more than just YEN

Third week into university (okay,fine.. "half" a uni, since HELP is a University College), and I am faced with what many will nickname "CULTURE SHOCK".

Just for updates, I am (finally!) doing my Bachelor of Communication. And gosh, my first few weeks have really opened my eyes! REAL wide!

Firstly, the system they execute here. For the first time in my entire life (though hadn’t live longer than Her Majesty QE II, but you get what I mean), I got to CHOOSE my own semester subjects! Woah, that means I determine my academic timetable according to how I want it to be ie. the days I need to attend class etc. No one to instruct or compel me to take certain subjects in a particular given period. WOW!

The flipside of this, I took a whole long night cracking my head on how to arrange my "favoured" subjects accordingly, in order that the given class time slots do not clash. AND, I discovered that many subjects are offered only once a year, so if I missed it this sem, I’ll have to cope with waiting another long year. Which means spending more time, which also means more $$$ to be spend (it is, after all, a private institution).

Well,life goes on, doesn’t it?

Second uni culture shock: the WORKLOAD.

My early dreams of an ideal uni, where educated students lie down on the green,green lawn under the warm sunshine while discussing important subjects (such as, ermm.. the nation’s economy, anyone?), were quickly bashed! Third week into Uni is nothing like third week in a school calendar! Already, now I have important assignments and a very important course subject loaded on me, which will all eventually account to my semester results.

To discover that even a 1% is a matter of life and death in the Uni scoring system didn’t help. Gone were the days when we can openly complain to our kind "cikgu" how "kedekut" of him/her if "1% pun nak kira ke??"! In Uni, the awarding scores can go as low as 0.1%, which can decide the fate of your overall CGPA (feel the pressure, anyone?).

Well, I am on with 4 subjects this first term, and I have 29 more to go. I guess I’ll just have to cope with it all *grin*.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 16th, 2006 at 9:41 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.