Friday, June 10, 2005 , 7:24 PM
><))o> Why I chose NTU over NUS?
[Disclaimer: The following blog entry is purely my own opinion based on what I’ve witnessed. It is no intention of mine to defame any institution or to degrade it in any way. Anyone who wishes to read this entry, please be informed that my views although bias, are supported with visual and verbal evidences.]
#Just yesterday, I was checking my email when I noticed that NUS had send me an email expressing regret over my rejection of their offer, prompting me to do an online questionnaire as a form of feedback on why I turned down their offer. In the questionnaire, I expressed that NUS’ approach in getting prospective students to join them was (seemingly to me) intimidating and lukewarm. I do have my reasons when I made these comments…
#I dare say that NUS has always been my number one choice and it has never wavered until recently when I set out to find out more about NUS and NTU respectively.
#I went for NUS’ various open houses- NUS open house, FASS open house and Science Faculty open house. What struck me was that the talks presented by various departments never fail to bring out the face that NUS is doing every well on the ranking board (it always comes with slides which I never bother to interpret). “We are blah blah placing and blah blah placing locally, internationally, etc.” Perhaps the person who did the PowerPoint slides made it a point to include such information in each faculty’s PowerPoint presentation. However, it does appear to me that NUS is boasting their reputation as Singapore’s best university, which without a doubt, they are. It is a redundant move though…aright not so much as redundant but I don’t see any need to repeatedly emphasis that fact too much. Honestly, the whole point of a talk (in my opinion) should be about the institution’s or faculty’s vision, pedagogies and strategies to further nurture prospective students into useful citizens of tomorrow. That itself, is already a selling point.
#NTU, on the other hand, impressed me with their talk, which made their quality of education a focal point. There was nothing mentioned about rankings and achievements were mentioned in a hush hush manner without any elaborated, “firework-sort of display”. What touched me most was the willingness of professors (mind you!) who took prospective students on a tour around The School of Biological Sciences. These professors are definitely not paid to do this sort of things but their enthusiastic participation sent a strong signal to me that they are more than willing to go the extra mile for students. That alone, was enough to make me feel overwhelmingly welcomed! What about NUS then? There doesn’t seem to be any tours led by professors…or at least, not of any that I knew of. I also discovered that they have a penchant of making remarks that indirectly play down other universities, particularly NTU. One such remark, still etched in my heart, was made by the Dean of Science Faculty about how “some institutions added a molecular tag to their courses” to attract students while in actual fact, the coursework remains mostly unchanged. I sensed immediately that it was aimed at NTU, which had changed several titles of its courses to include some life sciences term. My bf felt the same way too…of course the dean has good intentions to make prospective students more aware so that they make well-informed decision s but I strongly believe that the dean could have put it in a better way, for example, “ I urged you to look up the coursework of the courses you are interested in, especially those that are offered by other institutions as well as NUS and not just make your decision based on the title of the course.” In this way, it would appear, as a goodwill gesture doesn’t it?
#So much for the different approaches by both NTU and NUS…there are also other factors constituting to why NTU was my choice.
#NUS offers a curriculum of 55% major and 45% minor/electives. Their aim of providing an all-rounded and holistic education (what a cliché) is simply not my cup of tea or coffee for that matter. After going through years of secondary and pre-u education, if there isn’t anything that I’ve realized, one thing I know for sure is that I don’t enjoy being the jack-of-all-trades! During my secondary school year, I find myself flopping Combine Humanities and Higher Chinese despite investing a large percentage of my energy and devoting most of my prayers (not that I prayed anyway!) to these two subjects. I can honestly swear that I would be at least a zillion times better of in other subjects if I don’t have these two subjects haunting me day and night. I am a Science student not an Arts student. If I were to put myself through that sort of torture in university and emerge as a “master at none” graduate, I will never forgive myself. Which is why I went for NTU whose degree covers about 70 to 80% of a particular major.
#Other less determining factors that come into play would be the outward appearance of the universities (NUS’ grey-tiled buildings and brick-red stairs just “dulls” me off while NTU’s circular, spacious School of Biological Sciences is more, much more actually, please to the eye), the location (NUS is located in an area where there’s a lot of bustle going on- too noisy for me, while NTU is nicely tucked away in a quiet corner-serene!) and of course, friends (I’ve Intan with me- back to our JC days when we take train rides to school together and some NIE trainees whom I got to become friends with during my teaching stint at CSS). Of course I have friends at NUS whom I will miss not be able to see them much…
#There you have it…the above reasons are why NTU is my choice and not NUS. I hope no one is offended with my argument..=)
