I stumbled upon Rachel’s blog yesterday where she mentions the gist of what a professor said in class:
Two weeks ago, my Comms professor gave a farewell speech to commemorate the end of the module. In his speech, he shared with us what the seniors thought of us. To paraphrase what he said – you freshmen are tarnishing the image of SMU. If the freshmen keep on their chao mugging ways, then that will be the end of SMU. SMU will just be the same as NUS and NTU, no difference. ‘Coz when SMU first started, they accepted the “not so good” students, students who weren’t able to get into NUS or NTU. However during their time in SMU, they excelled and earned SMU her reputation. They managed to show Singapore that they were different from the mainstream universities and that we were special. But alas, the kiasu-ism of Singaporeans has crept into the culture of SMU freshies. Instead of focusing on the whole, we focus on part. So, what are we going to do about it?
It’s easy to look at posts from myself and Mark and Nabilah and say “Oh these people are jaded yr 3s and yr 4s in school whining.” But no. People who have been in school and seen previous batches pass out see the problem as well.
So has Rachel says, what are we going to do about it?
Tags: lack of smu culture, SMU, smu school culture, smu student life
Daryl's Blog 
April 17, 2008 at 11:55 pm |
Not everybody is experiencing SMU the same way, coming from the “newer” second-years. Not everyone is subscribing to the whole kiasu, chao-mugger mentality. I don’t even know what that phrase mean exactly. Someone who studies by rote? someone who does nothing but studying?
Look into the significant differences across our schools. My experience in social science is considerably different than my SIS counterparts. I’m sure this is true if we compared notes from those in business, econs and accountancy. The system works in social science because it’s impossible to “mug” for a political science or a sociology exam.
It’s a matter of individual choice. Just stop calling this “chao-mugger” talk the SMU culture. Culture is something cultivated over long periods of time, entrenched and embedded where change happens incrementally. If there is such a large intergenerational difference between a simplistic dichotomy of “year 4s and year 3s” and “year 2s and year 1s”, is it really the SMU culture now? Nope. It’s the Singapore culture I believe.
hahah this is long enough to warrant its own post.
May 1, 2008 at 7:31 pm |
SIS students are not muggers.
Although we spend alot of time in school grounds, its not because we want to, but its because our curriculum forces us to. Our modules are very technical oriented and project-based.
Even if we want to take a break, we can’t, because we’re always going from one deadline to another. If you ask our guys around, they’ll tell you that we’re just struggling trying to survive through every semester. We don’t even have the time to mug like our counterparts in the rest of the University.
Our mean GPA is lower than the other schools because of the intense workload we have.
Please do not classify us as muggers, because, it is unfair. Even if we want to be muggers, we don’t have the time to mug at all 😦
We want our lives backkkk.