Another from the same class obtained an A for her hons thesis! On Changi Village. We shared the same supervisor and a serious love for anthropology. Again, one of the many subjects that nus, or rather the soci-dept has relegated away. it still thrives in ntu school of humanities thanks to Profs Kwok Kian Woon and Geoffery Benjamin. Head there, people!!!
Another lad (OOS24) switched from science to do arts and just managed to get a place in nus psych hons. he's tackling something on cognition and religion for his thesis. kewl! The other (OOS14) has been jet-setting elsewhere, having finished a summer course in the States. he quit nus architecture to do aeronautical engineering at ntu, all for the sheer love of planes. One unforgettable talkative stubborn verbal soul (still is) quit ntu mass com and followed his heart. finally got into nus law after 3 persistent endless appeals. somebody or something has to give in afterall- an inner call surpassing a faceless institution.
there are so many more whose names i've yet to mention. i particularly respect those who pushed on even though they did not manage to qualify for the so-called top unis here (one even rejected a place there) but have nonetheless gone on to chart their own learning journeys and lifepaths. one even quit varsity to set up his own business.
It's wonderful knowledge just sensing that each of them have grown to be autonomous individuals who are more than capable of standing apart and away (sometimes, that becomes a necessity) from narrow (and oh so subjective and relative) societal norms to pursue a responsible field of knowledge they really wanted and (more importantly), loved. To Cerina, Bingfeng, Shang, Vincent, Eric, Songhui, Cuili, Annie, Hazel and Alex...yep, gimme a five! nah, how a'bout a ten!!!
something i found from one of my readings...more than food for thought. my lecturers in nie (there was only one who seriously taught and shared herself as a teacher. i still remember her name...) were too busy covering the syllabus to help us critique this. ahem...
Education is not the art of training and subjugating people to serve the profit of others. It is the art of helping people to know themselves, to develop the resources of judgement and skills of learning and the sense of values needed on facing a future of unpredictable change, to understand the rights and
responsibilities of adults in a democratic society and to exercise the greatest possible degree of control over their own fate. To educate is to look for truth, to stir discomfort in placid minds of the unthinking, to shake ideologies, disturb complacency, undermine the tyranny of anti-intellectual commercialism which reins in the marketplace and in some of our legislatures, to the disadvantage of all of us. To educate is to reject the false analogies of the marketplace, to see justice and equality as noble aims rather than as obstacles to a takeover bid, to insist that human progress has no bottom line.
responsibilities of adults in a democratic society and to exercise the greatest possible degree of control over their own fate. To educate is to look for truth, to stir discomfort in placid minds of the unthinking, to shake ideologies, disturb complacency, undermine the tyranny of anti-intellectual commercialism which reins in the marketplace and in some of our legislatures, to the disadvantage of all of us. To educate is to reject the false analogies of the marketplace, to see justice and equality as noble aims rather than as obstacles to a takeover bid, to insist that human progress has no bottom line. 
What a challenge for everyone. Tough but worth more than a casual pursuit.... Grow, go and be on your way then......we each, must own our road...
quote retrieved from Hoy and Miskel. (1987). Educational Administration: Theory, Research and Practice. New York: Random House
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