All About Overseas Education
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I’m not sure if course availability is by geography or university resources? Many schools may only be able to plan to average or typical demand? Others have the luxury to plan for peak demand so that nothing is ever full. Elsewhere, I think there is a difference between the schools with multi-billion endowments and the publicly funded institutions (even the very well regarded ones).
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zac's mum\" post_id=\"2132815\" time=\"1713320951\" user_id=\"53606:[quote=\"zac's mum\" post_id=2132815 time=1713320951 user_id=53606]
Our experience covers only 2 UK universities! Not sure if others have gone the modular route.
Thx for confirming that UK unis also similar in terms of such.
It is this sg overcompetitive culture that is quite off-putting to me. Uni student life, in my mind, should actually be the best and most enjoyable time of one’s life, before coming out to work. But sg students seem to be unnecessarily stressed out over miniscule matters.[/quote]
Maybe the average student in Singapore is more resilient and had faster fingers - I can only say that it was really hard on my older daughter. -
doodbug\" post_id=\"2132814\" time=\"1713320943\" user_id=\"13281:
Yes, I agree. But I still prefer to have less choice! If she had no choice, she would just have had to lump it, but having to strategise so much and be repeatedly disappointed made the 4 years very hard.
We could also think of it another way - if you have 80% of your curriculum as compulsory, which was what it was like in the yesteryears, there are probably far more modules your DD may dislike and don't do well in, and have to take regardless. With more choices, there is more navigation to do, and more planning on first choice and fallback options. -
SG_KP1\" post_id=\"2132816\" time=\"1713321895\" user_id=\"188234:
In the UK universities where I have knowledge of, the options were much fewer - students only took 1 a year, or something like that. So the options offered numbered about 10, not hundreds. I think there is some economy and certainty when arranging for a smaller range of options. If funding is a problem, the solution might be to concentrate resources on the most popular options rather than spread resources so thin, and give students false hope.
I'm not sure if course availability is by geography or university resources? Many schools may only be able to plan to average or typical demand? Others have the luxury to plan for peak demand so that nothing is ever full. Elsewhere, I think there is a difference between the schools with multi-billion endowments and the publicly funded institutions (even the very well regarded ones).
In NTU in my daughter's 4 years, there were many courses where the over-subscription rate over the years was consistently over 100% - so I can only conclude that the university couldn't get enough teachers, or they didn't care. One very popular elective course was always over 1000% oversubscribed! (This is not a typo). My daughter didn't even bother to try for it, I think, knowing that she would never be fast enough. Given that by the time she graduated, remote learning was already common, I can't see why this couldn't have been converted to a remote learning course and made available to more students.
My daughter is probably a special case as she gets really stressed by such pressure and uncertainty. Maybe the average student copes better. But I really don't see why it has to be so hard! -
zac's mum\" post_id=\"2132815\" time=\"1713320951\" user_id=\"53606:[quote=\"zac's mum\" post_id=2132815 time=1713320951 user_id=53606]
I see where you (and slmkhoo) are coming from.
Thx for confirming that UK unis also similar in terms of such.
It is this sg overcompetitive culture that is quite off-putting to me. Uni student life, in my mind, should actually be the best and most enjoyable time of one’s life, before coming out to work. But sg students seem to be unnecessarily stressed out over miniscule matters.[/quote]
The explosion of choices and decisions I would say, is good training and preparation and perhaps reflective of the world at large, including the working world. In this information, digital and highly sophisticated age, the range of jobs is also wide, compared to 30 years ago. There are a lot of good things to pursue, you have to choose and define your own pathways.
(Local) university systems have evolved in tandem to facilitate choice, flexibility, and for you to be able to carve your own distinctive value proposition.
The schooling system has done its part to build a certain discipline and traits of a more rigid, defined, compulsory route. I personally feel there is already a danger of 'group think' in Singapore's schooling system. At the university level, there is room to reap benefits of diversity, lateral thinking etc.
Life in Singapore is always going to be competitive because we have absolutely no resources to fall back on - our survival hinges on being smarter, faster, more coherent, better than others.
