My Four Years

Was looking through my old notes for material I may need for work, then I got some reflections on my four years in NUS, and then I looked through my past posts and realised that I didn't really put one down for my education (feeling very tempted to use quotation marks here) in NUS. So here's just bits and pieces of my reflections on these four precious years.

Was looking through my Classical Empires notes, trying to do a bibliographical survey for work, but I realised I didn't really care for this module. I remember I was sitting all the way at the back, constantly late for every lecture, basically just didn't care. Lockhart did not excite my interest. I took this module, to be brutally honest, to fill up the numbers.

The one that really excited my interest was American Intellectual History. The following may sound like the writings of a groupie, so pardon me. I liked no module or course better than something that allows me to sit back and reflect on what I've just read, especially touching on topics of life and philosophy. It touches on what people call "the big questions" of our lives. It gives us clues on how more brilliant people have thought about the questions of life. It serves a shining beacon, and I enjoy nothing less than the intellectual cut-and-thrust in the process.

I still remember a word of advice a tutor gave us in my 1st year class (It was SS2207SE/SE2213 Southeast Asia: Comparative Politics, I still remember clearly). It was essay time, and everyone in that class was in jitters as to how to write their first undergraduate essay, especially the guys, whose heads had rotted beyond repair after NS. The deadline was still a few weeks away, but a guy piped up about how to write the essay assignment. The tutor, Ms Valerie Teo, replied, "Don't worry about the essay. For now, just read, and think."

That sustained me for the remaining three and a half years. Valerie was going to pursue her PhD in the States at the time. Remind me to pay her a visit and thank her. It was a lesson of a lifetime, and the most useful academic advice in all four years. No one has ever encapsulated university learning, and philosophical life in so short, and so succinct, a phrase. Truly an enlightened soul. Perhaps that was more important than all the hard facts I've swallowed down over the years, and has made modules like AIH all the more enjoyable.

Truly grateful, Valerie. One doesn't get that kind of chance everyday, and when one does, much less realise it.