impact in the early part of our lives. The world is massively unfair and I'm sure you realize that, but don't expect the universities or the gatekeepers of the world to rectify that problem. The only person who can help you is yourself.
4. Point taken. But we were all young and dumb at 16/17 years old. Not fair to paint all people who messed up their first year not knowing how the GPA system works with the same brush. Many of the brightest bulbs I know made big mistakes. Don’t pretend you are sitting on a high horse of superior morals and attitude. Heck, even the POTUS was part of a weed smoking clique. Wonder what kind of great childhood you had, mugging your ass off and doing jumping jacks on a trampoline. No one is telling you to be a doting father, if you are even one. But if you cannot accept the fact that uni rankings are not the be all end all, so be it. You are not the only gatekeeper in the world, and it’s not like you are working for Goldman anyway.
ReplyDelete5. You do your job. But you are in UK. I doubt you’ve even seen a single SIM applicant to your company. Funnily enough, UK boutique originators/syndicates (like the one you work in) still hire many lower tier UK uni grads. These are the same unis that offer their distance-learning courses under SIM-GE. LOL. Unless your whole firm actually came from OxBridge, I don’t see where your prejudice actually stems from. So yes, you are not qualified to have that false sense of grandeur. As if you are the gatekeeper in front of the biggest gate around.
6. If you are referring to loopholes as to going overseas to study and getting into a top tier school, then the issue is parent’s money. If it is something else, it is too vague. Be more specific.
7. I already mentioned, it is not hard to get into UCL. Maybe straight As for a non-bonded scholarship. But beyond that, you don’t have to be the brightest bulb. Just have a rich dad.
8. Don’t worry, I am not applying to your no-name firm anytime soon.
PS: For a 42-year old to tell a young padawan like me how to live my life. How I am a nobody and you are the judge, jury and executioner. How you are a success who blames your parents for being autistic...
All I can say is... ok, good for you buddy. LOL. Time to grow up. Age and mental maturity are not always correlated. As in the real-life case study here.
4. Aaah this is where we have to disagree - I don't believe we were all young and dumb at 16-17. I have seen 9 year olds with a stunning degree of maturity and I've seen 25 year olds acting like dumb kids. Whether you end up with a good or bad attitude really depends on the way you were nurtured in your younger days - your parents will be the main determinant of that, but otherwise you have teachers, coaches, other uncles & aunties along the way as well as older siblings/cousin who will set the mould for your young mind. Growing up, acquiring a good attitude is not something automatic like the onset of puberty, no the emotional process is quite complex and that's why we have a range of different kinds of attitudes out there - some good, some bad but not all the same.
Delete4a. Now can someone who is immature at 15-16-17 years old grow up and attain a better attitude by the time they reach employment age in their 20s? Yes, that is entirely possible. But then again, I'm looking for faults, I'm looking for reasons to say no, I'm looking for signs of imperfection and weakness. I do look at the bigger picture and as you clearly cannot read, like dude, serious reading comprehension failure - I have stated that I do look beyond university ranking at things like sports, music, work experience and anything else that can give me a good idea of what kind of person I am dealing with, especially when it comes to soft skills.
4b. I had a horrible childhood - let me be the first to admit it, it was grim, it was horrible. I had to make a lot of sacrifices because my parents were terrified of my gymnastics getting in the way of my studies and I had to constantly score straight As every step of the way, every test, every exam just to prove that I can cope with the demands of competitive sport at the highest level in the country whilst not letting my grades slip. I'm no paragon of virtue- I was the kid who suffered so much because the odds were stacked against me every step of the way.
4c. Sure some bright people have made mistakes along the way - but like I said, it's not for me to forgive them or redeem them. They have to do that for themselves, now that's not a point you seem to be able to grasp. Of course they can redeem themselves and prove themselves to be a success - but that's not my job to make that happen. I'm not a charity worker to help people like that.
4d. I'm merely telling you how people like me think - that's not all about me, me, me - I'm giving you an insight about what happens on my side of the table when we receive 100 or even 500 applicants for one position advertised. That is the reality with the big banks like Goldman Sachs, they probably get 10,000 applicants or more with each graduate position. So how do you go from 1,000 to one when you're trying to give everyone a chance and the benefit of the doubt? People like me are in the position of power, we're the decision makers, you may not like what we do but I'm like, tough shit, I don't even need to share our methodology with you because I don't need your permission or approval at all - you're not part of my world.
5. SIM represents just one of many private universities, there are plenty of other private universities like SIM out there. And it takes me a moment to work out the entry requirements for each university.
5. We have a comprehensive system when it comes to selecting the best candidates for the job - few candidates actually join us straight out of university, most have had a few years work experience at least and that counts for far more than the degree per se. So please don't just to wild conclusions based on what you think you know, just ask me and I'm happy to explain. There is more way to prove yourself capable in the eyes of a gatekeeper than getting into a good university - I have already covered this in the article, but clearly, it is another case of reading comprehension failure on your part.
Delete5a. You're once again shooting the messenger for the message - a lot of young people have no idea why they are rejected when they apply for a job. Gatekeepers rarely do more than send out a standard email with the line, "the position has been filled". I'm offering you a rare insight into how we operate - this is not, however, an invitation for you to challenge the way I operate. I think you're mistaken, if you don't like what I do, then I can only shrug my shoulders and say, tough shit. I can live with that.
6. Like I said above, find a way to impress the gatekeeper beyond your grades. This has been covered in the article already. You clearly speak English, but the issue here is reading comprehension failure on your part. You're so keen to attack me you don't even read what the hell I wrote.
