This appeared to be written by an anonymous faculty member, in a mysterious student publication called the Blue and Gold (not to be confused with Blurt), which some students have sort of heard of, they tell me, but no one has actually ever seen a copy of or actually read one. It is distributed in the underground (literally) :D
Why are you here? Why am I here?
Far too often, after interactions with students, parents, fellow faculty members, University administrators, employers of our graduates, and alumni, it appears that the purpose of a tertiary education system is to serve as a sort of human resources consultant for the corporate world.
And this is how it is done. We select a fraction of the students graduating from junior colleges and polytechnics. This selection is based primarily on our best guess of who would be liked best by the best (i.e. highest paying) employers four years from now. We then put these students through a set of courses, somewhere between 35 and 45 depending on how hard they are willing to work, and for how long. The primary purpose of each course is to contribute one course grade per student. Students slog it out, mainly trying to figure out exactly what they need to do to get the maximum grade in each course component and in each course. Faculty slog it out to assign grades in such a way that (1) minimizes their work load, (2) reduces grade review requests, while (3) keeping to highly secretive grade distribution guidelines, and, (3) produces at least a minimal course evaluation score for themselves. That minimum standard on course evaluations itself of course, depends on rank, tenure and status of the faculty.
At the end of four years, we neatly arrange these students in order of GPA from 4.00 down to 2.00. Of course, we have already, carefully, if not always gently, got rid of those students who could not make it past 2.00. For those employers who cannot process numbers easily, we helpfully categorize students into bunches with various honorifics for easy recognition. Sometimes, in the process unfortunately, we have also got rid of faculty members who could not make it past X on a 5 point course evaluation scale (unless they were particularly productive researchers). This magical number X cannot be revealed in public either, for it might give the odd, unethical student some odd, unethical thoughts. Not you, dear reader, of course, but who knows about that kid sitting next to you surfing away while a professor is trying hard to explain how to score an A for the possible quiz question on “sustainable competitive advantage?”
We then present such a list to potential employers who have also lined themselves up according to starting pay. And we start matching them up, one for one, highest GPA student to highest salary offering employer. When the entire list is matched up, we release statistics about what percentage of our students got jobs (not careers, not lives, not romance, not knowledge) within so many months of having finished the 45th credit at SMU. We all wear funny hats and gowns, and march around SUNTEC city for an afternoon, with the highest GPA (typically School of Accountancy) student getting five minutes to tell the rest of us a suspiciously-fictitious-sounding-but-heart-warming-nonetheless story about what s/he really, really learnt at school. And then the students all take photos with their brand new graduation-present latest camera models, to enhance, overnight, a thousand facebook profiles. And to give their parents and grandparents bragging rights over Mama Wang, Uncle Padmanabhan and Granny Fatimah next door. And then the students all return home, and next Monday, to their bright, new, shiny jobs (not careers, not lives). And the faculty all return to school the next Monday too, pleased with yet another successful execution of the grand plan.
Is that it? Is that what you are here for? Is that what faculty are here for? To put our brains and brawn, and blood, sweat and tears, together, to find out what is the best starting salary you can get when you leave school – by striving to get the highest GPA you can get while at school?
It doesn’t have to be that way. Not for you at least. You are not average. You are not a nobody defined only by your NRIC and GPA and starting salary. You too. And you. And that girl over there. And that guy who is obviously way too interested in that girl he is pretending to be cool to (or cool towards?). And that girl there who seems to have mistaken the concourse for the Milan fashion ramp. And that guy there who would do well to pump some other less built internal muscle to the level of his clearly well developed external muscles.
So, no, none of you is average. Nothing wrong with being average of course. It’s just that you are not. Just by definition, the probability of being exactly average, when you are picked out of a continuous distribution is exactly zero. But more importantly, in your own mind, too, you are not exactly like everyone else around you. You are someone. You are special. You have special qualities and weaknesses and strengths and a family background and a unique combination of looks, brains, and personality. For you, college life does not have to be about, and should not have to be about just pursuing what the average of the students around you wants to pursue i.e. the highest GPA so as to pursue the highest salary, so as to pursue the highest condominium floor in the highest priced neighbourhood.
Well, what else could it be about? What else should it be about?
— my comments: 3 words. LOVE HIS VIEW. (: —
