Tuesday, April 18, 2006
WARNING LONG ENTRYThese few weeks, the HOTTEST topic amongst all polytechnic "graduates" are "What university have you gone to?" or "What course are you going to study?" or "Where are you going to go or what are you going to do now".
The other thing that has been on my mind other than the ECE magazine is "what the hell am I going to do with my future?" Yeah, sure, I've got a nice GPA, I can go to NTU and NUS with my first choices. But I'd rather study overseas, the prospect and the lure of studying overseas was always more attractive than studying in a local university. There'll be greater social life, better life experiences, new scenery, better study environment.
But you need money to study overseas. MONEY. Everything needs money, these days you're either damn smart so that companies throw scholarships at you (such as A*STAR), or you're damn rich that you can afford anything. Anyway I've looked through most of the scholarships, some are either very lucrative, but come with a 5-6 year bond (argh, that's way too long), or others don't cover the universities that I want to go to. By the time I finish my NS I am already 22 years old, add another 3-4years for my bachelors if I don't do a double-degree. I'd be 26 years old by then!
All the advice that I've heard from other people on what kind of educational path to take on all lead to completely different directions, some say do an Honors Degree, other say do a Masters, others say a Masters in the United States is useless, and go for a PhD directly.
Right now I have 2 choices that seem to present the brightest path. I shall list down the pros and cons of each life-changing decision, a choice that I'll have to make 2 years from now. I have 2 years to rot away in National Service, 2 years of time to decide where and what I want to do with my life.
National Technological University
1) NTU, 4 year course to Electronic and Electrical Engineering (EEE), I've heard that it's a very tough course to get into and I have direct entry into 2nd Year. So that means I can complete this Bsc in 3 years. (25 when I graduate). Appeal rating? 4/10. Pros - Affordable, no tuition fees if I get a scholarship, social life moderate with dormitories and a healthy CCA life and the ability to spend time with friends, family and of course a girlfriend. Cons? That leaves me with no job, a mere Bsc alongside with at least 10,000 other graduates with similar qualifications vying for the same job. Probably a mere electronics technician or operator not earning more than 2.4k starting pay not including CPF and income tax. Then if I decide to go for my Masters, I need to cough out another $100,000 at least if I want to go overseas and of course, Singapore is boring.
2) UNSW, 5 year course to double degree for a Bachelors in EE, and a Masters in BME (Biomedical Engineering). But I have direct entry and module exemptions based on my GPA. So that means I can complete my Bsc and Msc in 3 years overseas in Australia. Appeal rating? 8/10. Pros? Fast accelerated route, 22 + 3 = 25 years old with a Bsc and Msc in engineering. I have 8 months of experience in an A*STAR research institute. Starting pay no less than 3-3.5k SGD. Increased overseas exposure and different social experiences. An overseas experience is ALWAYS better than local. You get to see many things that you can never see in Singapore. Priceless. Cons? I need $250,000 at least. For 4 years including living expenses, nearly impossible without a scholarship. And of course, neglect for a girlfriend, detrimental to any relationship, as far as I know, almost all long-distance relationships suffer and eventually break up. Then if you do happen to find love over there. How are you going to bring her back to Singapore?
University of New South Wales
3) Other scholarships. Pros - Everything is paid for, assured of a job when you return. Cons - Only a Bsc and a very long bond time!
The issue of money has always got a strangled neck hold. A*STAR invests almost $900,000 to $1million SGD in every scholar. It costs almost $500,000 to study to PhD level without living expenses in the UK. The A*STAR scholarship is probably the best, if not for the 6-year bond that comes along with it. Minimum requirements. At least a 3.9 GPA and above (O_O) or 4As and 2 S Merits for A-level, good CCA records, leadership skills. Everything is paid for, allowance, computer, living expenses, tuition fees, annual air-ticket, but 6 years in a research institute. All that just for a Bsc! Forget about your PhD. That's another 3 years. 4 years for Bsc + 1 year Msc + 5 years PhD + 6 year bond + 3 year PhD post-doc bond = 18 YEARS. That's 22 + 18 = 40 YEARS OLD. Old faggot rotting his life away for a PhD. Forget it. The other government scholarships PSC/DSTA/MAS/HSA/PUB all offer similar options but with a 5-6 year bond.
I wonder how those rich families can afford to send their children to the US for their Bachelors. It will cost nearly $100,000 - $200,000 SGD per year to study at places like Harvard, UCLA, Carnegie-Mellon, UIAC (University of Illinois Albania-Champagne), Yale, Cornell, San-Frans, UIW, don't even bother about MIT you gotta be top 0.1% world-ranking to get in there. How do those families break the financial barrier? You need half a million dollars to break the financial barrier. Families in the middle-class just can't afford to do that. You either sacrifice your life working your butt out for 6+4 years or you cough out FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND BUCKS.
