School

The Wait Has Ended

/ Fiona Seah / 9 Comments

I’m typing this while waiting for my poor baby to knock off (yes, it’s 1:43am now and he’s still slogging at work). Poor thing 😦 He’s aging so rapidly due to work on top of school and other projects that he undertook. Perhaps I should reward him when I get my pay.

Anyway yes I know I haven’t been updating my blog as promised because I’m just too lazy to upload my pictures and link them all here! Typing the HTML code is hard work ok? Hahaha I’ll probably do those entries when I have the time. For now…

Well last week I was told to attend an admission interview at NTU. The lady gave me a missed call when I was at work and I ALMOST didn’t want to call back (darling taught me not to return missed calls from any unknown number). So before I did, I actually went to Google on the number and the results gave me “…linguistics.hss.ntu.edu.sg…”. My reaction to that will come as a surprise to anyone: *imitates Barbarella* I WAS DEVASTATED. Why? Because Linguistics was my THIRD choice and I so badly wanted to enter into my first choice which was Art, Design and Media 😦 Having told to go for an interview for a THIRD choice simply meant that I was rejected for my first and second choices. Sigh, my GPA that bad meh? It’s above average ok? Hahaha..

Nevertheless I agreed to go for the interview. Maybe if I get accepted into Linguistics I would appeal for my preferred choice. I was also told that there would be a 30-minute written test before the interview. *Panic mode* I don’t know if I can still write flowery since I’ve been so used to news writing style. So I spent the next few nights reading up on Linguistics and searching for potential interview questions 😛

Got lost in NTU on the interview day and was late by about 5 minutes even though I left the house earlier than planned! But thank God I wasn’t the only latecomer. In the waiting room were 4 other interviewees – probably Poly students like myself too. And I saw TWINS. Like cool sia how often do you see twins going for interview on the same day for the same course of study? Anyway the room was damn quiet and several times I wanted to break the ice.. but dared not because they all looked so ‘dao’ and the ‘don’t-play-play-with-me’ kind. 😦

For written test, we were given only ONE side of the paper (the question is at the front) to write and this has to be done within 30 minutes. In my opinion… the question was relatively easy (shall not reveal what was asked). I had no trouble answering it at all. Maybe I was just lucky enough not to have writer’s block early in the morning 🙂

Subsequently we were called into a professor’s room one-by-one for an interview. The moment I saw her name I was like, “Confirm Korean” because she shares the same surname as BoA 😛 Just like my idol, she’s really nice and friendly. The interview was really casual and informal, like I could totally air my thoughts without having to worry if the interviewer would shoot me down for a politically incorrect answer. Of course, being an ADMISSION interview, I was asked a few tricky questions like:

“Why was Linguistics your third choice instead of your first?”

Thank God this questions came across my mind before and I really pondered hard before I went for the interview. Darling also suggested a few answers and probably that’s what satisfied Prof Kwon.

And one super impromptu and unprepared one like: “Oh you studied French! How do you say “The weather is fine” in French?”” I was like O_____O that really really caught me off guard.  I was like, “ERRRR.. I kinda forgot because the French I learned was only the BASIC. I could tell you the back part.. something something tres bien” To that, she laughed. HAHA yah lah I also found it quite silly and funny. Geez -___-

I went on to describe the similarities between CASS (my faculty in SP) and LMS (Linguistics and Multilingual Studies) like how we are so NEW and SMALL as compared to other faculties in campus. Unlike NBS which is like so huge and crowded and saturated, we are somehow so bonded that lecturers even hang out with the students after class.. and I really like that. With that, Prof Kwon gave me an approving nod and continued to elaborate on life in LMS. Hehehe!

Then before concluding the interview she asked if I had any questions. UH HUH plenty!!

This may seem very desperate but.. “So when would I know the outcome of this interview?” in which she replied, “I’m not very sure but it should be next week :)”

“I also understand that LMS is a very new faculty and there is no graduates yet. So what are some achievements of LMS?” In other words, how does the school which is not well-known yet ATTRACT new applicants? Her answer was somehow about the projects their current students are working on and how they have been exposed to various experiences yadda yadda..

