Saturday, November 23, 2013

It has been a while.

So I've been neglecting this blog for like almost the entire semester I guess? It isn't exactly because I'm too busy and also not because I have nothing to say. Lazy is probably the best explanation. :P Life has been pretty awesome for me. Loving uni life like crazy! I'm really really glad/lucky to be in University at Buffalo (SIM)! I love the American system, I love the instructors (they do not believe in lecturers/professors) and of course I love all the friends I've made! As much as everyone is judging the American system as a lousy one and unsuitable for Singaporeans because it is too slack, I beg to differ. Remember TLLM in secondary school? Teach Less Learn More. It is precisely what we are doing in SIM-UB. I'm not saying that the local uni isn't good because come on, who wouldn't want to have a NUS/NTU/SMU degree if they have the ability to right? I'm just trying to say that if I was exposed to the American education system earlier and IF I had the grades to enter local universities, I would have considered my choices with an insane amount of stress. Reason? Because after all these years of hardcore studying (especially in JC), I've learnt a lot about myself in terms of academics. Lazy may be a way to describe myself but I figured I'm not a person who can work well with exams, exams and more exams. In particular, those with high percentages like 70-80% of the entire grade! Doesn't that sound insane? In SIM-UB, our finals are generally around 20-30% because they do not believe in grading a student just based on a single examination. Which I totally agree with! Of course, instructors are allowed to create their own syllabus in my school i.e. choose their own number of exams, assignments and their respective weightage. And I do have some instances where my final examination is around 40% but it is seldom the case because most of my instructors are more interested in the process of learning. Sociology, this is another decision that I would never ever regret in my life. Although I gotta admit, I am pretty worried about my future - if I can actually find a job, not to mention a high-paying one. With all the modules that I've had in the past four semesters, it just further enhances my belief that I made the right choice! Social Change, Mass Cultural Studies, Social Diversity, Medical Sociology, Individual & Society Studies, World Civilizations AND Criminology next semester! How awesome are these mods! I'm actually kinda sick of explaining to people who have no idea as to what Sociology is about. It is basically the study of our society. Yes, it may sound stupid to some of you because what we learn may seem like common sense to you and engineers (like my brother) just find it meaningless to get a degree on something that we already know about. You are wrong. Just like any other liberal arts degree, we are studying about things that we already know but obviously not in the layman terms. Furthermore, in sociology, we learn why our society is behaving in such a manner. We reflect about life so to speak. We study patterns and try to fit pieces into a puzzle. We try to find a reason to justify why human beings behave in a certain way when we are not supposed to (okay I'm not going to go further because I'm just gonna blabber on about all the stuff I've learnt). Sociology is an extremely meaningful degree to me. I'm gonna maximize my learning for the upcoming two years and cultivate my mind! Hopefully my dream to make a difference in this world is still going to come true.

My mind is maturing, ain't it? Haha! :)

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