JYSim for jobless-yokel Sim

Twice in the same week Speora and Benjamin approached me telling them they were accepted into Purdue and La Trobe respectively. Before I have the opportunity to say ‘congrads’ they followed eagerly telling me their U rankings.
First and foremost, allow me to wish all of those who got into glamorous universities around the world congratulations and may your 4 or 5 or 7 years in U be as meaningful as the 5 years you’ve spent in CLHS. (This comes from the first university scholar among you guys, so stop yawning and listen carefully) You might find university education a total evolution from what you’ve experienced in high school. There might be no textbooks at all, and some lecturers prefer giving homework than teaching, so in order to pass you will have no choice but to bear with it. And after the pile of reports (which weights only 30% of your finals), here comes endless tests and quizzes and exams and attendance taking and participation in class etc. Some good lecturers will schedule homework at the start-of-term, so to prevent yourself from crumbling to pieces finishing them the night before,  be sure you complete it on schedule and that your lifestyle doesn’t changes drastically just because it’s a 2-page report.
Anyway, back to the point, while aiming for universities with good rankings is something you should do while struggling through calculus, please do not see only the rankings. A university is not like high school where each and everybody studies the same thing and every student takes a final exam eventually and graduate with a BSc. If an U can be described as an organism, then the numerous faculties and departments inside it are the vital organs. Some departments in some universities are famous, thus glorifying the university. Comparitively, some other departments in the same university might not be that good, but because another department is good, thus people assume it’s good. For example, if A says he’s a Chinese Language graduate from Harvard (assuming Harvard has a Chinese Language Department), will you take more notice of the ‘chinese language department’ or ‘Harvard’?. If B is another Chinese Language major from Tsing Hua University, who would you have more confidence in?
Also, university rankings done by worldwide research institutes might not be accurate at times. For example, an Australian research institute will tend to list more Australian universities in front (by altering the judging characteristics or score-giving conditions). Times and CNN (both American), will of course clutter all the States’ U up front and advertise it through their 24-hour news channle (which our Higher Education Department believed and ultimately find excuses into denying UM has deteriorated). The main problem is - universities can’t be ranked. Every university has its own specialties and it’s impossible to award scores just because ‘majority of employees prefer graduates from X than Y’. What if X breeds graduates that are only good at taking orders and have no opinions of themselves (and thus loved by big bosses)? Or just because Y list ‘Workers’ Rights’ as one of their subjects and thus Y graduates demands more (because they know what they can ask for)?
So how do you find a U that, most importantly, you like, and second, which allows you to become what you are? Throw away the ranking chart for once, please. Your future employee won’t simply hire you because you’re from Cornell or depose me because I’m from TCU.
Being a CLHS alumni, it’s useful to use the links now or never, in my opinion. Seek information from worldwide alumni and bear the trouble sometimes, if there’s any. Choose the U which is best at the faculty which you’re going in (for example education in USM, that’s before the government scrapped all education departments from the U to be merged into Kolej Pendidikan). It’s never fun to hang around being discriminated by those medic and business students just because you’re majoring in European History in Harvard. The department you’re going into should provide sufficient advancement prospects (i.e. post-grad courses, established profs. working on famous researches etc).
Finally, choose the U which is located in a city or town you prefer. This is the scenario here - most students yearn the busy lifestyle in Taipei or Kaoshiung and they are like always sulking because there’s no Eslite Bookstore (24-hour mega bookstore) or MRT around. Then you would listen to seniors and find every opportunity to go biking around. Then, without enough safety precaution, and with Taiwan’s chaotic traffic, you would involve in an accident and your parents will have to fly in exclusively in a chartered flight just to see you lying in the hospital bed immobilised for the next 4 months.
If you like something like Penang, with good food, convenient traffic and (what else?), then go somewhere where the local population is about 1.5 mil (as in Penang). If you like Kuala Lumpur and it’s nightlife, snatch theives, smoggy air, massive traffic jams, frequent flash floods, bad food and irregular public transport, then go to Shanghai or Taipei.
It saddens me more when Speora tells me he’s a show-off guy and he want to make his parents proud by going to a good university (regardless of which department he’s in). Point is, your parents will definitely put more priority in your happiness and how much you’ve learnt than you going to Harvard and making then proud. This is your choice and your life, so don’t pick just to make another person happy.
I rest my case.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 14th, 2006 at 8:19 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.