Wardens and the Malaysian education system

I'm entering my final year in MB in a couple of months time. When you are undergoing an engineering course in your final year, you'll have to complete a final year project. So you'll have to find a title that you are interested in and consult with the warden who proposed the title. The engineering faculty of MB has about 25% foreign wardens and 75% local wardens. In addition to finding a suitable title, you'll also have to find a suitable warden.

Now, this is where it becomes tasty. Two of my friends went to a local warden (Lizard) for a FYP (final year project) title, one of them has a CGPA of 3.8 something (Rose) and the other with a CGPA of 2.8 something (Orchid) and they wanted to do a title together. But this Lizard wouldn't let them do a title together because he thinks that Orchid wouldn't be able to complete the project because of her low CGPA. There's no harm in guiding and helping Orchid right? I believe with the proper guidance and hardwork, anything can be done. So Lizard had a brilliant suggestion to help Orchid (I believe it's more of a plan to help himself). He suggested that Orchid do an easier title and let Rose continue with the original title. This way, she wouldn't need much of his help or time to finish her project.

Then there's Elvis. I'll blog on how he got that nickname in the future. Anyway, Elvis is a local warden who sets some very high requirements for his FYP titles. For one, you'll have to have quite a high CGPA to do his titles. To me, this means that Elvis just wants to help himself by getting a smart student so that he doesn't have to spend much of his precious time guiding and teaching his student cause he needs that time of his to practise his dancing moves.

Thus, there is a wide difference between the foreign and local wardens. You can notice that the foreign wardens are more accomodating and would take their time to explain to you things until you understand. Some of the local wardens do this too but only a few.

But I dont blame the local wardens for this problem. I blame the Malaysian education system. We Malaysians love smart students. Parents send their children for tuition for every subject that they can think of. Students are pressurized to obtain that perfect string of A's and to attain this, they'll become kiasu (afraid to lose). Every year some fella will try to best the record number of A's obtained in the SPM (national high school examination). That number now stands at 17 and i dont remember who achieved that even though it was only a few months ago. So it is the Malaysian mentality which requires you to have many A's and be very smart in order to command respect from people.

Anyway, the local wardens should learn from the foreign wardens. Teach and guide the students, explain to them on what they dont know no matter whether they are the weak students or the smart asses because everyone is in the university to learn and not everyone learn at the same rate.

*contributed by ys

The tale of two fishes

Long long time ago, in a Southern province in China, there lived 2 ikan bawals, one named Merah and the other named Biru. Biru was a very smart fish. He breezed through skool and always in the top 3 of his class. Things were no different in Fish University for Biru as he graduated wif a first class honours degree collecting a string of A's on the way. Biru had a mundane life as his whole life revolved around studying and because of this, he had problems socialising. He also didnt like helping the other fishes much. When his friends seeked his help on how to solve the problems and questions regarding the subjects that they are studying, he would pretend he didn't know the answers. Maybe he thought that helping them and sharing his knowledge would rob him of his advantage over them. But, when Biru encountered a problem he couldn't solve, he would ask everyone for help till he understood the answer. Biru started working right after graduating. He buried himself in his work and because he was hardworking and smart, he made good money from his work. Sadly, his inability to work with other people halted his climb up the managerial ladder. After many years of working, he realised that he was lonely and didnt have many friends. He tried to change and become friendlier with his colleagues but it was like teaching an old dog new tricks. In the end, Biru led a miserable and lonely life.

Merah, on the other hand, wasn't as smart as Biru but he was just as hardworking. He wasn't among the top students in his skool but hardwork and perseverance ensured that he also graduated with a first class honours degree from Fish University. Merah loved helping his friends and sharing his knowledge. He helped to teach those who didnt understand the things taught by the lecturers and also explain the answers to problems given by the lecturers. He was everybody's best friend and was loved by many. Merah was just as helpful in his working life. His bosses liked him because he had very good people skills and was a team player. Because of this, he manage to climb high up the managerial ladder. Merah had a beautiful wife and a happy family and he led a fulfilling life helping many fishes along the way.

