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> -.-''
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> too much sleep = bad?
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Two hours after I'd typed the previous entry, and plowed through numerous syllabus descriptions to find possible matches and get myself out of a dilemma, I rest my case. I shall just cross my fingers and hope that the mapping is approved. *crosses fingers*
I was thinking, is the paper chase a Singaporean thing? Most of us are desperately collecting academic certificates as though our lives depend on them. Then again, maybe we are brought up with the impression that really, our lives do depend on our qualifications. I can probably safely say that most of us think we cannot go far with just our PSLE certificate, and it's probably something our parents think so as well. Hence they push us to go further, to go for more certificates. Oh wait, maybe there's no need to push, because it's natural, even assumed, that we should keep moving until we graduate from university. To date, I've got my PSLE, 'O' Level, and 'A' Level certificates. In another year's time I will have that coveted B.Soc.Sci (Hons) degree in my greedy little hands. And a JLPT 2, hopefully. Then what? Give myself a pat on the back for coming this far? But if you think about it, there are so many people who go further - the extra mile to add value to themselves? What's a Bachelor compared to, say, a Doctorate? When do we stop? When we reach the pinnacle of academic achievement?
More, more, more...! In the quest to collect good papers - not just certificates per se, but certificates with impressive results - people like me become myopic. I've got a small part of my mind on the future, but it's so hard to look beyond this next big exam that's looming ahead, the one that'll determine the quality of my piece of paper. Academically, I do everything I have to, that I need to... but I cannot think of the things I want to do. There's no space in my mind for that. I feel like a frog, blindly jumping from one stone to another simply because the stone is there, not because I know where the trail of stones lead to. There's this vague impression that it's supposed to secure me a comfortable and stable future, a hazy ideal. That's all.
Somehow in such a culture, we're no longer getting an education for education's sake, so that we become well-read, all-rounded individuals just because. In today's society, that's not good enough, is it? We get an education for a purpose, because it's a stepping stone to something else, something better. It just happens that the 'something better' is generally defined as a well-paying job that puts money in the bank and food on the table. Towards such ends, we sacrifice our interests for practicality. Take the example of being interested in sociology or psychology, but majoring in economics instead because it's deemed more useful, more practical. Doesn't this hit too close to home for many? Some of us here on exchange, we're not choosing modules we're interested in. The fact is, we're choosing modules for which we can transfer credits back to our home universities. What we sacrifice for "education"!
It does make you wonder if things are supposed to turn out like this, doesn't it? That the government's call for education results in people overlooking their interests to pursue something that may be dead boring to them but which brings in the dough. Education becomes overrated. All that societal emphasis on good pay, career, financial security... It seems to reduce us to automatons, all fitting into the same mould trying to achieve the same things. Walking the path that everyone walks, we're supposed to know where we're going, because it's a tried-and-tested way, right?
But you know, at the end of the day, I'll be holding on to all my hard-earned degrees and certificates, unsure of what to do with the rest of my life.
The future scares me so much.
