Lamentations Of A Year Three TWC Student

Being the only year three in Technology and World Change (TWC) class is turning out to be quite an experience. Firstly, TWC is by and large a year one course. You get all sorts of rhetorical questions that don't expect an answer (I'm being rhetorical here) from friends pertaining to doing TWC in year three as a weird thing. My standard reply is that it's better than being a legendary year four TWC student.

Secondly, you get to make observations for all sorts of reasons. You can observe the behaviour of year ones to ascertain if (a) you were equally stupid when you were a year one, or (b) the apparent "intelligence level" of new students is declining by the batch.

I am inclined to think that the behaviour appears to be getting less and less intelligent. No matter how hard I try, I can't seem to recall any of my classes I endured in year one (or any other class thus far for that matter) being as mired in such seeming stupidity as my TWC class is. And I'm not blaming any individual in particular. I think a lot of this has to do with a systematic problem - there must be reasons why freshmen are becoming increasingly perceived as being more absurdly "unintelligent". There must be herd mentality related reasons why such behaviour is being extorted.

I think the level of competitiveness, channelled through a certain particular sense, has definitely risen. As the years go by, SMU is moving further and further away from its original ideal of being an institution with a student body that thought differently, critically and, dare I posit it, virtuously. The class participation, bell curve and GPA system, amongst other things, increasingly facilitates an incentive system that is exploited by disgusting yet effective tactics of quantity over quality. It doesn't matter what is being contributed when speaking up for class participation, as long as the professor notes the volume of your participation. It doesn't matter if the class learns something from your presentation, as long as you pretend to be able to cover as much analysis as possible, a lot of which is smokey nonsense. It doesn't matter if you lose some friends along the way, as long as your group forming strategy leads to assignments and presentations that go down well with the professor. What implicitly becomes increasingly emphasized, as encouraged by the incentive system adopted by SMU, is one's GPA as the only bottomline because it appears to lead on to a good resume and a job. If you thought your year was bad enough, wait til you observe the later batches. I couldn't even believe it myself, but it is happening.

I had a field day for my presentation in class today. When these kids were shooting our group questions during the Q&A of our presentation, you could practically feel the glee each one had in believing he/she had come up with the perfect question to send us packing. I happily served it right back to every single one of them. It was helluva satisfying, to say the least.

At least, the professor has proven himself to be someone who is passionate about knowledge. He spends each class patiently trying to pique our interest in tracing the development of technology through history, along which the rise of agriculture, the renaissance period, and various other milestones were discussed. I have definitely learnt a lot, and I enjoy listening to his explanations and descriptives about how technology has evolved over the centuries, much of which I believe I will takeaway with me forever. I get the strong suspicion that much of his enthusiasm is lost on the students with a different perception on the usefulness of this class though, and at the back of their heads each one is calculating how to "eliminate thy neighbour".

But let's be positive I guess. If anything particularly useful can be identified out of my three years of giving presentations and taking questions, it's that one should focus on knowing the material one is to present inside out rather than memorizing a stupid script and looking dumb in the process. Also, present with as much of a genuine intention to explain as possible. By really believing that you want to educate your classmates and let them know of an idea you have, you will establish a connection because you desire it and appear far more natural and understandable. Lastly, appear confident in everything you say, even if you know you're throwing an epic smoke grenade. This is facilitated of course by knowing the material so that even you'd convince yourself of your own confidence.

Blah, Seriously

The efforts of last week's prep for today's political science presentation totally went down the drain. I guess Rahul Sagar was just being particularly utilitarian (in the literal sense, not the ideology you pol science freaks) with regards to this presentation thing. In a sense he wanted this presentation to be a means of the group 'teaching' the class and then raising the topic of debate which he will then address, and he will sum things up after.

But perhaps time has been a constraint, so he decided to open things up by lecturing a little first, then letting us present. The problem was that he touched on so many things that we were gonna present on and eventually perhaps got somewhat impatient that we were reiterating what he had said and told us to skip parts of the presentation. I think we skipped about 3/4 of what we were gonna present.

So our presentation just looked really terrible.

I'm not that bothered pertaining to the grades although I know the possibility of this being a flunked presentation; I'm just feeling really blah in an extremely unfulfilled way that we really had a lot to offer but couldn't because of something we weren't fairly prepared for. And it kinda sucks to know that Angie and Benita, who both wanna major in political science and thus would take huge pride in this for, might potentially have their grades compromised due to this really ridiculous misadventure.

And the efforts man. Also, I liked this chapter alot because for once it wasn't so much about stuff like parliamentary systems, but rather about rationality which is really within my philosophical capacity to deal with.

On the bright side of things, I can take a breather of sorts now that a major project from an absolutely gargantuan module has been done with.

Anyway, this is really a personal opinion but I think sociology with a little more effort put into it would simply be political science. Sociology is such a half-assed subject to me that it's just like political science without the conviction of coming to some conclusive ends.

Chinese New Year's comin' and usually my family would have a personal reunion dinner together the day before CNY eve. It's been quite awhile since I last had dinner at home, or even a meal for that matter, and I missed dinner today though I could've easily just have went home early. I came home to a really huge spread that had gone cold on the table so I felt bad and that kinda sucked on hindsight.

Sucks that the laptop will be back only after CNY too, and all the doubled homework from not having any lessons for the rest of the week.

Actually one of the reasons, or perhaps the fundamental reason that led on to other things, of why I ended up going home late today was because a smart-assed me went to raise the philosophical morality question about God to Benita after class, and we (including Isaac and Angie) ended up talking about it for a solid hour after everyone else had deserted the classroom. It led me to revisit my own beliefs which I haven't talked about for quite some time, and they are beliefs I used to talk about with much fervour before I mellowed down, for whatever reasons (the understanding that nothing can be conclusive anyway, or just simply realising that I can be too imposing perhaps). But I think it might be quite useful for me to formally address this so that I can solidify what I think, rather than being really g4y and telling people that what I believe in entails a long story and procrastinate only to say it in the end in a really half-assed manner 'cos I cannot grasp my rusty train of thought. So yeah, I'm dedicating a post to that.



After you've heard two eyewitness accounts of an automobile accident, you begin to worry about history.

Today's Listenables:
I Am Ghost - We Are Always Searching