An Engineering Student Survival Guide - by Richard M. Felder

All along, in the past 3 semesters being here, in NUS, I've always asked, why universities are so different from high schools?

Teachers in high school are more dedicated than universities lecturers...
Teachers in high school can understand what you don't understand, while universities lecturers, some of them don't know what you don't understand even you asked them, pointing out what you don't really understand...
This made me started to hate my university life...
Really...I hated them so much because I always think that lecturers don't tell you everything they know...And the contents are dry and so on...

But now, after reading a message from Richard Felder (go google him if you don't know who he is), I realized, universities are different because it is supposed to be different! Seriously, this message from him strucked me, and I soon came to realization that I, shouldn't put all blames on the lecturers...

Let me quote the things which totally changed my views:

" First, though, let me suggest that the real problem is not that professor who's making your life miserable. It's that over the years you've brought into a message that goes like this: " My teachers have the truth, the wisdom, the tricks of the trade. Their job is to feed it all to me in lectures, and my job is to soak it up and then repeat it on homeworks and exams. If I can do that, I've learned what I need to know...and that's the only way I can learn it" "


Seriously, doesn't all theses sounds familiar to you? This was what I used to think...and I realized, I'm totally wrong...Here's another one:


" That approach may have worked in high school and earlier, but it begins to fail in college -- and once you get into the plant or research lab, it stops working completely. On the job, there are no teachers, lecturers, homeworks or exams. There are only problems -- usually poorly defined ones -- and solutions that are either acceptable or not. To make it worse, you no longer get partial credit for solutions that don't work, even if you used the correct formula. If you design ten reactors, and only one blows up, trust me -- they don't give you a 90 and congratulate you."


This explains why universities are so different from high schools. Because, it's a reflection of real-life situation. Now, I understand...


I shall work hard on my another modules. Thanks to Felder's message which totally changed my views. Universities equals to independence. We, have to work on our own and never rely on anyone's help. That's independence, because no one will be out there to reach out for you to give ya an answer...