Friday, September 16, 2005
Its been 3 weeks since my last post. Sort of back from a hiatus of non-blogging because of my Mock Exams...So far i've only finished my Maths and Chinese papers and have another 4 more subjects to go, but nonetheless i'm just trudging through the notes and stuff, trying to make the best of the last week in school...

Been thinking a lot these days as well, particularly about university courses and future career prospects. I was looking at the London School of Economics, Cornell Uni, Uni of San Francisco and the two local unis NUS and SMU in particular detail, exploring the prospects of social sciences or business courses. I've thus reached a sort of tentative conclusion, that what will benefit me most in the future and yet is a course i will be interested in is a Double Major in Sociology and Marketing or stuff like DM in International Law and International Relations etc...Seems like a pretty nasty combination thats definitely gonna require a high entry requirements eh? Oh wells, guess i'll just have to dig deeper into my notes for my last 50 odd days.

My father really wants me to study in SMU after my NS, but i seriously am reluctant... Therefore, complimentary to studying hard enough and getting good grades to get into a good international (means good spread of international students) university, i decided to do some research on SMU to see if there's any truth to all that publicity accredited to it. Based on 2hr spent on surfing the NUS and SMU website,

1. Little acknowledgement with the IB, directly assuming that they are mostly of non-English background directly asking for SAT 1 or Toefl without reference to Eng A HL, IB students.
2. Entry prerequisites are low in comparison with overseas uni, requiring just passes in "Year 12 studies" for required subjects for almost all courses, including most subjects in the arts and business courses.
3. SMU does not provide accredited exchange programmes with excellent schools
4. IMO, the lecturers and modules are directed largely to Singapore's atmosphere of business or politics, especially in the Social Sciences courses.
5. Is it really necessary to learn "work & family", history, biology or physics modules for social science courses? my opinion is that i would desire a more focused educational course and specialise in a field i desire rather than to have to digress in areas and thread towards the analogy of "Jack of all trades Master of none".
6. SMU business course in Bachalor in Business Management only offers Marketing and Finance, and the social sciences focuses mainly on Economics as their forte.
7. In the SMU and NUS catagory for International students (i apply because i study the IB instead of the polytechnic or Junior College), there are special links for prospective students from India and China, whilst skimming through the other nationalities. This in fact really strikes me as familiar, just as before i came to TKIS, it was deemed as a school with a healthy international community, yet i came here to find out that 80% are from China. I really do not wish to make the same mistake twice again.

With regards to publicity, i have learnt a valuable lesson; the company or school can paint a really beautiful and desirable picture of itself, but to make sure you make the right choice, you have to really do extensive research as to which environment suits you best. If i could learn what i wanna learn, i think going to a very established school with plenty of experience and concurrent undertaking of new research will provide me with the best value-added education possible rather than one that just boosts facilities and contemporary education without much results to show for itself.

Till next time...

mel at 9:09 AM