Joanna's Singapore adventures

Exams are a pretty big part of the Singaporean education system. Even at primary school level they get exams that determine their educational future. Given they’ve been doing exams for so long and only the best at doing them are going to get into university, most Singaporean university students seem really good at studying. The library and quiet study rooms get very crowded. Sometimes getting any desk is difficult but the ones near powerpoints for laptop charging are particularly hard to find. Judging by the piles of stuff on some of the study room desks, I suspect some people don’t leave the building for days at a time. It is not at all uncommon to see people asleep in the library or study rooms. You have to watch out for the ones that nap on the floor.

Waiting around for the exam to start can be a bit intimidating. Heaps of people still have their heads deep in the most complicated readings 15 minutes before the exam starts. One thing I noticed in the exams that is different to back home is that very few people finish early. People do that often back home despite the fact that they exams papers require a similar amount of work. Unfortunately for me most of my exams were essay based. One I had successfully guessed on the basis of past exam papers what 2 out of the 3 questions would roughly be so had memorised plans. The other ones were hard work, trying to plan and write essays on huge topics in 40 minutes. It seems a bit absurd that the essays we have to write in 40 minutes in an exam are worth the same as our term papers we spent weeks researching and writing.

This took place a few weeks ago (during Halloween) in one of my lectures. I only just found the footage of it another class member took. I'd been too surprised to take out my own camera.

Unfortunately I've been unable to post much over the last couple of weeks. I'd love to be out taking more photos for you all but it has come to that time of semester again: Essay time! I'm not sure if lecturers conspire together in their staff rooms about it but they do a great job at all making major pieces of assessment due together. I had two due late last week and one due in a few days time. In the midst of all of it i got sick- both a pretty bad cold AND conjunctivitis! Needless to say by late last week i was a stressed out mess! The campus coffee stalls were certainly doing well out of me! Hopefully the essays came out well despite it- I need them to because despite studying a lot my international relations midterm results weren't that good. I'm trying to push on with the one due this week but i'm really tired so it isn't moving forward very quickly. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be more awake so will actually make some progress.

People often ask how university is different here to back home. In some ways it is quite alike but there are some noticeable differences.

The work load is similar back home in regards to the amount of reading to be done and length of essays to be written. The difference is that here the marks are curve graded so its not just a matter of doing well on your own merits but of doing well in relation to everyone else. Given how hard many people study here that is a bit unnerving. The other difference is what weighting is put on each piece of assessment. Back home the marks tend to be weighted towards essays (eg. 60% essays, 30% exam, 10% tutorial participation) whereas here the assessment puts a lot more weight on exams- i think the exams are worth 60-90% in my subjects. Some subjects have 2 or more exams spread through the semester. Like at home there is a big emphasis on tutorial participation. This is met with mixed success, sometimes everyone has more to say than there is time for, sometimes the tutors have to coax answers out of people.

The campus culture is quite different. Almost everywhere you look on campus here there is someone with a laptop or books out studying. I'm pretty sure there is no unauthorized political activism allowed on campus. Can't say i've missed being set upon by socialist activists every time i try to leave the campus centre. I think a few of the campus restaurants do serve alcohol but there certainly isn't any of the blatant public alcohol consumption that can be seen on many a lunch time back home. I think there is probably even more clubs, events and sports teams than back home. There seems to always be heaps of things happening here.

I was absent mindedly walking along one of the streets near City Hall MRT station and got quite a surprise to see a huge banner in a window promoting my home university, Monash.  The part of the sign that is a bit hard to read in this photo says "the world is your campus". Seems like a very appropriate sign to see while overseas on an exchange program!  Monash doesn't have a campus here so i'm thinking the sign may have something to do with Monash's partnerships with local institutions.

Learning here isn't all heads in books (although there is a lot of that!). The sociology of food unit i'm taking also has some practical components. One of those involved cooking because a lot of students lack cooking experience which is helpful in understanding some of the unit content. Due to the availability of cheap food court food and the commonness of having a maid who does the cooking, many people here do not cook much. The task we were set was to as a group of 5 to shop for and cook a meal for ourselves for under S$30 (AU$25). We did the cooking at a group members house.

The finished masterpiece. Given none of us had much cooking experience and we didn't use a recipe, it tasted pretty good.

Market day at Central Forum. Usually includes clothes, jewelry, second hand books, computer accessories and food.


Lounge area at the central library. This is a popular place for people to study together or take a nap.

I’m now into my 3rd week of classes. Back into study mode!

Prior to my arrival I had experienced some enrolment dramas which continued when I got here. After getting a massive number of subjects pre-approved there still wasn’t enough running and willing to accept me. I ended up having to pick and start new subjects hoping that they would be alright. Thankfully I did eventually get approval for those from my home university. I’m just glad I didn’t have to go through the enrolment process local students do. They get assigned a certain number of points which they use to bid against each other for places in subjects. I’m told that since leftover points can be carried from one semester to the next that it gets insanely competitive for some subjects.

So far I’ve done pretty well at finding my way around the campus. Might have a bit more trouble with finding tutorial rooms when tutorials start. There are shuttle-buses that go around the campus, leaving every few minutes. That really appeals to my lazy side and it is really nice to not have to walk far in the heat. The food on campus is mostly really cheap although some of the available interpretations of western food are “interesting”.

One of the major differences here is how the assessment is structured. Back home, assessment in many arts units is heavily based on essays. Here, for the subjects that have them they aren’t worth nearly as much. Some subjects don’t even require me to submit an essay. Instead, the assessment is heavily weighted towards exams (usually 2 a semester.) I have mixed feelings about this. On the negative side if it is mainly exams you have to really know your stuff because once you get the question you have very little time to think about it. On the positive side, exams don’t require footnoting. Even with good citation management software footnoting can be one of the really frustrating parts of doing an essay.