Vey Mingg, you have asked some questions. I wish to put down some thoughts.
Most young people have anxious moments after leaving school. Partly because of the rather autocratic, rigid system that most schools impose. For example who is the boy who behaves well, becomes a prefect, then head prefect and enjoys the school atmosphere and has a mutual respect society with his teachers? Often, he becomes a teacher himself and returns to teach there, aspiring to become the headmaster (HM).
Nothing more.
I think it was British philosopher George Bernard Shaw who said: “All progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
Why? Well, most people are conditioned to be reasonable, to be forgiving of things done wrongly or badly. The unreasonable man won’t accept it! He rejects the conventional, despises simple explanations, and looks for better ways.
An example is billionaire Elon Musk who started Tesla (electric cars), hyperloop (very high speed trains) and SpaceX - which has pioneered rockets that land back on their launch pads - that saves the cost of the expensive rocket engines in the booster stage and brings down the cost dramatically - by 95 percent I think.
I now turn to a few things you said:
1. under pressure from others, you say you studied Foundation Science and got an average result . This led to humiliation by others. You say, “I have given my best and is it my fault for getting such a result?”
2. You wish society would be more aware of what they are doing.
3. Parents should talk to their children to “know their ambitions and goals”.
4. There are no people who fail in life, only people who chose the wrong career in life and “lost”.
Responding to your points
Using the same numbering, I would like to respond to your points, one by one:
1.1 Studying in college/uni for the first time is very different from school life. You are no longer spoonfed and regimented like before. You have to develop self-discipline which before was imposed on you. Students stumble. They make misallocations of their time, misjudge the subject difficulty, under-estimate the need to revise and review constantly, in order to transfer material learnt into long term memory.
Finally, they may not give enough attention to the need to develop exam techniques, to get the best result in the available time, by practicing past papers. A rule of thumb is “two units of expression, for each unit of assimilation” i.e. two hours writing essays or working out problems for every hour passively reading material.”
1.2 How do you rate yourself, disregarding the subject being studied, as a disciplined, effective student? Is there room for improvement?
1.3 It’s hard, but you have to develop a thick skin regarding others remarks. They may have your best interest at heart or, it is just human nature, in some, to enjoy seeing another's discomfort.
1.4 As long as you (a) believe in yourself and (b) keep seeing how and where you can improve your personal learning experiences, you can't help but become a better student! Homo sapiens did not get here by accident after about 3 million years! It has been thousands and thousands of small evolutionary changes. Incremental changes. We are born to be champions!
1.5 Try to distinguish between (a) your evaluation and application of your studying skills and (b) the particular course you are studying. Once you are an excellent student, those skills are portable i.e. They can be applied to practically any field. At least, in order to get ‘Good’ result. To do better, you may need some natural ability eg in music or in mathematics fields.
1.6 The reason why you did not get a better result may be due to internal ‘resistance’ within you. You were pressured, so you ‘agreed’ to do Course A instead of Course B. But internally, you resisted and didn’t really concentrate or get fully organised. Result?
2.1 Yes, society is in a mess. Planet Earth is our only home in space and we have proceeded to really mess it up! Education should be left to the professional educators with PhDs and vast experience,but politicians start dictating their prescriptions and messing it up again!
But generally, parents want their children not to waste their youth being Rolling Stones, they want them to get ‘useful’ degrees and diplomas that get them good.-paying jobs easily and get on their feet and get on their with their lives. Is that really wrong?
Why? Being a hippy, playing the guitar, living on the beach and later raising little hippy kids, may make sense at 20 but not at 60! Or 70 per 80. Lying on the beach then, feeling your aching bones, one might think, with some regret “Yeah, baby, maybe I kinda messed it up.” Well, it's rather late then, to want an alternative life, right?
3.1 Did you research Criminology, to see what scope and opportunities exist here? Or maybe Singapore? Would the job be largely lab work or would you train first to be in the police and require small arms training? That would change the picture worried parents might have.
3.2 I guess I’m asking how hard you tried to convince them about your desire to go into Criminology. Or did you throw in the towel fairly soon, ‘agree’ to do Foundation Science and then, just maybe, passively resist by not really trying hard though insisting you did?
I don’t know. My questions may seem hard, but it isn’t easy to sort out why we do things, so I’m asking.
4.1 Au contraire. Failures happen. All the time. Every day. In fact, in Silicon Valley, the mantra is ‘failing forward’. This means, keep working toward your goal, pick up after each fall and keep moving towards the goal, relentlessly. It makes sense!
Of course, once in a while you have a devil like Hitler whose goals were totally evil. Had he stopped expanding Germany in 1939, not indulged his anti-Semitism and made a real peace with Europe and Russia, he would be today regarded as a World Hero.
C’est la vie.
I hope you find a friendly soul to confide in. The answers are all within ourselves. I wish you all the very best in finding what you really want to do and getting there.
