L'oiseau rebelle

Love is a rebellious bird that cannot be tamed

On Insularity Tuesday, December 20, 2005

I should be studying, but I need a break. So you just have to bear with my crap.

I was just thinking about the issue of interacting with non-Asians whilst studying overseas, and in particular, the perception that the locals aren't very friendly. There are very insular people of all races and cultural backgrounds around. They also do not (hopefully!) represent the entire racial/cultural group.

But maybe we should look from the other side of the story. I have heard about the "other side" of the Singaporean story, and let's just say that insularity is the mildest of the gripes. To give you a flavor of the story, I refer to a comment that a friend has just made about a particular country that is not Singapore:

The land of "by the book" or "where's the book?"

But anyway. Sometimes, if you appear to be part of an insular group, it's difficult for people outside the group to approach you. Just think of the ways the PRCs are viewed in Singapore. My JC class was more than 50% PRC, and not all of them fit the stereotype. About half of them are really cool people who are great to hang out with, who are willing to look beyond cultural barriers to mix with the Singaporeans (yes there are cultural barriers, I'm sure most of us know this by now), and count amongst my closest JC friends. Although it did nothing for my Chinese language ability. Except that now I can pretend that I've a mainland Chinese accent.

The other half fit the stereotype perfectly, and I don't particularly fancy having one-way conversations, if at all. So I didn't really get to know most of this half after spending 2 years together as a class.

This semester M took a first-year graduate physics class. The demographic of the physics dept is quite interesting actually. Contrary to popular opinion about Asian ability in math and science, the undergrad physics students, and especially the best students, are almost all white. So naturally most of his friends in the dept are white. I won't be too surprised if people who don't know him think that he's Asian-American. There are a lot more Asians amongst the grad students, and mostly from East Asian countries. I'm not sure whether there's any polarization, or what degree of polarization there is in the dept, but his lab has only one other Asian (and it's a huge lab), whilst there's a lab where the only non-Asian is the PI. Most labs are probably in-between.

Anyway, he says that there's a sizable group of Asians in this class that he took, who mostly kept to themselves, or at least gave the appearance of doing so. He has his group of friends who are mostly white taking the class with him. He found it difficult to communicate with this Asian group, despite coming from a similar cultural background. If he found it difficult, how do you think the non-Asians will perceive this group?

Extrapolate this to "Singaporean group" and "Department of X Engineering", and it might explain why some Singaporeans find the Americans (or any other non-Asian) unfriendly. It might not be that they're unfriendly. They just might not "know" how to interact either. Interaction, after all, is a two-way thing.


L'oiseau rebelle 2:07 PM Permalink | | |



What am I getting myself into? Friday, December 09, 2005

Conversation snippet from today. A, a fellow undergrad and I were talking a bit about grad school applications, B is a grad student in my class.

A: I'm mailing off my application to University X today, so I can send by priority mail and it'll still reach them on time.

B: You're applying to X?

A: Yeah.

B: I heard they aren't very supportive of their grad students.

A: I did hear about that, but I think I'm motivated enough to survive there.

B: I mean, they really aren't supportive of their grad students. And it's not just about getting lost in the crowd. For example, their grad students aren't supplied with chalk. Over here, we get supplied with pens and paper. Which is considered above average.


L'oiseau rebelle 4:03 PM Permalink | | |



On cultural interactions & studying overseas Friday, December 02, 2005

Let's see, my this post inspired takchek to write this, which linked to Wind's post on the self segregration (is ghettoification too strong a word?) of Singaporeans, Xue's reactions to Wind's post, which in turn inspired Olandario to write a response, along the lines of "Does getting to know Asians only mean you're not making full use of your overseas education?" (My freshman comp instructor is going to kill me for that sentence.)

What constitutes "making full use of my overseas education" is a question which I have been mulling for quite a long time, since another way to stating the question is "how can I justify the immense amount of $$$".

The tentative answer that I've been able to come up with so far is: if I take up the opportunities presented to me here that would not have been available to me if I had studied in Singapore.

Of course, there is no narrow definition of "taking up opportunities", since some people may love working in a top research lab, some people may take advantage of the college's connections to Wall Street (or fill in anything else here), some people may want to experience (or study about) a different culture, some people may want to... well this list certainly isn't definitive at all. To each their own, but I fail to see the point of embarking on an expensive education if all the things you do during your college days can be done in Singapore. (And you can live independently in Singapore. Really. And generally, coursework in America really isn't that great - Europe is a better option if you wish to focus on coursework. On the issue of coursework, also refer to yesterday's post.)