Moral of the story:
Treat your friends fairly and equally. Even though you are smart, don't look down and ignore your friends who are not as smart as you. Intelligence isn't a measure of your success in life. Everyone has his/her strengths and weaknesses. These friends whom you perceive as inferior to you might be more successful than you in the future and maybe one fine day, you would need the help of your dumber and lesser friends. So, help your friends and share your knowledge with them.

*contributed by ys

Ozanga!

At the time when the British conquered Africa, a white man went to visit an African village. He called a gathering at the village hall.

White man: We shall build roads for you!

No response from the people.

White man: We shall build hospitals for you!

Somebody at the back of the hall shouted Ozanga! and a few others chuckled. White man became pleased at getting some response.

White man: We shall build schools for you!

More people shouted Ozanga! and everybody laughed. Thinking that he had got them excited, white man continued promising more and more things for the people. By the end of the meeting , the villagers were shouting Ozanga! Ozanga! happily all the way back to their homes.

" Thats very good. We have their support," thought the white man as he went back.

The next day, white man decided to visit the village chief. At the chief's house, his wife told white man that he was at the back of the house , in the cowshed. As white man made his way to the shed...

Village chief: Buwana! (White man) ...look out! Don't step on the ozanga!

White man looked down and saw that he nearly stepped on bull shit.

*contributed by tyco

Introduction

So this is the first post of the blog. As the first post, i would like to introduce some stuff.

Money Baby (MB)
This is the university i go to. I call it the money baby cos it's like a baby which needs to be fed wif money constantly and as a baby, it doesn't do much. Finance department suck. I mean i dun condone procrastinating but normal ppl like to wait till the last minute to pay their fees (wonder whether this is a Malaysia-only prob cos many adults also waited till the last minute to pay their summonses). So wat do the finance department do when there are many ppl queueing up to pay their fees? they opened only one counter. I went to finance a few weeks back to pay my fees, there's one counter open and one counter wif "Out to lunch" displayed. This was at 2:30pm and their lunch hours are 1-2pm. Come on man, how long does it take for u to finish ur lunch. In 1 hour i can drive to the makan places outside MB and still make it back in time. These finance ppl usually eat in campus anyway.

The facilities at MB are just as bad. Some of the cells (lecture/tutorial rooms are refered as cells in this blog) are too cold or too hot. Wonder wat's up wif the air conditioning. Then there's the computer and internet problem. The computers are not the latest but the least they could do is to provide computers wif sufficient RAM and processor speed. The computers in MB are slow. Being a university which emphasizes on information technology, the internet here is seriously slow. Wif the amount of computers hooked up to the campus lines, u'd expect them to figure out that they need faster internet lines connecting the university to the isp. Sad case man this uni.

Chinese Hall (CH)
If u've been in downtown Malacca, there are a few chinese society halls. These halls are big wif tables and chairs wif ceiling fans for ventilation. This is how u can describe the library at the MB. So that's y i call the library as CH. It sure does look futuristic and beautiful. The design is really good. But there's a serious flaw in the CH. The air conditioning is almost non-existent. I think this is the only uni library that has table fans for students to use as extra ventilation and to cool themselves. When u ask around why is it so bloody hot in the CH, the ppl there will tell u that the aircond rosak (spoilt) and tengah repair (under repair). How long do u need to fix a bloody aircond? 365 days ar?

Wardens
These are actually the lecturers/tutors but i think the term wardens compliment the term cells used to describe the rooms. So the wardens here are smart cos u need a first class degree honours to teach here. But then, there's also a serious defect wif 80-90% of the local wardens. The wardens i'm referring to here are from the engineering faculty cos i dunno about the other faculties. I'll have to ask my frens from the other faculties for their comments on their wardens. Anyway the serious defect i'm talking about is very very poor command of the english language. Ok, my english is not the best around but theirs is seriously bad. One warden who graduated from the US automatically includes "-ded" to all words used as past tense.
For example, used-ded, finished-ded, watch-ded. I think u get wat i mean. I mean it's ok if the they are supposed to teach in anything other than english but MB uses english as the primary language of teaching. Bloody sad case man.

So that's a brief introduction to my uni and lecturers.

*contributed by ys