But it doesn't mean at the personal level, I don't have romanticized views on how university student life ought to be enjoyable and enriching (and less competitive). -
slmkhoo\" post_id=\"2132820\" time=\"1713323167\" user_id=\"28674:
I see, thanks for the commentary.
In NTU in my daughter's 4 years, there were many courses where the over-subscription rate over the years was consistently over 100% - so I can only conclude that the university couldn't get enough teachers, or they didn't care. One very popular elective course was always over 1000% oversubscribed! (This is not a typo). My daughter didn't even bother to try for it, I think, knowing that she would never be fast enough. Given that by the time she graduated, remote learning was already common, I can't see why this couldn't have been converted to a remote learning course and made available to more students.
My daughter is probably a special case as she gets really stressed by such pressure and uncertainty. Maybe the average student copes better. But I really don't see why it has to be so hard!
With respect to the part in bold, at least elsewhere I think some of the general ed courses and oversubscription exist because some of these departments cannot stand on their own (of course, they will never tell you that). And unlike a commercial operation, you don't necessarily whack the product with no demand.
I think some places give out bidding points; everyone starts with the same amount. The hot classes / professors go for a lot, and one can bid aggressively for these classes at the expense of less buying power later. In a sense, a market outcome to (scarce) resource allocation. Based on what you wrote above, I'm not sure you would like that either though! -
Imp75\" post_id=\"2132801\" time=\"1713276339\" user_id=\"2358:
My guess is the cross disciplines flexibility is to allow their graduates to apply two areas of jobs, in case eg those who applied research or scientific jobs cannot get successful, they have a choice to get a job in say social science/humanities. Not so much abt having contrasting background to apply a specific area jobs eg scientific research. However, all study is abt applying their study on how it affects human behaviour.
The big qn is; what are employers looking for? Do we need STEM employees with humanities background as well?
In my time, not many know abt econometrics which is under mathematics. But now i see that this is incorporated in other areas of study. It's a mathematical modelling technique to forecast human behaviour. Students will have some ideas how to read and understand, not necessary to build one whole model from scratch.
But to appreciate how it can be applied, one needs to understand human behaviour.
In the past, humanities side may want to study some specific topic but requires a mathematician to work with them to build one. It is like user departments require to work with IT staff who seems to speak a different language to develop some user applications, but usually being led by them, and IT staff also cannot appreciate how the applications can be used.
In the past, one can get away with just simply saying, it's a black box, no one knows and bother. Just leave it to the backroom people. However, now even pm likes recommendation back up by numbers. -
I also looked at a few Australian and Canadian universities/courses; similar to Singapore, they seem to sit somewhere between the UK and US models.
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00skyblue00\" post_id=\"2132823\" time=\"1713324976\" user_id=\"143605:
Now the econometrics I heard is to build or code it yourself unlike the old times where you just need to appreciate and apply. This is perhaps the current generation of economist work? Prob that’s why it’s in faculty of science?
My guess is the cross disciplines flexibility is to allow their graduates to apply two areas of jobs, in case eg those who applied research or scientific jobs cannot get successful, they have a choice to get a job in say social science/humanities. Not so much abt having contrasting background to apply a specific area jobs eg scientific research. However, all study is abt applying their study on how it affects human behaviour.
In my time, not many know abt econometrics which is under mathematics. But now i see that this is incorporated in other areas of study. It's a mathematical modelling technique to forecast human behaviour. Students will have some ideas how to read and understand, not necessary to build one whole model from scratch.
But to appreciate how it can be applied, one needs to understand human behaviour.
In the past, humanities side may want to study some specific topic but requires a mathematician to work with them to build one. It is like user departments require to work with IT staff who seems to speak a different language to develop some user applications, but usually being led by them, and IT staff also cannot appreciate how the applications can be used.
In the past, one can get away with just simply saying, it's a black box, no one knows and bother. Just leave it to the backroom people. However, now even pm likes recommendation back up by numbers. -
Anyway I also thought university is the best time of a students life after coming out from that dreadful A level pressure cooker system. But I see my daughter more bz than forever because it’s all about competing to pad your portfolio outside of curriculum to be career-ready/holistic. I think tough life in this generation.
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