7. Having rich parents are a blessing, for the rest of us, get over it. Life is gonna be harder. We just have to work harder to keep up with those blessed with rich parents.
8. Let's put it this way: even if you do have the grades to be granted an interview, you'll be weeded out early in the interview process for your bad attitude. And I'm not just speaking about myself, I'm talking about how gatekeepers operate in general. They are not here to offer the job to the smartest applicant with the highest IQ or the most deserving young person - no, they're here to weed out people like you with an attitude problem. I don't think you're stupid, not at all, but your attitude is your biggest enemy. I've already struggled enough over the last few decades to get to where I am, so I can be a complete dick to you but you still have to swim through many rivers of shit and face so many gatekeepers before you can arrive at a senior position in your life.
I don't envy you.
Bonus point for you: I have two friends who are around my age and they've left investment banking with some of the world's biggest investment banks to set up their own smaller, more esoteric companies. The reason why they left was because they were frustrated at how slow things moved in a big company like that - if you have a new concept for a new product, then the many layers of approval you need to obtain before you can pursue is frustrating. Whereas in a smaller company, you're the boss, you get to call the shots, you get to move fast in a dynamic business environment: an opportunity opens up, you swoop in and make a killing quickly before the guys at the big investment banks can write a report about it to present to the MD.
DeleteYou seem to think that big = better in the world of banking; that's clearly a fallacy. It is a different kind of ball game altogether - when you work for a big bank, they have deep pockets and they take all the risks but things move at a glacial pace sometimes because of the bureaucracy. In smaller companies, things are a lot more dynamics, though pockets are less deep - different people choose different work environments that suit their personalities. Bigger isn't better - it's just different.
The fact is a big bank like Goldman Sachs can employ a lot of lowly paid staff at the administrative level and they handle boring tasks like processing the huge volume of paperwork/data that passes through their trading floors. I have a colleague who left his job in one such big, impressive investment bank to work with my company now and at first I was like wow, you left that bank? But so many people wanna work there - turns out, he was one of those paying his dues, doing a boring job there, now he's got that on his CV and has moved upwards and onwards to earn far more money with us, in a far more senior position.
At the end of the day, there's no correlation between the amount you earn and the number of staff in your employer. You can be a small fry earning peanuts at Goldman doing a mindnumbingly boring task. Or you can be the king of your castle, doing something quite niche and esoteric but still raking in the millions because you're just so good at what you do.
That's something for you Singaporean students to think about.
Whoever Lyn is, that person is just spamming LFT with personal attacks. LFT is highly respectable for his calm in handling this and he is someone who is gifted and is contributing profitably to society. He simply has the courage and generosity to share his knowledge and experience - if he were selfish he could have just not responded. LIFT is an example of success of the education system, and it so deeply silly for mockers to gang on him. He has greatly benefited from the UK education system, from UCL a prestigious institution, just like the several capable UK-educated ministers in SG. If mockers are that jealous, they should try going UCL themselves rather than saying his friend this, his friend that. If only anyone can just get anything with money, even the kind of skills LIFT has. But if LIFT were rich to have got himself a place but yet also managed to be able to demonstrate his capabilities in holding himself well and excelling that he credits to his education from a top UK institution, then all the more he is very huat. SG is fortunate to have gifted leaders lead SG, but there are several countries which do not, but are led by half-bakes, cowards and the ungifted (which hindered the development of countries which would have a lot of potential due to their size, resources, etc.), and this is very dangerous for society. A lot of mockers also criticise these ministers not realising the futility of it all and the hazards that could be caused to stability of a small country like SG. That's why it is such a hard job for these ministers that only being paid well could be an incentive for them to continue in political roles rather than the private sectors. Those like Lyn - and there are many - should instead concentrate on being kind, so as to better society. Suppose that the poster went to a private uni, there is no point being defensive. They are already not comparable to NUS/NTU graduates, and it is actually hard for anyone to witness them try to victimise and make personal remarks on learned individuals like LIFT, it is very regrettable. There is already full of that going on in society: under-achievers blaming/finger-pointing at others for causing them to have been like that or putting over-achievers down - all these you would already have experienced yourselves through kindergarten, primary school, secondary school, JC, uni, basically every part of society where everyone around you freely acts openly without the responsibility to act as adults yet in the professional world. The only thing LIFT has probably "overlooked" is that he is too direct and frank, but this if it is a problem then it is a western world problem of political correctness that hasn't been doing much to efficiency.
ReplyDeleteHiya Lynette, thanks for your kind words.
DeleteI wouldn't put UCL on a pedestal - I think I learnt a lot from the experience but it was more a matter of being in a place like London, being taken out of my comfort zone, being able to meet a wide variety of people from different countries, from different backgrounds and really opening my eyes beyond what I grew up with in AMK. As for Lyn, here's the thing, I don't know anything about him/her - I don't even know his/her gender, never mind the first thing about his/her background, education or achievements. It is easy for him/her to hide behind a pseudonym and poke holes in my CV but ultimately, I'm the multi-millionaire in London who is working like 20 hours a week and taking about 12 weeks of holiday a year. So by all means find fault with me and criticize me for all the mistakes I've made but I'm not doing too badly at all. I'd love to see Lyn come out from behind the shadows and see what kind of degree s/he has and how much money s/he is making currently - because I'm sure quite a few of us would suspect that s/he isn't making much money, hence the bitterness and this rage, this motivation to attack me. Here's the thing: people who are perfectly content and happy with what they have don't feel the need to attack others like that, so one can only wonder what the hell is happening with Lyn's life.