Business

Monday October 19, 2009

Fresh voices that add spark to life

Monday Starters - By Soo Ewe Jin


I attended a freshmen’s lunch at a well-known college the other day. The undergraduates were resplendent in their academic gowns, as were the tutors, the lecturers, the dean, and the vice-president.

If only the premises were more medieval, the gathering would have looked like one of those Oxford or Cambridge academic dinners. Or Hogwarts School if you are a Harry Potter fan.

The vice-president welcomed the students into the world of scholarship. The gown, he explained, symbolised the scholar and although they may not realise it, tertiary education is only available to a fraction of the world’s population, with a big gap between the developed countries and the rest. The beginning, he stressed, is as important, if not more so, than the ending.

What happens between now and graduation day is a journey that can either be truly enriching or ordinary, depending on one’s passion for life.

He did not speak long but asked the younger tutors and recent graduates to share their views.

I was particularly impressed with one of the tutors who spoke on the five things you must do while in university.

Engage your lecturers, she said. “Make the effort to get to know your lecturers, glean some good old wisdom from them. Ask them about their areas of interest, seek their advice and learn from their experiences.”

It may seem obvious enough but when I looked across the room, I realised that most, if not all of these freshmen come from a system when engaging the teacher is simply not encouraged.

Our rote system of learning does not tolerate students who seek engagement, who want reasons for the answers, who genuinely want to be educated, not just taught.

Think and question. The tutor, who hails from Kota Kinabalu, advised the freshmen: “As young adults, you should seriously start thinking about your life purpose, your philosophy and your belief system. Learn to question the things you learn in the lecture hall. Ponder and discuss with others.”

Set goals, this young tutor continued. The standards may be high but nothing is impossible, she said. Make new friendships and be a real friend, she advised.

I can almost imagine her being the tutor these students will be seeing the most as she spoke about the potential of lifelong partnerships being forged in college.

No wonder she is a first-class honours graduate, I thought, How invigorating that someone so young is so passionately living out her ideals, and sharing them with others.

Oh yes, her fifth tip was the one that drew the applause.

“Learn the art of sleeping during lecture,” she declared. “Perhaps some of you are already experts in sleeping during your BM or Moral class back in school, but in university you can still sound intelligent sleeping in class.

“This is how I used to do it. I am in the second row but I am able to rest with my eyes closed, but my ears are listening. When the lecturer asks the class a question, I wake up, state my opinion, and then go back to sleep. I get to sleep and still make my lecturer happy!”

Well, she is good, and she is funny too. It’s the kind of candidate that we look for in the workplace but having conducted many interviews for journalist wannabes, I find that many of them, despite being graduates in mass communication, hardly know how to communicate.

They seek a job, not a calling. And so all that matters at the end of the day is how much is the salary and what are the retirement benefits.

These are the workers who do not engage their superiors or their co-workers, they do not ask questions, and they do not make a difference. Sounds familiar?

As I left the freshmen lunch, I felt it was really time well spent. In my line of work, most people who ask me out for lunch only want to talk about business and politics.

I wish they would listen more to the young voices among them who are at the beginning of their journeys. Life is not just about sharing experience, it is also about sharing hope.

·Deputy executive editor Soo Ewe Jin has a sticker on his 10-year-old Kembara that proudly proclaims that he is a graduate of Idontgoto University.

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