I have never been in a school that is so radical. Radical in terms of work, competition and the pursuit of the A+. Speculations attribute this to the change in curriculum, and the dragon-year students. The latter of which does sound plausible, but still, competition is as rife as the general consensus amongst the tertiary population of girls in SMU who wear make-up and mini-skirts.

Did I mentioned that Academic Writing inculcated a fear (or even loathing) for writing? I constantly joke that if I could do well in that, I could jolly well graduate with a doctorate right away! The module mostly trains all of us to write research papers. ‘Us’ as in those who are unfortunate enough to be from polytechnics and not fair very well for their GP in ‘A’ Levels. When a JC guy heaved a sigh of relief, thankful that he needn’t take that module, I feel a certain discrimination dividing the academic intellect. That is, between those who escaped it, and those who have to grit their teeth and suffer through their apparent lack of academic writing skills.

Project meetings are the norm here in SMU. I mean, not attending even one (for me, at least) is like a life-and-death situation. That’s for the majority of us – thankful I don’t need to face the nightmare-ish members who will only turn up as the please / turn up occasionally / don’t turn up at all. Still, when I’m at meetings with the laptop turned on, I basically fall into the second and third category anyway.

And that much sought after A+. It reached a point where there can only be one. If you’re good, you’re good. If you suck, you just suck. There’s always this murmur-laughter that follows whenever the professors say that grades are not important, but learning is. Yes, I see myself regressing to that laid-back thinking that was so symbolic of me back in my polytechnic days. Cause’ what can being cautiously overly studious bring you? Evening out the bell-curve distribution of grades?