SMU: Victim of its own success?

(Inspired by Mark and Daryl’s posts)

Once upon a time, when the giants NTU and NUS ruled the Singaporean university scene, a little known kid called SMU appeared from nowhere, and said,

“Ahem.”

NTU and NUS turned their noses up and ignored the newcomer, and it was easy for them to do so, because everyone else wasn’t paying any attention to little SMU either, so young and inexperienced as he was.

But SMU was undeterred. He felt that the old system needed to be changed: lecture halls filled with hundreds of students fervently copying notes as fast as the professor could utter them, lack of interaction between students and professors, a lacklustre environment where most students felt nameless, faceless, soul-less…

So he called for an era of change.

“No more crowded lecture halls, but small class sizes where students get to interact with professors!”

“We interview each and every applicant to see if he can fit into the culture, because grades aren’t everything!”

“We don’t want to reward mere memorisation of facts, let’s include group projects and class participation!”

“SMU. Because we’re different!”

It was indeed, at the time, revolutionary. It was a wonderful message indeed.

Unfortunately, not everyone was ready for such a message. Society wasn’t ready for such a message.

Thus, most people viewed those who went to SMU as rejects of NUS and NTU, or worse, mavericks who were taking a silly risk.

But the mavericks, they didn’t care what society thought. They knew that they had something special, and in fact they held a particular pride in bucking the trend, a veritable “screw you” to the naysayers.

Skip ahead a couple of years, and the world suddenly changed. Suddenly graduates from SMU looked real impressive. They were smart, they were confident, they were great communicators and most important of all, they were hired. They were indeed different.

Now, public opinion is truly a funny thing. Suddenly, the little nobody SMU became the young upstart everyone was talking about, and NUS and NTU started feeling hot under their collars a little bit. Soon, they too were talking about being “multi-disciplinary”, “broad-based” and “interactive”.

And when applications for universities opened once again, SMU found itself inundated with applications, and by the best and the brightest, no less.

Soon enough, as these things do, things started to change.

The grade criteria for entry into the different schools suddenly became way higher than ever, and took more precedence.

Class participation became a dirty word, and everybody knew (and hated) that guy who “talked for the sake of talking”.

Competition between students became the norm. Everybody tried to top each other in everything, and the dreaded “bell curve” made things even worse.

The library became a second home to most students, “break week” was a misnomer, and going to school on  a Sunday became the norm.

And the school suddenly became way.too.crowded.

Suddenly, “being different” started looking like exactly the same.

——————————————————————————–

To answer the question I posted in the title of this post, yes, I do believe SMU has become a victim of its own success. There was a time I was truly proud of being from SMU. These days…not so much. Sure it’s a business school, but the level at which the rat race has crept into university life is truly something a lot of us find hard to believe. Some say it’s because of the city campus, some say it’s the marketing, some just say… hard luck, that’s the way the cookie crumbles.

Call me idealistic, but I think SMU had something special in the beginning, and somewhere along the way, it lost the plot somewhat. I think I’ve been luckier than some in that I got to do something I truly believe in, something beyond getting the perfect grades, and I truly hope that everybody gets to experience this in some form or another. Life is not all about that perfect presentation, that A+ that you spent all your time in the library for, or that ungraded presentation that for some reason became yet another game of one-upmanship.

Don’t get me wrong, I know some of the most talented and intelligent individuals in this school, but most of us agree that things just aren’t the same anymore.

SMU, revisit your ideals once more. Then ask yourself, am I shortchanging those that believed in me from the start? If the answer is yes, then let’s change the situation. It isn’t too late.

social media brekkie fun

Calling all bloggers, podcasters, twitter users, youtubers, Facebookers, etc

Do you feel extremely guilty when you don’t blog for a day? (I’m looking at you, Amelia!)

Do you feel a constant need to check on Twitter and update about anything and everything?

Do you feel like Facebook is the answer to all of life’s most important questions? (ie. Where in Singapore is Mas Selamat?)

Are you on forever on youtube, and were you one those people who sent that video of the MDA rap to all of your friends and asked them to send it to all of their friends?

Are you so into social media that friends have been known to threaten to cut off all ties with you?

Congratulations! You’re a social media junkie!

Here’s the good news:

You are not alone.

