Tuesday 7 February 2012

Of choices and weighted returns

Question: If you could have just one item. Anything one thing in the entire universe. Be it fiction or fact. What would it be?

I would want a time machine. A time machine of any sort. It could be the form of a futuristic car or even a wrist strapped watch! Yea that would be awesome! 

My reason is simple and rational: To seek my future answers today and to know what is coming ahead of me. Made a wrong turn along the way? Simple! Just make a leap back in time and turn the right way round! Or even more effectively, just find out what lies beyond the horizons and ALWAYS make the right choices. 

A little more than a decade ago (zomg..... I'm old! Noooo!!!!), I was sat in front of a talk by Mr. Adam Khoo. It was one of those 'how to be a high achiever' or 'Unleash the straight-A scholar within you' type of seminars. Oh wait it was't a seminar. It was a publicity campaign to advertise the seminar. It was one of those crucial years where a really big final examination took place at the end of that year (I can't remember which one it was but I think it was UPSR?) so dad wanted to mentally prep us for the episodes to come. I have read Mr. Khoo's books which illustrated his journey towards being a top scholar. Well yea his story was pretty inspirational so we thought his seminar would be a life changer.

I was young and naive science minded student. Back then it was all about science subjects thinking that science would be a big part of my life. Not too shabby yes? So the talk commenced with Mr. Khoo introducing himself while re-iterating his life story. It was an expected start but it had the feel of a business proposal. He then made a remark which I can't seem to remember how it sounded exactly. Basically he mentioned that business people would reign over the techies and that is just how the world works. Yes I was young and I didn't really comprehend how society worked. I was pretty disappointed with the talk but I didn't let his words affect me (not too much I guess). We stayed throughout the programme but made no commitments thereafter. 

The next 10 years being a science scholar went pretty well. I was very passionate about science subjects especially Biology and I found the growth of mobile technology to be rather astonishing. On the contrary, my passion for science meant that I had no exposure to the more qualitative subjects like management and economics. It was a straight path which I had been following all this while.

Is there an end to this journey? Am I stuck here? Those were thoughts that never came to mind. All I wanted to know was where am I heading to in my next stop? Well after mom and dad suggested that I took A-Levels after my SPM. TARC was really near home and I was entitled to a 100% tuition fee waiver (applicable for all students achieving 8 A's and above in their SPM). So it was a no brainer. Get the exact same certification as what you would expect from the more expensive institutions out there relatively at no cost! 

Do you believe in positive peer pressure? Well yea it happened mid way within A-Levels. It was just after the AS-level examination. So a few buddies and myself got into the 'Apply for all the foreign universities' mood:


It was just a handful of us that got into this frenzy. We were sending out applications to Oxbridge which involved postage of documents and written material. We sat for the SAT I and SAT II just for our application to the NUS. I even sat for the SAT's twice!! Talk about being desperate. The whole process involved a quite a sum of $. This included postage costs and examination fees for the SAT's. There were also a couple of interviews along the way which took up quite a bit of time as well. Sure I had my fair share of rejections but the overall result was pretty positive. I received rejections from both the Singaporean institutions and Oxbridge as well. On the other hand I received offers from all of my UK applications! The downside was that the respondents were a mixed bag. I didn't really do much research on the UK universities but here's the list:

(1) Southampton - Said to be pioneers in Electrical and Electronic engineering. Illustrative material on the websites made the university setting look rather modern yet laid back with a near sea-side town kind of feel. According to some reviews, Southampton was ranked as the 2nd best EEE university in the UK!!! But that was just one ranking website. Still worth a shot!

(2) Manchester - Sounds cool yea?!! A city campus setting with a reasonable rating for EEE. Another addition to the list

(3) Bristol - A little outskirt from the larger towns but it was a collegiate university. Think traditional Harry Potter Hogwarts styled universities.

(4) Imperial College - Was not among my top choices because I never really heard of this place. Seriously....... until I looked it up, it was ranked number 5 in the whole world!!!! ZOMG. That made it number 3 in the whole of UK!!!!! And it was solidly holding the number 2 spot in EEE within the UK. Did you just say that I received an offer to be enrolled in UK's top 3 most prestigious universities? Zomg........ 

