All your base are belong to us; Grad School Talk/Opinions
Random school quotes that I like:
今日，你以华中为荣。
明日，华中以你为荣。
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March 24, 2007
ACS United
Random Thought: If the Anglo-Chinese School family were ever to unify the schools into one corporation, they should name it "ACS United".
If some fool suggests "ACS Institution"- like the fate that befell the poor students of Chinese High and Hwa Chong Junior College-, I am sure a group of loyal ACSians will take this guy out back and beat the shit out of him. I would be first in line.
Seriously, Hwa Chong Institution?! It's a betrayal of their glorious history. They should have named it the "People's Republic of Hwa Chong". Now THAT'S a name which befits the revolutionary history of Chinese High.
Posted by pj
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One year already.
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1. The type of conversation we grad students engage in when hanging out (in our free time).
*If you just want to jump straight in to watch the clip, it's here.
2. What the public REALLY thinks of Grad students (and Grad School). Through the Simpsons.
Courtesy of Vivienne: Good for one of those mid experiment breaks. Makes you wonder if YOU made the right choice. ;)
4 comments:
Hi takchek,
Thanks for mentioning my alma mater ACS.
The ACS spirit is hard to define. Perhaps we have something of a siege mentality- always feeling that we are being targetted by people who think we are snobs ( but most of us are common normal people).
We have some outstanding past students who were good in academic and sporting arena. Those days are more or less gone, even in Raffles and Hwa Chong as it is less possible for smart atudents to ace the exams if they spend too much time on sports and extra-curricular activities ( unlike the past when we only had A levels and no nonsense like S papers etc)
The video of the talk show was hilarious. Thanks
Dr.Huang
A prominent contemporary philosopher once commented that when he got involved in small talk with people who sit next to him on planes, Americans would give him the whole "oh you poor thing" treatment when he said he was a philosopher, while Europeans would be impressed. The Simpsons clips encapsulate the American attitude perfectly.
On the other hand (so the philosopher said), it meant that people who chose to go to grad school in America were the ones who really cared about what they were studying, and weren't just getting a PhD for the prestige value. Academics in the US simply have no chance of being celebrities or getting rich (contrast with academics in France), so academia in the US attracts only the 'pure' souls in that sense.
It's more complicated than that, of course, but I think that is broadly true.
Dr Huang:
Disagree about it being less possible to be 'well-rounded' nowadays. Exams were much, much harder in the past. When I was working my way though those beloved ten-year series exam books, I thought that at least for maths/physics, the A-levels of 20 years ago are equivalent to the S-papers of today. And the S-papers of 20 years ago were almost olympiad standard. Grade inflation is rife. Anything less than 4As is regarded as disastrous by students in top JCs. 4As and 2Ds is extremely common amongst those applying for scholarships. And in my experience the students who were best academically were also those who were the most involved in ECAs (though not necessarily sports). It's kind of hard to tell because everyone nowadays just participates in ECAs in order to boost their CVs, not to develop their interests (I don't believe such people are truly 'well-rounded'). So there is ECA participation inflation as well as grade inflation.
Hi takchek,
Thanks.
That means my grades of the A Levels almost 30 years ago will be worth even more! ha ha
Best wishes
Dr.Huang
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