27-04-07 Campus on 938Live- "Are the Courses Offered in Junior College Still Relevant In Today's World?"

Went for the forum kinda thing this morning at the PT. It was a very enjoyable session. I'd say I learnt a lot throught that 4-periods-skipped of time.

I especially enjoyed it when the Assoc. Prof. Kirpal Singh and Tony Buzan, creator of Mind Maps were speaking. Very intelligent ppl. Let me Jsut share some thoughts of theirs to you. Tony Buzan quoted from Einstein, "Imagination is more important than knowledge". he also quoted Da Vinci's saying that "everything is connected to something else" and that "one has to learn the art of science and the science of art". So cool stuff, ain't it?

Anyway... The main point of the thing, IMHO, is that we have to learn the stuff that we NEED to, not the stuff that we LIKE to. ESPECIALLY because we do not know what life has in store for us.

Onto my own thoughts on this. I think in terms of cultivating creativity in young Asians, we Asians have failed quite badly. For one thing, we're all too exam-oriented. Even in JC level we still hear the teachers going, "This ain't within your syllabus/won't come out in exams, you don't need to know this."

However, on the plus side, we Asians ARE better in OTHER aspects compared to the Westerners too! We're more organized... i think... We're better academically, we're better at memorising... You know the rest.

One thing I note based on the questions thrown at the panelists by the students though. It's still a norm that students here expect to be spoon-fed everything. "Why isn't KI(Knowledge & Inquiry) a compulsory subject?", "Why are we made to learn stuff we aren't interested in?", "Why are there only Chinese Studies and no other cultural studies?".

I guess the library has lost most of its purpose in the hectic lives of students now. Sad...