Suddenly I feel sentimental and want to write something again, so I open this while keeping my 1st blog site frozen, still. Perhaps it would be frozen forever.
Last sem's results were released in "early" morning yesterday and me, Chris, Joeku and Guowei celebrated together. We forced each other to drink one shot of whisky (by Chris) for each cumulative 3 losses in bridge game. Great entertainment. And now Chris is down and half-dead, @.@. Funny. This was the first time that I really "celebrated" the release of results throughout my university life, and perhaps it gonna be the last time, or the second last time.
Now it's time to shift the focus back to the results and ruminate. My results aren't really good. By far this is actually the worst results of all semesters. I should have done better for both technical subjects, particularly the 4341, if not for the terrible mistakes that I had ever made. "It was an easy paper and I screwed it up! I know how to do and yet I screwed it up!!" To screw up a difficult paper is ok because most of the people do, but to screw a an easy paper, haha, it's just disastrous. I can still recall how disheartened were I after that exam.
Yet, these results are acceptable. Looking back into struggles that I had suffered along that semester both physically and mentally, I couldn't complain much, or rather, I should breathe out my relief heavily. That was the first time I let worry overrun me. --> That was the first time I've lost my motivation for study. --> That was the first time I didn't have enough time to finish the minimum level of revision. And now I had passed the most difficult period in my uni life, shouldn't I cheer for myself? Yes, I've made it!
At the same time, I do feel a bit sad for not having any more chance to prove myself at the top. Am I not good enough? Perhaps I wasn't really good then, it's my own illusion. Anyway I am not working as hard as those who are really going for it, so I don't deserve what they deserve to get also. But since it's over, it does not really matter now, haha.
After 16+ years of studies, I started to feel that I have had enough maybe because I enjoyed too much during INSTEP & IA. But If this kind of feeling sooner or later has to creep in, now it's the right time. What's the purpose of studying after all? It's to gain knowledge and skills to work, to earn your worthiness in the society. Time to prepare for real life and plan my future carefully.
What had university 's education really taught me? Basically nothing really useful except those subjects that's related to my future work. Anyway if I am going to do a job that's not related to my specialization, I need to learn new knowledge again. Ironically, university don't teach how to learn and how to think. With the exposure I had now, I don't really like the way they are teaching Engineering here, it's pretty sucks and useless.
Lecture - Tutorial - Exam. It's all fictitious, where's the practical part? How could one really comprehend and understand what he's learning without hands-on? Of what use to learn it if one don't know where he can apply to? In reality knowledge serves as a tool to produce something, in university knowledge is treated as the objective.
i) Why is there a need for students to memorize formulas? Formulas are created to facilitate problem solving, not created to be memorized. If I know the right formula to be used, why can't I refer to books for the exact term? Why is it fair to compare students by memory power but not understanding power?
ii) Why 100% of the grade comes from exams? Why isn't be balanced up by coursework? Although course work can be copied among friends, exam have it own shortcomings too, why is it fair that students are being evaluated purely on exams, with mock questions that has no practical value?
iii) Why practical hands-on of all subjects in 1 semester is carried out in a "LAB" subject that only weighs as poor as 1 AU?
iv) Why subject overlaps each other until it's like 3rd year subject == 2nd year subject's content + increased difficulty content? Who can remembered things that they learned one year ago for once? No one. So it's relearning process again. Does this really helps understanding or it's a sheer waste of time? We are already at University's level, and hence we should have the capability to understand knowledge. Do we still need foundation build-up? Don't we need concentrated and continuous efforts to comprehend knowledge?
v) Why in University we are still being taught passively? Professors plan the curriculum that students should learn and separate it into modules. Firstly, if the professor is not keep tracking with outside world then the content would be out-dated. Secondly, is this the way how people learn outside? People learn things to solve problems, and we learn things to solve problems in the future. There is big difference in motivation, cumulative insights and understanding in each context. Why can't we be given a simulated problem, figure out the necessary knowledge to learn and learn along the way?
Knowledge segregation by subjects, by time and knowledge feeding, are these really what I wish the University to teach me? I pay that much amount of money to learn that? Do we really need professors to teach or do we need mentors to guide? Has tertiary university system already been twisted by the scale up? Is it really that necessary for everyone? Is the university really supplying what the market demand? God knows.
Ah, I shall not care about this any more. Now I shall begin to prepare for the next phase of my life. I'm no longer a student~ :)