And on the issue of cross-cultural communication, it's certainly up to the individual to choose whether to befriend exclusively Singaporeans and/or Asians, or to expand your circles of friendships. For me, I'm not inclined to know people from just one ethnic group in the first place, plus, as I've mentioned in a comment to takchek's post, due to the demographic of my department, interacting with non-Asians is almost essential to my academic survival. On the other hand, in some majors you can get by without even talking to a non-Singaporean, although I fail to see good reasons for this. I think I've matured academically by interacting with my classmates, as I get to understand their motivations, their definitions of success, their intellectual approaches towards the subject, and their homework/time management habits, which are generally quite different from the "typical" Singaporean (and maybe Asian), and definitely different from the American stereotype.

Take my SOP, for example. My proofreaders (so far, I'll be approaching one or two more people) are an American and a Swiss - I don't see the point of having all my proofreaders be from a very similar cultural background (one of the two is not even in my department), since they would probably echo most of the things I say, and maybe sharpen a few sentences. One of my proofreaders has gotten back to me, and offered a number of stylistic changes that M and I didn't pick up, and it greatly improves the tone, direction and the intent of the essay. I wouldn't be adding a line about the tolling bells of death though. Which is why although M and I both read each other's essays, we know we are not each other's best proofreaders, since we are not only from similar cultural backgrounds, but we've been discussing this for ages, and our essays are practically carbon copies of each other, just fill in "physics" or "math" at the relevant parts.

And in exchange for proofreading my SOP, I'll soon have to proofread 20 pages of a dissertation. The math proofs part of course. I wouldn't understand the other 980 pages.

Which is why I didn't particularly like Wind's statement that "we know that Singaporean partners are mostly quite good in their studies and wouldn't drag you down" (Wind, if you're reading this, I'm not targeting you). This attitude is quite prevalent amongst Singaporeans actually, especially those in the engineering school. Whilst I understand that there are non-Singaporeans/Asians who aren't particularly interested in their academic work, and they'll be totally annoying to work with, there are also many other motivated and hardworking and intelligent non-Singaporeans/Asians - it's an individual's prerogative to find out who they are. After a year or two in a particular dept, is it really that hard to tell who are the good students and who are not? Unless you've been sleeping in or skipping class, or are totally oblivious to your surroundings.

Whilst I respect each individual's decisions and philosophy, it sometimes helps to ponder: what are my motivations for studying overseas? Am I getting the best out of my bloody expensive education?


L'oiseau rebelle 5:40 PM Permalink | | |



Irresponsibility Thursday, December 01, 2005

I just had one of the moments when I realized that yeah, I'm indeed in a large university. As I've said before, there aren't many undergrads in my department, or at least, those who take classes with me. I hardly have to worry that the classes I want to take are fast filling up, that I have to make a sudden change of plans on the day of my registration, or that my undergrad career might be longer than I planned due to scheduling problems.

Till Monday, the first day of class registration. One of my friends, who's in her final year (I think), needed to take a particular lab in a particular department that has lots and lots and lots of students. In fact, the class is required for two highly popular majors. She asked if I could register for a afternoon slot, as the afternoon slots were almost filled up (and it's only the first day of class), and she doesn't fancy spending two nights of 4 hours each in class. I agreed, and come today, her registration date, not only is the afternoon slots all closed, all the slots are closed. And the department has stopped registration, so even if I unregister from the class, she can't register for it.

Maybe I'm not attuned to the difficulties of administrating a university, but this is simply unacceptable. By your junior, and especially senior, year, you should be able to register for any required classes in your department - that should be the minimum expectation (and I'm not asking for any department, but the department in which you are a declared major and should be concerned about your academic progress). Why aren't there more classes to accomodate a large student population? And if the department cannot afford to hold more classes, then find some way to reduce the number of majors - there are so many ways to do that, and a GPA requirement in prerequisite classes is reasonable - if you can't handle your prereqs, there's little chance that you'll flourish in the department (and this is a science department).

Reminds me of the beginning of the semester. The engineering school has taken in way too many students yet again, but don't seem to be expanding the number of classes to accomodate them. The program has two required frosh classes, and most Singaporeans with the ambition for finish the program in 3 years take both classes in their first semester. Thanks to too many students and a lack of classes, the freshmen were prohibited from registering in both. If they did, they would automatically be dropped from both classes.

Sure, giving more people the opportunity to attend college is a good thing, and giving more people the freedom of choosing their major is also a good thing, but this is way too extreme - having the opportunity is good, but what's the point of giving everyone a crappy college education? The quality of education diminishes as the number of students in class increases - in all honesty, how can a professor (if even a full time faculty) pay attention to 200-300 students? How can TAs grade so many assignments - unless they're multiple choice or extremely straightforward, short answers? Sure, the most charismatic and knowledgable professors might hold the students' attention for an hour, but that's not where most of the learning happens - learning happens when you actually get your hands dirty in homework or essays - and not the factual recall of multiple choice. And timely, detailed and helpful feedback always helps.

Well, maybe this is the reality of college, a reality I have little exposure to, but a reality that needs to be changed.


L'oiseau rebelle 2:23 AM Permalink | | |



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