Left the room on a happy note 🙂

And yesterday…

I got an envelope in my mail box intended for me…

Admission letter from NTU

Oh ma gad 🙂

After considering for 2 days, I’m not sure if I still want to appeal. Reason being:

  1. Design is so subjective and subjectivity ALWAYS cause me to lose marks in graded projects. I know because I’ve been through so many design-related experiences. The moment I step into Uni I’m all set to get first class honors! -chiongster-
  2. You’ll never get enough rest if you’re in the design industry. And as you know I love to sleep 😦
  3. ADM has the lowest cut off point of all courses (seriously, among courses in NUS, NTU and SMU) because portfolios are prioritised and seriously considered. I don’t want to be seen as an academically weak student all over again -_- It’s depressing.
  4. No doubt art students from all over Singapore would be applying into ADM and honestly, I really think I’m not as good. As a result I could suffer academically. This is not a matter of low self-confidence but really mah. What I learned in Poly were advertising-related. I wasn’t required to master Photoshop, Illustrator and other design software. 😦

However if I remain in LMS:

  1. What if I don’t have any interest in Linguistics? From what I read it’s very theoretical 😦 I want more hands-on.
  2. The last time I checked, studying Linguistics doesn’t give you very bright career prospects in my opinion. Alumni are really limited to positions as a interpreter, translator, teacher (actually anybody with reasonable qualifications can be a teacher. And why should I be a teacher when I choose to study Linguistics? I may as well go to NIE -_-), editor, writer, publisher and etc. More can be read here. The so-called career prospects are quite hard to find in Singapore don’t you think? :\
  3. What if my cert is not recognised because LMS is a new school? 😦
  4. I hate explaining. So I get really annoyed when people start going “Huh?” or “What’s that?” when I tell them what I’m studying – OK very bimbotic and lazy mindset but that’s just me.

Questions, questions, questions… Why is life so full of uncertainties and dilemmas?

Or should I just reject NTU and study veterinary science overseas instead? HAHAHA Just kidding. No money.

And for the record, I only applied for NTU.

I guess that spells GG for me. 😦

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

/ Fiona Seah / 2 Comments

Just two weeks ago I had to hold a discussion on the impact of Google in front of the class.

Google in this case refers to the internet in general. You see, Google has essentially impacted our lives so much that people start associating it to the world wide web despite it being launched only 4-5 years AFTER Yahoo! – a search engine we thought was such a big deal. Disagree? Now just how many times have you used the term “Google” when you supposedly mean you need to look something up?

When I did my research I stumbled onto Nicholas Carr’s renowned article about Google (titled the same as this post). I can’t help but to agree – Google is indeed making us think less and more dependent on it for information. It’s like, our depth of thinking never expanded since the we started relying on the internet for answers. We assume it knows everything, and sites like Answers.com and Ask___.com aren’t helping either.

I have personally come across students posting their discussion topics/questions (supposedly given by their school teachers) online. By that I mean, seriously the entire question copied and pasted. Only a handful of the respondents realised his laziness and refused to share the answer. But majority of them actually painstakingly did! It was surprising, and that also proves how the internet has slowly led to the reduction of hard work we put in our research.

And another thing that Carr pointed out was our attention span when it comes to reading. I bet many of us experience that as we’d merely skim through long articles. For myself, I wouldn’t go beyond 4 paragraphs if it isn’t about sex, crime or anything else newsworthy. It would be a torment to read ONE page of text. That’s because internet has allowed us to CHOOSE from a wide variety of information. We click on the first few search results on Google and exit the pages less than 5 minutes after we enter them – solely because they don’t have what we wanted. As a result the way we read suffers and you’d probably find yourself losing focus after awhile. If you never realised that, think back about that one time you were studying for a test. Didn’t you get fidgety after reading a few sentences?

Now with Twitter it seems to worsen the matter. Because of its 140-word only policy, we find ourselves accustomed to reading short texts. So when lecturers need you to read 3 pages from a textbook it’d be equivalent to shooting you in the head. At this rate, textbooks would have to be HEAVILY simplified so that they don’t bore students so easily. We want the details to come *snaps* FAST. So.. really, would engaged readers eventually cease to exist?

