November 7, 2009
November Rush
In case you get the wrong idea, I’m not talking about the November rush to the shopping malls during US Thanksgiving. This semester has been quite hectic to say the least. With the amount of course load and accompanying homework, group projects, presentations and exams, and tack on all the extracurricular activities, it’s been a handful to manage. However, November just kicked it up another notch: 6 final exams, 4 case reports, 3 presentations, all within the next 2.5 weeks.
However, it seems the busier things get, the more I strive to take time out to do my own things. I’ve started regularly going to the gym (I need to get my cardio back up otherwise I’ll never make it up that 6000m mountain) and try my hardest to play badminton on a regular basis. The timing is good as I just finished my last volunteering sessions with Junior Achievement, so I should have a bit more time on my hands.
Here’s to surviving the November rush so I can tackle higher mountains (pun intended) in December! :)
September 29, 2009
School Spirit
Growing up in high school, I never developed much school spirit. How do you define school spirit? I’m not even sure. I never watched any school football or basketball games. Never joined student council, clubs, or did much school activities. The suburb I grew up in, and the schools I attended were certainly nothing to cheer or get excited about, but I think the issues were more with me rather than my environment. My two main activities through high school was playing badminton for the school team and a part-time job at McDonald’s, otherwise that was it. The trend sort of carried on until my last couple years of undergrad, when I got fairly involved with student clubs and volunteering. It was then I started to understand and take in more of the world around me.
Am I trying to ‘recover’ my lost years of student life? Not really… but when I decided to take a break from the corporate world and come back to academia, a part of me, perhaps subconsciously, longed to just ‘feel’ like a student again. When I arrived here, I quickly understood that MBA life is quite different from high school and undergrad. This may be for the simple reason that relatively, all MBA students are here for capitalistic reasons, and all are focused on very similar end goals.
On a brighter note: last weekend I played in the Inter-Faculty Games for the Business school team (Bizad) against other faculties in what else – badminton. Although I was probably one of the few ‘non-undergrads’ there, I had a great time and really enjoyed soaking in the atmosphere and camaraderie. The feelings that I got reminded me of my best years in undergrad. These small things are what make my life here really great, and I plan to seek them out as much as I can before throwing myself back to the realities of the corporate world.
September 11, 2009
The MBA Experience
My Typical Week in Google Calendar
MBA life is busy, there’s no need to sugarcoat that fact. I think the school’s intention is to see if it can fill up your Outlook/Google calendar so much you can barely see any white space in between events/meetings/classes. I now have to colour-code my events so I can tell them apart, otherwise my calendar just looks like one big event when you look at it from far away.
When I see my classmates, I think our end goals are all the same: Input = your life for 17 months, Output = good job with a hopefully higher salary in the field that you are aiming for. But the activities that we choose to fill our student lives with are very different, I think it breaks down to the following core line items:
- Study, homework, projects, case studies –> so you can graduate
- Meeting people, network, share experiences –> broader perspectives, future contacts
- Getting involved with school clubs, student council, volunteer –> altruism, hate to say it but it also makes the resume look good
- Things for your health (eat, exercise, clean) –> hopefully to survive, mentally and physically, to get past this year and a half
- Party, drink, more parties and planning weekend trips to beach islands –> hookup (if you’re single), but alcohol is just a good way to de-stress
The reality which I currently face at this moment are: 2 midterms, 3 case studies, 3 networking events, 2 workshops/training sessions, and a badminton tournament – all in the next 5 days. Mind you, a bunch of my activities are self-inflicted. Having just organized a badminton tournament, I’ve also started to take guitar lessons up on campus, and I’m starting to volunteer for Junior Achievement of Singapore. I just went for training this evening and will be teaching the JA Titan program during October.
It feels like 24 hours really isn’t enough for one day, but I’m having a great time trying to balance all of these activities. Reading break is coming up soon and hopefully I can catch my breath at that time.
August 18, 2009
Dude, Where’s My Car?
One of the things about living in an Asian city is that you have to be prepared to take public transit as your main mode of transportation. I grew up as a young kid in HK, worked there briefly and regularly go back every couple of years. So it’s not like I don’t know what an Asian city is like. But living here in S’pore, and living a student life, makes me really miss my car!
On a regular day I have to carry at the very least:
- laptop and adaptor
- books
- notepad and pen
- folders for class notes
- water bottle and an umbrella
Now I’m playing badminton on campus a lot, add:
- shoes
- t-shirt and shorts
- towel
- racquet
My morning routine almost always include the highly skilled game of ‘How to carry everything on my back and take the bus to school‘. Today I resorted to taking my 36L trekking backpack (the one I used on the West Coast Trail) just so I can shove everything into one bag. I looked like a real dork around campus (no one carries a backpack that big here), but oh well.
I miss having a car, I just want to throw everything in the trunk and take off. Here in S’pore it’s damn costly to get a car. I won’t even explain all the cost that goes into owning a car, but there are things like Certificate of Entitlement (COE), import duty, registration fee, an additional registration fee, road tax. Then not to mention insurance, gas, tolls on highway/CBD area.
I think I’ll stick to my 36L backpack for now.
