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Wednesday, December 28, 2005
[Mistakes, I've made a few...]
About 13 months ago, I received the letter from NUS asking me if I wanted to matriculate earlier, in semester 2 of the 04/05 academic year instead of semester 1 of the 05/06 academic year like everyone else. I chose to matriculate early, and have been regretting my decision ever since.
Let's see...What good came out of matriculating early?
- I'll graduate 6 months earlier.
- I was still considered a "new student" during my 2nd semester, while 99% of the "new students" had only just matriculated. This meant that during module bidding, no one could outbid me since I had way more bids points than they did. This isn't really a big deal though....
Now on to the bad...
- The modules I'm taking are always "different" from the rest, even those in the same stream, because I started my journey at a time when everyone else had already started their's.
- Being different, it's hard to find friends to take modules together. More often than not, I end up alone in the module, and have to make friends during class. This may be fine in the level 1 or 2 modules, but as you climb higher, it gets harder because everyone's already in a group of their own. This is probably my biggest regret....Having to start each semester alone in modules which no one else I know is taking. Some familiar faces may walk through the doors, but sometimes they don't.
- Somewhat related to the point above, is that you won't know how your new friends would perform during project work. And having to work with different people all the time, while it's good training for future employment, is hard to build rapport.
- So most if not all my problems so far are related to not having friends in the beginning with me in the same module. In the big scheme of things, it may not be a bad thing. I get to make more friends. I just don't like the "lost" feeling in the beginning. Some folks may not see it as a "real" problem....
- Here's a "real" problem. I only realised this yesterday. This may be a little hard to understand. The modules available for the academic year and usually published before the year starts, so students can plan the modules they plan to take for the whole year (both semesters). This would become increasingly important as you progress further. Let me give an example. A 4th-year graduating student would be left with say....8 modules? He could look at the module offerings for his last academic year, and plan his last 8 modules such that exam and lecture dates do not clash. For me, my last academic year overlaps two regular academic years (semester 2 of one year, followed by semester 1 of the next). So I would not know which modules are offered and when during my last semester. There is a chance that whatever modules I have left at that point could clash and there's nothing I can do about it.
So yeah, if anyone asks me, I would tell them not to matriculate in semester 2.
EDIT: Actually I just realised a way to get about the problem in point 5. I could make it such that the only modules I need to fullfill during my last semester are my Unrestricted Electives and Breadth modules. There are lots of choices for the two module types, and there are no "have-to-read" modules. This could solve or potentially reduce the chances of exam or lecture clashes by a whole lot.
^^^ by Locksley @ 11:35 AM.
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