SMU Camps

I’ve finally completed all the SMU camps I was forced to/signed up to go.

First was the Red Cross Journey Camp which was a Community Service Project where I met great friends, including a fantastic advisor. This camp proved how fun a camp can be, without all the usual RA-RA and cheering. Just go in, enjoy, relax, and have fun doing Community Services. This is a role model that all camps should follow.

Freshmen Team Building Camp was a compulsory camp and for me I felt that this camp is a disaster. I didn’t really bond well with my group mates partially because I was too tired to talk much (this camp was 1 day after the Red Cross Journey Camp), and also because I think I operate on a different mental frequency from my group mates. Still, I had some fun, but this was overshadowed by the Red Cross Camp.

Finally, I just completed Metamorphosis, an Orientation Camp for students of School of Information Systems. This camp is everything that FTB is not. I had as much fun in this camp as the Red Cross Journey Camp and my clan even won the best clan, leading to each of us clan members winning an iPod Shuffle sponsored by the generous Starhub.

But, fun is over now. Hells begins.

Learning

What are the main things I learnt from each place of learning I have been to?

In Zhenghua Primary School I learnt about learning. How education brings you more knowledge about the world. English allowed me to enjoy those story books and I loved, and to be creative and come up with my own stories. Chinese is a headache, but the shapes of all the Chinese characters, how they evolve into their current form, never cease to interest me. Maths was fantastic. Drawing the bar models, helping Peter and Jane decide how much chocolate candy each of them should get gave me my first taste of sense of satisfaction that comes with problem solving, the very same thing that drives my love for programming later on in life. Science taught me to ponder about the world, how things work and behave the way they do. I felt that by doing learning more about Science, I am learning more about the world. I also volunteered to be a buddy tutor, assigned to teach weaker lower Primary students who have difficulties with reading and comprehending the English language. It was a very fun and rewarding experience watching the growth of my tutee, seeing his English improved from a fail to a pass, and then to an eventual B, I learnt about how fun helping others can be and that I would also learnt about how much I could learn from helping others.

In The Chinese High School, many valuable intangible and tangible skills were imparted to us. However, it was with hindsight that I understood what TCHS was trying to achieve and what TCHS wants their students to achieve. From a young age of 13 we were all exposed to programming, chinese drama, malay language, china culture, weiqi (GO!), Chinese calligraphy, yearly project work, etc etc. My interest in programming and computers stemmed from here, which gradually became a larger and larger part of my life. It also replaced Mathematics as my main source of “sense of satisfaction”, and as my love for programming grow my interest in Mathematics declined proportionally. The annual project work also provided us many opportunities to prove ourselves, work as a team, and present ideas to a large audience. While Project Work was not really graded and most students did not take it seriously, it gave us a solid foundation and knowledge about doing projects to draw on when we reach Poly or Junior Colleges where we had to do lots of projects.

From Anderson Junior College, I learnt NOTHING. The school is devoted of any character building ability and was more concerned about the school’s image than actually providing students quality education. Alright, it may be unfair to say I learnt nothing. Most educators in AJC provided me with a stark contrast to their counterparts in The Chinese High School and Zhenghua Primary School. I never know how selfish, delusional and career hungry some educators can be and in AJC I learnt about all that.

Now it is time for learning again. 17th August 2009 shall mark my first day of school in Singapore Management University.

What will I learn?

I’m excited.