The point of Project Work is...?
None!
There is absolutely no sense in Project Work. It's nothing but crap and agony. Well admittedly more agonising for those who put in as much effort but didn't do well in the end. Like myself. I was a victim of racial hatred. Ha! Kidding! The fact that my instructor was a Malay had nothing to do with the fact that I got a miserable Band 3 (as it was known then; it is the equivalent of a C grade now). It was more of a deep personal dislike. Nothing racist.
And it is not surprising that the issue of fairness has come up year after year. People are upset because some JCs have 80% of their students scoring As while others have only 1% of its students doing so. While it is commonly accepted that no teacher will have the bad sense to shortcome his or her own students (well... mine didn't but I guess I didn't give her much choice), it doesn't necessarily prevent others from doing all possible to help their students (making the students submit 5 drafts is one good way).
At the end of the day, it is really up to the teachers/instructors. And really, this is the only A-level subject that the school has, to some degree, determining power of how their students are going to fare. So it will be really dumb if schools are to stand by the principle of fairplay or crappy things like "it is the learning that counts, not the grades".
The only people who can say grades as if it is none of their business are people who really have no business talking about it in the first place. It is, of course, easy for the teachers or professors (under some of whom I have suffered terribly but this is a story for another day) to say that to the students because they are not the ones whose futures are dependent on a lousy piece of paper with alphabets on them. It is not that the students are too grade-oriented or shallow, it is the whole society, the admission offices, parents who are grade-oriented and shallow. Honestly, stop giving us the crap about looking beyond grades. It is stupid and lame.
Okay I shall digress a bit and talk about my results for the 2nd semester of my first year in SMU. They are, at best, unspiring. But still better than what I have imagined or feared they would be. Suffice to say that my entire future depended on the grades. They determine whether I can make a cross over to Law School. Imagine my horror when the first grade I got was a B for Communications 101. No words can describe how nasty the professor was (and will always be for posterity). So I shan't attempt to describe that. Let's just leave it at he hates me and I hate him (still very much) but I pretend to be subservient and he pretends to be nurturing. After I saw the grade, I immediately dispatched an email (if you can actually "dispatch" an email but I think it sounds nice so let's just leave it) to him. It was a super "fake" email in which I extolled him for being such an inspiring professor. Which wasn't entirely false since he did inspire much hatred in me. And boy guess what? He replied with an even longer and "faker" email telling me how grades shouldn't be the centre of my life and how he is glad to have me as a student. I am completely and utterly defeated. For now.
The funny thing is under the Law curriculum, Communications 101 is not one of the University Cores as opposed to all other curricula. Imagine if I were to write him an email later and talk about that. Haha!
Okay more about that later, mightily hungry right now. Lunch!
Disclaimer: Hatred is unhealthy. The author is a trained personnel and no other person should attempt to do this at home without the supervision of a trained personnel.
There is absolutely no sense in Project Work. It's nothing but crap and agony. Well admittedly more agonising for those who put in as much effort but didn't do well in the end. Like myself. I was a victim of racial hatred. Ha! Kidding! The fact that my instructor was a Malay had nothing to do with the fact that I got a miserable Band 3 (as it was known then; it is the equivalent of a C grade now). It was more of a deep personal dislike. Nothing racist.
And it is not surprising that the issue of fairness has come up year after year. People are upset because some JCs have 80% of their students scoring As while others have only 1% of its students doing so. While it is commonly accepted that no teacher will have the bad sense to shortcome his or her own students (well... mine didn't but I guess I didn't give her much choice), it doesn't necessarily prevent others from doing all possible to help their students (making the students submit 5 drafts is one good way).
At the end of the day, it is really up to the teachers/instructors. And really, this is the only A-level subject that the school has, to some degree, determining power of how their students are going to fare. So it will be really dumb if schools are to stand by the principle of fairplay or crappy things like "it is the learning that counts, not the grades".
The only people who can say grades as if it is none of their business are people who really have no business talking about it in the first place. It is, of course, easy for the teachers or professors (under some of whom I have suffered terribly but this is a story for another day) to say that to the students because they are not the ones whose futures are dependent on a lousy piece of paper with alphabets on them. It is not that the students are too grade-oriented or shallow, it is the whole society, the admission offices, parents who are grade-oriented and shallow. Honestly, stop giving us the crap about looking beyond grades. It is stupid and lame.
Okay I shall digress a bit and talk about my results for the 2nd semester of my first year in SMU. They are, at best, unspiring. But still better than what I have imagined or feared they would be. Suffice to say that my entire future depended on the grades. They determine whether I can make a cross over to Law School. Imagine my horror when the first grade I got was a B for Communications 101. No words can describe how nasty the professor was (and will always be for posterity). So I shan't attempt to describe that. Let's just leave it at he hates me and I hate him (still very much) but I pretend to be subservient and he pretends to be nurturing. After I saw the grade, I immediately dispatched an email (if you can actually "dispatch" an email but I think it sounds nice so let's just leave it) to him. It was a super "fake" email in which I extolled him for being such an inspiring professor. Which wasn't entirely false since he did inspire much hatred in me. And boy guess what? He replied with an even longer and "faker" email telling me how grades shouldn't be the centre of my life and how he is glad to have me as a student. I am completely and utterly defeated. For now.
The funny thing is under the Law curriculum, Communications 101 is not one of the University Cores as opposed to all other curricula. Imagine if I were to write him an email later and talk about that. Haha!
Okay more about that later, mightily hungry right now. Lunch!
Disclaimer: Hatred is unhealthy. The author is a trained personnel and no other person should attempt to do this at home without the supervision of a trained personnel.
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