Little moments in Melbourne

Happy moments, praise God

- Getting a birthday Gift to study in Melbourne -

Difficult moments, seek God

- When my ex-GF left me when I was in Melbourne -

Quiet moments, worship God

- During my Stay in Melbourne -

Painful moments, trust God

- My first major failure while in Melbourne -

Every moment, thank God

- Everytime I think of my friends in Melbourne, Ginny/Arthur/OCF cellmates -

State of Architecture Education in Singapore

A interesting quote which I picked up from the economist.
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=5108231

A person’s productivity depends on the skills of those around him, as well as his own. Because of these spillovers, an individual’s education is worth more to the economy as a whole than it is to himself, and he will underinvest in it as a result.

Ok in layman terms
You are only as good as those who you work with, so you will give up trying to improve yourself, thus overall working standards will drop as a result

What it implies.
Poor get poorer, Dumb get Dumber, Bad to Worst.

Architecture school in singapore is undergoing a phase of brain drain, Many competent students including myself are leaving without completing the full professional course. The department is trying to stem this outflow by allowing some curriculum flexibility in the final year. Really is it going to work? Or just old-wine in a new bottle? Quite a few notable professors have left the faculty, and there is a teaching vacuum. Outsourcing it might just be a temporary solution, it only makes the curriculum more diluted. It doesnt help when the students of the small department have to cope with university requirements that form a substantial 20% of total work load. One may argue that it allows the students more scope and depth. In reality students cannot choose the modules that are really popular and are relevant like modules from the business faculty. With the meager amount of ‘bidding’ currency ,they are limited to the types of modules no one wants to bid for ie Bio-science.

Many overseas schools limit the number of modules students can take each semester but they are guaranteed a seat once you pay the school fees and meet the requirements without having to ballot or bid for them. Quantity should never be at the expense of quality

Thoughts on a Job interview

Article in SGentrepreneurs on how Local Companies are short-changing their employees
http://sgentrepreneurs.com/news-stop/2006/08/01/news-stop-lets-be-local-company-friendly-too-in-singapore/

Intelligent Nation masterplan 2015 , ex(Singapore ONE) , ex(tech-net)

With reference to my June 16th post , I believe the following links reflects what us as ordinary singaporean citizens feel about “technorification” of our daily lives (as well as the impact on our cost-of-living)

http://www.mrbrown.com/blog/2006/07/today_sporeans_.html

You walk into your new lift on the first floor, and the scanner reads the contactless cashcard chip embedded in your forehead. This chip would be part of the recently-announced Intelligent Nation 2015 plan, you know, that initiative to make us a smart nation?

http://mrsbudak.livejournal.com/252767.html

You know, Singapore has this complex about being “innovative”. Anything that other countries have already tried, we must not copy. So we come up with driverless LRT and NEL (that apparently keeps breaking down), EZLink (that is not economically viable unless you charge consumers a bomb), and what not. We are the guinea pigs. I’m soooo looking forward to this “one card” thingy. Imagine the potential chaos that ensues if the system breakdown or something.

Like I always say , the only contant is change.

Maybe STOMP might be taking this as the ‘issue-of-the-week’ topic , haha in order to dissipate negative public sentiments of our dear government’s PR disaster.
Bloggers against bloggers perhaps, a strategy of distraction
Using media approved blogging as a right of response to peudoanonymous complaintive partisan singaporean bloggers