Just as we were debating whether engineering is a dead-end career in Singapore, I noticed a common trait among the 2008 batch of President’s Scholarship recipients.
None of them is going to be an engineer.
From what President Nathan said in his speech, these scholars will all be heading to foreign universities for their studies. (Hey, btw, didn’t Professor Kishore Mahbubani, who’s himself a President’s Scholar and now heads the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, wondered aloud why parents are sending their children overseas when our NUS is good enough? Well, he’s comparing with Australian uni’s, but you get my point.)
Two of this year’s P-scholars will head to Cambridge, one to read Law and the other to study Medicine. Another, a Stanford-bound future police honcho, will be taking Economics. The remaining two will respectively read Economics, Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick, and Ethics, Politics and Economics at Yale University.
You may argue that Medicine and Econs are science-related courses, but I contend that these graduates are not going to build things or write software in their careers. No matter how technical their minds are, they will never be true engineers.
I declare engineering officially dead in Singapore. 🙂
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Even the recipients of second most prestigious scholarship, SAFOS, all stay in private housing.
Quoted from the abovementioned Today article:
“Even if housing type is far from the most accurate indicator of household earning power, it is interesting that of this year’s five President’s Scholars, two used to live HDB flats; none, currently, live in public housing.
Of the latest four Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) Overseas Scholars, one grew up in an HDB flat but all now live in private homes.”
(boldface mine)
Admin:
A digression from the thread’s topic.
“Well, he’s comparing with Australian uni’s, but you get my point.)”
Are you hinting that you agree with Kishore’s view that Aussies Uni’s are not “up to standard”?
Pls bear in mind that Singapore is the only place on earth that suck up to the US universities, or whoever is in power at the moment (MAybe we should suck up to Dubai uni or what too).
If you have worked or studied overseas long enough, you realise that people judge you by what you do and not what quals your have (ok la, Singapore is the only startling “exceptional place” that judges by quals, an approach that is startlingly stupid.)
Unis are made up of profs, and profs are the one who determine whether a uni is good or not.
Thanks.
50% of the P-scholars are reading politics. Are they our future politicians?
Engineering may be dead. But SOCIAL ENGINEERING is alive and kicking.
None of our president scholar are going be engineers in the first place. The nature of their job doesn’t require them to do so. P scholar are chosen from PSC OMS tied or open or specialised SAFOS or SPFOS, and their career is more on policy setting and not technical engineering work. Study economics or PPE may help them more in their work
Mr/Ms “A digression but needed” is sorely deluded if he thinks that Aussie universities are anywhere close to the standards of Ivy League universities.
And no, you’re wrong too that Singapore is the only place in the world that places a premium on qualifications or/and prestige. This is an international phenomenon. In the US, a degree from a top school shoos one into an investment banking position in bulge brackets instantly. And just check out the millions of American students waxing lyrical about which prestigious they’re dying to get into and the Ivy League students proclaiming supremacy over the “Lower Ivy” students.
Don’t be so deluded lah and if you can’t cut it, try migrating to Antarctica. It may be the last place left for a deluded fag like you.
Yes, I’m the webmaster. Clever.
Thanks for the suggestion, but I don’t understand why users of my calculator will feel “better off than they are”. Consider the person at the 50th percentile according to my calculator- he could have been at the 60th percentile if non-taxpayers were included. So, in fact, my calculator makes him feel worse off than he is!
Hey Daniel, heard you guys get paid full salary + bonus while on your postgrad degree even when you’re sitting in your dorm room doing absolutely no real work for the government, is that true?
wow daniel, i think at such a tender age you are ready for politics. you are already thinking and talking like them, a bright future ahead for you! Maybe our next PM! You have my respect.
good job admin..i like it! will use this from now on
p65.sg is a much better blog than toc. go read the parliamentary speeches regurgitated by our very engaging and very well paid part-time MPs.
Dear Daniel, i have said nothing that is bad for your image. You can be sure none of the adults can pick, find or excavate anything of the sort. You are still super young and I fully understand the place you are in and how you are bursting with idealism. On the agenda of the unemployed bloggers, you could do your own research and find out the truth yourself. As X-files said, The Truth Is Out There.
Finally, regarding your “concerns” about my response to “not PS”, all I can say is a spade is a spade. Also, my views are not representative of the civil service and certainly not of its elites. Afterall, I am only an outsider. PS are not pods you know. They also socialise and have social connections to entities outside of their world of brilliance. Out there with commoners like me.
For all you know, I am someone posing to know a PS in real life cos I am also anonymous operating behind a screen like you! I too, like you can’t be verified hahaha!!! 🙂