OK so it was a simple guess which one's I picked in the end. Oh and these were conditional offers with each university expecting a different degree of grades at the end of my A-levels. Imperial college was by far the one university with the highest demand. There was a AAA requisite for Imperial whereas the rest demanded a range from ABB up to AAB. At the time, I was standing at AABC so I had to really up my game in A2. Unfortunately my grades were stuck at AABC even after resitting a couple of papers in A2. I was a little disappointed that I couldn't make the AAA grade for Imperial College.

I had practically given up hope on Imperial so I enrolled at Nottingham University Malaysia. Nottingham was a new branch set-up in Malaysia set-up by the original Nottingham university in the UK. It was a great choice as the institution provided world class facilities with an opportunity to go abroad at the UK campus in some parts of the degree. Mom and Dad were very supportive and we even got our accommodation settled! Bro and myself would live in a double room and drive to uni together. Swan was there as well!! It would have been a great and comfortable start of my tertiary education. The registration for Nottingham were all complete and I was waiting for the official offer letter to arrive. The administration notified me that they would courier me the university starting up kit in a couple of weeks. So I was pretty excited to commence my life at Nottingham. It was going to be great!!!

The coming weeks involved me waiting for my started pack to arrive. One day I received a letter in the mailbox. Printed on the envelope was 'UCAS'. A strange feeling went down my spine as I opened the letter. So I was assuming that they were about to notify me that my entry was not permitted due my results. Well it wasn't so........ It was a letter which stated my commencement at Imperial College. I was rather confused at the time due to the shock and uncertainty upon reading those words. So I made a long-distance call to the UK to clarify the reading in the letter. I explained that I was unable to make the grade so what would the letter mean? The kind lady on the other end of the line explained that I was on the borderline and Imperial College decided to give me a chance!!!!!!!

Have you ever had this feeling that your chest was heavy, you felt happy yet frustrated at the same time? I was really happy that I had the chance to enroll in one of the world's most prestigious universities but I was also persistent on going to Nottingham as things would seem to be very enjoyable with great company. Adding to that, I would have to deal with my student Visa, flight tickets and luggage all just under 2 months (a little more than a month and a half). It was a mix of feelings that I just couldn't embrace at the time. On one end, I was excited that it was an opportunity which doesn't come by everyday. On the other end, I just wanted to rip that letter into pieces and thought that it never arrived. 

Mom and Dad if you are reading this, I am terribly sorry but it was really how I felt at the time. Looking over at the college tuition fees, it would just cost too much. Yes COST was one word which I did not pay attention to when applying for the long string of universities. I was driven by short term goals and at the time, it was to just obtain as many acceptances as I could. True that most people would look at things in the long term. I get questioned a lot: "Why would you want to pay so much if you could get the same degree cheaper elsewhere?". A question that I an unable to answer as I am still a couple of steps away from graduation. But the reasoning at the time was simple: If you had a choice with everything else not becoming an issue, wouldn't you? My short term struggle at the time was to gain acceptance and to give me choices. So at the moment, I would answer the aforementioned individuals with a question instead:

"Why limit yourself if you know you could go further?"

Mom and Dad always told me to always do my best in my endeavors and think about crossing the bridge when we are at its gates. So I was still pretty reluctant to settle with the cost of education there. Considering tuition fees alone, a four year MEng degree at Imperial College would enable me to fully complete 4-6 masters degrees at the local Nottingham campus!!! And that was just tuition fees alone! 

So it was a choice which would affect my future and perhaps suppress the economic stature of my family while I am away. At the time I put myself out of the picture thinking only of funding. The JPA scholarship was closed and my family income would definitely not comply with their requirements (not low enough to be bestowed the scholarship yet not high enough to effortlessly let me embark on this voyage). We had long deep discussions on the matter within the week I received the offer. We had to decide quick as the clock was ticking and preparations had to be made either way. Mom and Dad made made a good point that such universities don't come by often. Adding to that I was given a 2nd chance knowing I had not achieved the required grades! Opportunity cost as to what I look at it even today. Mom and Dad also reassured me that they are financially capable. Stating that no matter how things turn out, my families expenditure would not be affected. At that age, I was not able to value the amount of $ spend on my education abroad. All I knew was that it was a REALLY big amount of $.

It was a collective decision in the end and I embarked on my education here at Imperial College. A commitment and responsibility which I am willing to accept. I am yet to see the fruits of my labor and toll on my family thus far but I promise that I would comprehend the whole situation one day. Thank you Mom and Dad :)

Until next time ;)







No comments:

Post a Comment