However to be fair, we also need to look at the other side of the coin. Without the internet, we’d still be living in our own world, not knowing what is happening around us. With Apocalypse (natural disasters, global warming etc) approaching, we need to equip ourselves with knowledge to survive. And the Internet has helped us a lot in this aspect. We also need to constantly adapt to changes. So in other words, the Internet COULD HAVE also made us smarter in another way.

Some argue that ultimately how much we use the Internet is within our control. It’s our responsibility – which I, too, agree.

So what’s your take in this? If I have to make a stand, I’d say yes – Google does make us stupid. But I’m willing to be stupid as long as it keeps me alive.

You in 2050

/ Fiona Seah / Leave a comment

Sometimes I really count myself lucky to be born in Generation Y when somehow inventors got smarter and started creating things that would make our life a whole lot easier. When handphones with built-in cameras and (slow) internet were launched about 7 years back, I thought that was already the peak of technology and it would probably stop there because I couldn’t think of other ways to make a phone more awesome. But heck, I was WRONG. Then came iPhone with those interesting applications that even hooked my 55-year-old aunt onto them. At this rate, I really wonder how technology would further evolve in the next 40 to 50 years (of course ignoring the HEARSAY that the world would end in 2012)?

Would we be able to control technology with our hands? Unknowingly we may have already experienced the first few stages of it. See how we use our fingers to control the settings on our Mac Books? One finger to move the cursor, two to scroll and four to (in Windows term) minimize and maximize windows. If Steve Jobs and his men are able to ditch the touchpad while still allowing us to do the aforementioned and MORE, I’m pretty sure life as we saw in Minority Report would be achievable 🙂

Actually movie directors seem to have better insight into the future. Perhaps when I celebrate my 60th birthday (if I can live that long) I would have already worked in an underground facility that is controlled by super computer. Yes, what you see in Resident Evil may just jolly well come true. And be careful when you sleep, as someone may just extract information from your unconscious mind when you dream. 😛

8 years ago when Minority Report was released, there were no social networks nor touchscreen phones. Gadgets we saw in the movie were hence pretty unrealistic. Most of us, I’m sure were skeptical of the whole new revolution. But guess what happened? Those unbelievable gadgets are slowly turning into reality. Do you know the US Army is currently researching on how to create a screen that is so thin and flexible that it can be rolled up? 🙂 It would most likely replace the bulky, heavy netbooks/iPad/handphones we’re carrying now. especially when it doesn’t consume so much power! I read that it could be available in 3 years’ time.

Anyway apart from the retractable screen, the movie showcased numerous other inventions which could probably come true in the future. But there are also some things which I reckon are unnecessary, accompanied with my explanation.

  1. Iris Recognition
    In the movie, people are identified by their iris (EYEBALLS) because apparently everyone’s iris is as unique as a fingerprint. But isn’t fingerprint recognition good enough for us? I’m not sure about you but when the beam flashes into your eye to identify your iris, it seems to hurt, like when the camera flashes right into your eyes. If you’re thinking about false rejections that fingerprint recognition could cause, many of these rejections are caused by human error (error during the registration). I do not totally disapprove of iris recognition though; it could be made into an alternative, like for silly people who chop off their fingers to escape from justice. But it should not definitely be made into compulsory gadget. 🙂
  2. E-paper
    One of the most “WHOA!” items I saw in the movie.. just too unbelievable and I doubt every print company would go into that extent because of its cost and.. I don’t know. I prefer hard copies more? If I see an article I like, I’d cut it out and keep it somewhere. I don’t like print screening and saving it on my computer because you wouldn’t know when it’ll crash. (And I don’t have the habit of backing up my files) Once again, it can be made into a money-making alternative but definitely not a must-use.

I guess that’s all from the whole list of possible gadgets shown in the movie. The rest… they would pretty much add a whole lot of convenience to our lives 🙂

I tried imagining myself  sitting on the couch, watching a 3-D film that projects holographic images in my living room. Then when I’m done with it, I’ll head over to my desk that holds my computer. But instead of using a mouse, I gesture. I gesture for the Firefox (probably by then it’d be taken over my Snow Leopard) window to be up! Right in front of me, is the Firefox window projected in the air. I touch the screen to navigate. That, my friends, is probably life in 50 years!

Now try imagining yours in 2050! 🙂