I frankly think the chase for the paper is getting abit too much
on people . Doesn't matter whether JC or poly students get the
priority entry , a fourth Singaporean University won't make your
life better. Ai yo....JC vs Poly again....this makes me feel sorry
for all of you grumbling blindly for a piece of paper without
thinking further about what a university education should bring
you.
The fourth university will be very new and unestablished - so you
will have people complaining that their degrees are worthless . SMU
, the third university, is still not established in terms of its
speciality or expertise it can offer - so what if they have
coutelle system- still the tag SMU is not that great - at rank
401-500 in the world ranking system.
It becomes NUS>NTU>SMU>Fourth University.
The only way it could make a niche for itself is to focus
on skills training rather than the traditional arts or business
stream. More like an upgraded polytechnic rather than a
university which means more work attachments in the 2nd and final
years of the degree to bring an advantage for future careers.
My idea is that they should move some skills like in allied health
sciences into the fourth university i.e. radiotherapy, ultrasound,
occupational therapy, physiotherapy speech pathology, . I know that
nanyang poly have diploma courses in those requiring A levels . And
maybe allow a degree in Chinese Medicine or maybe even
epidemiology/environmental health/ advanced nursing courses .
Science stream wise - they could focus on medical physics ,
geographical information systems, applied statistics and operations
research, or actuarial science. Business streams- maybe banking and
finance , economics, actuarial science, financial mathematics and
accountancy ONLY - no general business admin stream. Make it
compulsory in Business Streams to do a dual major or something.
They could also offer dual degrees or conversion stream post
graduate courses.
Another idea is to make everyone who enter do some generic courses,
not attached to their degree, in the first year,
i.e. mathematics (single and multivariable calculus with linear
algebra) , statistics (basic to advanced, using
SAS/STATA/SPSS/Minitab) , research (how to write a research
proposal), IT skills ( database in mysql, operating systems- linux
,web design, and programming, like php , python etc - something
more original and uses open source software) and business english
courses (how to do a business plan , how to write a proposal)
across the board - so people can decide to switch streams.
They could also throw in optional language courses , like Spanish,
Italian, French, Japanese , German , Mandarin, Malay, Indonesian
that could be recognised as accreditation for translation diplomas.
So at least every single graduate ends up multilingual instead of
just bilingual which widens career options.
For the final year, they should have one solid
original research/business project
relevant to their degree and a year to do it
.All students have to contribute what they learn
by formulating a business/research proposal, a business/research
plan OR they can implement an idea to contribute to the community.
No group work. Alternatively (especially for those in allied health
sciences), they can opt to publish a paper in a peer reviewed
journal or local professional journals , i.e. Singapore Nurses'
Journal, Singapore Medical Journal etc, under supervision. This is
to add to their CVs. The final year project will end up
turning people away who just want a degree for a degree's sake and
money, not for expanding their future interests and building a
foundation for a career pathway .
Throughout the whole degree, the University should
encourage students who written up good essays to publish to help
them in their career . And it helps to get rejected from peer
reviewed journals because they would tell you what's wrong with
your paper and from my experience, they can be blunt as well
. Also from my own experience, publications get you into
alot of doors nationally and internationally. It shows that the
person who published has good written communication skills and can
think critically. Not only that, it hikes up the ranking of the
university by the papers published in peer reviewed journals.
Something graduates can use to get into a world wide market as well
as the local market . This will provide a better advantage rather
than to compete against the 3 local universities.
