Educational Regrets
I saw this entry from mr wang's blog. Very intriguing and we were actually discussing it just now with 3a people (low, ds, john, zy) during dinner after the orientation at ntu.
In his entry, he quoted a Strait Times report that said "More than half of workers in S'pore regret choice of study". I could not find the article anyway in the Thursday edition and could only read the summarised version online.
Let's talk about the tertiary level, places in each course is pretty limited, and you need really good grades to gain any chance in entering the more popular courses. So in the end many people end up with their 2nd or 3rd choice. So I guess that is why more than half of workers in Singapore regret their choice of study. Quite a few friends of mine have told me they don't really like their course but they had no choice as their grades weren't good enough to get into the courses they want. So in the end, one decides to be pragmatic and choose the course that will earn him decent money in the future.
While on the secondary/junior college level, I would think that most people take the subjects because of pragmatic reasons or whatever their elders/parents tell them which are more practical to study. Subjects like physics, chemistry are taken because you then "will have more courses to choose from in university" while subjects like literature, history are not encouraged as they have less "practical" use.
But of course I have friends who already knew what they like to do and what their interest are and are now actively progressing in the direction of their goal. And I actually quite admire them for their risk-taking behavior/courage to do what is not considered as the norm.
While some of us cannot get to their first choice courses in the tertiary institutions, we can actually choose to do the kind of job we like and enjoy to do, when work no longer becomes work. So I urge everyone to be brave and be daring to do something you really like even if it is not the one the society or economy likes.
les
In his entry, he quoted a Strait Times report that said "More than half of workers in S'pore regret choice of study". I could not find the article anyway in the Thursday edition and could only read the summarised version online.
Let's talk about the tertiary level, places in each course is pretty limited, and you need really good grades to gain any chance in entering the more popular courses. So in the end many people end up with their 2nd or 3rd choice. So I guess that is why more than half of workers in Singapore regret their choice of study. Quite a few friends of mine have told me they don't really like their course but they had no choice as their grades weren't good enough to get into the courses they want. So in the end, one decides to be pragmatic and choose the course that will earn him decent money in the future.
While on the secondary/junior college level, I would think that most people take the subjects because of pragmatic reasons or whatever their elders/parents tell them which are more practical to study. Subjects like physics, chemistry are taken because you then "will have more courses to choose from in university" while subjects like literature, history are not encouraged as they have less "practical" use.
But of course I have friends who already knew what they like to do and what their interest are and are now actively progressing in the direction of their goal. And I actually quite admire them for their risk-taking behavior/courage to do what is not considered as the norm.
While some of us cannot get to their first choice courses in the tertiary institutions, we can actually choose to do the kind of job we like and enjoy to do, when work no longer becomes work. So I urge everyone to be brave and be daring to do something you really like even if it is not the one the society or economy likes.
les
posted by yaogui at
12:23 AM