Yes, there are others like you! (yayyy) And we’re all meeting in safe, secure environment where others won’t hurt us or call us names (remember, sticks and stones, sticks and stones) and where we can discuss our grand plans on how to take over the world.

What? Social Media Breakfast - Singapore

When? 29th March 2008

Where? Frujch at SMU

Thanks so much to Derrick and Daryl for arranging this! I am super duper excited and it’s my pleasure to hold it at Frujch for you guys.

More details will be released soon!

How Facebook groups help in hunt for fugitive in Singapore

Perhaps some of you may be unaware. There’s a massive manhunt going around now in Singapore. On 27th February, Wednesday, Mas Selamat Bin Kastari, alleged leader of the Singapore arm of the militant Islamic group Jemaah Islamiah, escaped from detention and sparked a massive manhunt involving thousands of policemen and Gurkhas. In addition to posters being pasted everywhere including MRT stations and bus doors, telcos Singtel, Starhub and M1 are also sending out free MMSes to users with photos of the alleged terrorist and citizens are on high alert.

I find a certain development particularly interesting:

Proliferation of Facebook groups related to the manhunt

While I anticipated the Facebook group Where in Singapore is Mas Selamat, which basically tries to drum up more awareness for the manhunt, I did not anticipate this:
Instant ORD for Mas Selamat Capture. The second group, with the most members at 149 strong last I checked, is decidedly cheeky in tone. It is even classified under the category “Just for fun - Totally Pointless”. Taken from the group profile:

A little background on this fellow MAS ‘the mat bomber’ SELAMAT:
Singapore’s most dangerous man, who once plotted to hijack a plane and crash it into Changi Airport was thrown into jail, and was not heard of till he masterminded one of the greatest escapes in modern history; walking out of the back door of a detention centre’s toilet. The man with a limp in his left leg has been able to evade the authorities since. Commandos, Guards, Gurkhas and thousands of policemen have been on the lookout for him, some standing 5 metres apart just in case The Flash blitzes past them. Still, we feel our comrades in arms could do better, so we have outlined a detailed proposal to the government:

MINDEF SHOULD OFFER AN INSTANT ORD FOR HIS CAPTURE!

OUR SOLDIERS NEED MORE MOTIVATION!!!

So ladies and gentlemen, give me your 2 cents on his possible location.

My take is pretty obvious, “one corner”

Does it make light of a very serious situation? Yes. Is it totally pointless? I’d say no. Even as the group owner adopts a very light tone, I feel that he has succeeded in increasing awareness of a very serious situation. At the very least, he is making Mas Selamat’s face even more recognisable among Facebook users, which can’t be a bad thing can it?

As to the escape itself, many are asking how exactly he could have escaped from detention in a country that has prided itself on prudent internal security, and many questions remained unanswered.

ORD: Operationally Ready Date, the date that determines the end of the obligatory 2 years of national service.

mat: slang referring to a Malay male.

one corner: refers to slang that usually goes with “relax one corner” or “relak one corner”. Associated with the use of the term “mat”.

To read about the Mat Rocker sub-culture, see this site.

holiday, or so it seems.

I just came back from Indonesia this morning at 2am, and man, though I was looking forward to a brief hiatus from the humdrum of school and work, my holiday turned out to be not so enjoyable after all. Today, when people asked me how my trip was, I really really wanted to be able to say “Great! I really didn’t want to come back!” but the sad truth is that I almost wish that I had stayed in Singapore to clear some of the work that needed to be done.

There were some highlights during the trip though. (photos will be posted soon)

I got to eat some really awesome local delicacies (the result of which has resulted in me going on a detox now that I’m back. Damn the high correlation between going on a holiday and being extremely gluttonous!)

I attended a wedding of a family friend who is my age (which thus prompted the inevitable “So when are YOU getting married?” accompanied by a prod to the rib).

I indulged in a little retail therapy (jackets, leather bags, watches, donuts, etc).

I got to practice my Bahasa Indonesia a little more (though I am certain that my Singaporean eccentricities betrayed my true nationality)

I do admit that my trip wasn’t that bad, though everytime I visit Indonesia I long for Singapore’s efficiency, obedience to traffic rules and lack of visible corruption (hmm).

The only reason why I don’t give up entirely on trying to understand her is because my Dad is, and will always be, Indonesian first. If understanding Indonesia is one way I can understand him, then I guess, it will be well worth the effort.