Varsity life

tThere must be no other community as diverse and as integrated as the one we experience in university days! Every single person comes from a different background and yet each of those different people are in classes together, working on projects together and waging the fight for better grades together.

It is that magical period of life where racism and other communal biases come to a temporary standstill; while it is not utopia, it is a wonderful respite from the world and many a graduate turns to post-graduate programmes in an attempt to remain in this utopia instead of facing the trials of a job and the working world in general. I know many students who choose to pursue further studies in almost any field, simply to stay on in school. The idea of not having a professor to run to, living without steady pocket money, and the knowledge that school fees will be paid (or else there is financial aid), is simply too scary a thought for them. To be fair however, the country is relatively well prepared for the influx of graduates every July and most employers are understanding enough to help ease the fresh graduates into the pace of work slowly.

College life and culture is reminiscent of hippie-life and culture, most sins are forgiven and there is acceptance of very liberal concepts of life. In the blink of an eye one can see a girl in little more than a bikini, talking and hugging a girl covered in a burqa. Male students dress in everything ranging from freshly ironed shirts and trousers to singlets and running shorts!

A short walk to the canteen will show a myriad of cuisines – everything ranging from Japanese to Vietnamese and middle-eastern to the normal chicken rice and yong-tau-foo. More amazing is the sight of locals experimenting with kebab rolls while the exchange students they are dining with are flushing red at the spice in the chicken curry of the Indian stall, and the ever conscious dieters dine on salads and tea without milk.

Classes must be the same everywhere, but the cacophony of different languages buzzing on the same topics never fails to make me smile. Wherever these students may be from and whatever their majors of study, departments and sub-departments, their worries differ little – deadlines, essays and of course, dating and gossip.

Not everyone has friends in every lecture and freshmen sitting alone are often pleasantly surprised when their neighbours include them in the general complaining about the university and the people in it. It is indeed an anomaly in the same country where people refuse to smile at each other in the MRT!

Considering that most polytechnic graduates start work about the same age that undergraduates start university, the massive difference in mindsets and behaviour must be acknowledged. University students get college life as an extra holiday from real life and are allowed to soak in the academic, yet fun and playful atmosphere of university. In my experience polytechnic students tend to be more pragmatic and hands-on, while the university graduates tend to be more focused on ‘thinking’ and analysing different patterns before working them out. This is a wonderful work structure, to have different people, equipped with different talents in a multi-ethnic and multi-talented nation.

Despite the ever looming deadlines of essays and presentations, the seemingly terrible number of lectures and tutorials to attend, as well as consultations and project meetings; university life is a period which most students come to see as the most golden period of their lives. Education is not just the best personal investment one can make but an investment by society as well.

All school fees (right up to university) are heavily subsidised in Singapore, so technically every taxpayer can be said to have paid for my education. What then does the tax payer get for this? Well, a graduate stores up the experiences of university and applies them to life. We live in a multicultural world and it is the experiences of mingling that one learns in educational institutions that allow many of us to attain success in the right places. As the HSBC advertisements strive to tell us, different cultures see things differently, body art may seem taboo to some, while it may be a sacred ritual for others. The myriad cultures intermingling in university provides an excellent entry point to the world.

The best thing about university life, from my experience thus far, is the fact that almost all students have finally realised that an education includes more than getting a piece of paper to frame on the wall. Hallways ring with laughter and flirtations, but there are snippets of conversations on human rights mingled with talk on the latest buy-over of some company and the newest medical technology.

This is not to say that students who are here merely to gain that wall decoration do not exist in the university; they most certainly do, but they are certainly rarer a species than the pseudo-academic.

University experience is indeed a wonderful experience and gives one the opportunity and the maturity to truly experience different cultures and ways of life, to fall in and out of love, to fall and pick oneself up, to learn and laugh and live, with few criticisms; because college education is simply, to complete one’s education.