Carnegie-Mellon University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
US by far offer the best education. UK second, and the cheapest and most affordable overseas education is Australia. Even then, there is a stark contrast in cost. To study locally, Singaporeans are subsidized. Paying less than 2k per semester in a local university for a full-time course. In Australia, it costs almost 25k per year! Just for tuition fees and not including living expenses.
How the hell do you cough out half a million dollars without robbing a bank? Or getting bonded for 4-6 years of your life. Your youth wasting away in some cubicle or some laboratory mixing chemicals or running the same experiments over and over again.
Apart from the two choices that I have above, both have pros and cons. And I've heard about life-stories from others. There are people who have gotten their PhD at 23 years old! Those are super-geniuses with a lot of money in their pocket. But the fastest educational route is always business and accounting studies, (2 year Bsc), the 2 longest routes are Medicine and Engineering. Medicine and medical studies requiring a 6-year course, but you graduate with a MBBS or MD and you are called Dr! Add another 4-6 years to specialize in a particular field. You can be well settled down in your career in your early 30s. Engineering comes with a 4-year course, but you're merely a Bsc or Msc graduate. You're a mere skilled labor, a white-collared worked competing for jobs with hundreds of thousands of other graduates from polytechnic and universities annually. Every year you are unemployed decreases yours employment chances.
How do those geniuses do it at 24 years old? They study overseas, getting a masters or bachelors at 22 years old and going on further from there. I still have to rot away doing NS for 2 years till I am 22. At 22 I only have a diploma! Now you know why NS men from Singapore are all whiners and full of gripes. We rot away for 2 years in an Army camp whilst our peers surge ahead in their careers, finding soulmates and settling down with a family in their late 20s and early 30s and we men are struggling to find a job late 20s struggling with thousands of others with better and brighter Curriculum Vitaes. Losing women to smarter, better-looking and richer men. Then we have to support our family, parents, girlfriend/wife/children/ourselves and still remain employable, have a good education certification and a good-paying job.
Women say they are stressed? The 2 years does make a big difference. But nevertheless we are going to take it like men isn't it? Times have changed and the battlefield for supremacy and recognition has changed as well. Bullets no longer kill men, lifestyles kill men. Bombs no longer destroy, bloodthirsty organizations and cut-throat society destroys. Corruption, greed, deficit, malice, deception, dissention, and backstabs are the way to go these days. How can you find purity in a world full of darkness and degradation in society and moral values?
Nevertheless before I get too philosophical, which just doesn't suit the objective of this entry. I’ve heard stories of how bright students with no money live and study overseas. The life stories that they have just to study overseas and get a good degree is very sad. There is no life, students work overseas to pay for the meals that they eat. So they work at night, study in the day time. See their peers merry and party whilst they work their butt day and night, studying along the way so it won't jeopardize their grades. I also heard that there's a 20hour work limit for expatriate students in UK per week.
So these bright students with excellent grades forgo and sacrifice their life, forget about parties, clubbing, going out, having a holiday, going sight-seeing, going to other places, going shopping, hanging out with friends, going out with a girlfriend. They gotta work to study! There is this person I know, he had to mortgage the home, every time he eats his meal he worries that his parents have no home to stay in. Some students forgo their meals to save and scrimp every cent that they can get to pay for their studies. Some parents love their children so much they work non-stop just for that, sell off everything in the house to pay for their children's education.
Out there, there's some rich bastard who has the luxury of having his parents send him overseas to study, can live being fed by a silver spoon, enjoying life here, playing games, going to parties, spending money like water, NEVER experienced working before, gets mediocre grades in his studies. Then goes overseas to study, merry and party, not studying, completely forgetting about his parents, comes home spoilt, demands his parents give him a job at their company. Gets a high-paying job for doing nothing, has no experience whatsoever and screws up completely and the parents say "nevermind".
Plain assholes. What about the smart people? They have no money, but they have brains and their life is wasted away working their butts out for the degrees that there are studying for. Where is the justice in this world. After that, they come back, worrying about how they are going to feed their family, going for interview after interview and finally accepting a mediocre-paying job and having to start working from scratch in that organization for the rest of his life.
Face it, money speaks in the current society. Nothing else. If you have the brains, go get the money. Break the bondage of the financial barrier. I am processing the pros and cons of studying overseas, but it is extremely expensive. I am not sure if I afford it. Rely on parents? Screw you. My parents have done a tremendous job putting me where I am now. The next step of my life is entirely up to me and I have an obligation to fill, to support my parents so that they can enjoy the rest of their retirement and sip the fruits of their labor and all the sacrifice that they've spent to bring up their children wouldn't have gone to waste.
Where do I go to now? What am I going to study?
Thinking about it already makes me feel depressed. Smart people don't whine isn't it? Just DO IT. But I guess I've done enough whining for one entry. It's a sad and bleak future.
10:39 PM
