by Dong Han “I feel that I have to study, but I don’t know why.” “After having spent another semester in school, I still don’t feel that I’ve truly learned something.” Do these statements sound familiar to you? Today in Taiwan, graduates find themselves facing a big gap between what they’ve learned and what industry really needs. According to a survey conducted by a human resource company, YES 123, in 2013, seven hundred salarymen out of a thousand felt that what they learned had nothing to do with their current job. It seems that the only reason to enter university is because we need certification to get a job, just as we need a ticket to a movie. So what can we do? There are some people with interesting attitudes toward this problem, and l would like to introduce them to you in the following paragraphs.
Randall is a member of a guitar club, he plays badminton, and is of average academic performance. Ordinary as this guy may seem, there is something extraordinary beneath the surface. “By practicing badminton and guitar, I saw a pattern: every time you learn something new, you start with poor performance. And by dividing the skill into small steps and refining them one by one, you will gradually improve. I am now applying this to singing, and it works pretty well.” Simple as this may sound, Randall has a deep understanding of life. “It’s more about the process than the goals,” he smiled. “I spend time learning things beyond textbooks, and I have found it really interesting to see more and think more. I think one of the great reasons for self-learning is that you want to become a better person.” This talk impressed me. Randall was interested in more than pursuing academic performance. We all spend weeks preparing for exams but end up forgetting about them right afterwards. What we lack is a sense of self-awareness and an understanding that can contribute to our lives after graduation. While focusing on the present moment and having a deep sense of self may not be your cup of tea, let’s look at the story of Poseidon, a third year student from information management. Poseidon is the founder of HackNTU, the largest student founded Hackathon (a software development competition) organization in East Asia. Speaking of his academic studies, Poseidon finds what he has learned in class quite useful, since he puts both technical and management skills into practice. On the other hand, Poseidon actually once considered dropping out of school, since there are many other things to do than academic assignments. “But it’s quite different from the U.S. to drop out of school in Taiwan. You end up facing many problems without a bachelor’s degree. I think I will finish my degree since I have earned most of the credits already.” Despite yielding to reality, Poseidon has no intention to score well in school. “People only care about your last degree, so if you don’t do well on your first degree then get a second one!” What I learned from Poseidon is the importance of aligning our interests with our majors. It’s okay not to invest a lot of time studying: just keep yourself above the average level and spend time accumulating skills and experience that relate to your field of interest. Compared to most other students, Chang is one of the most extraordinary. “The only reason I go to university is to make talented friends and learn things that I am interested in.” Chang is a student from computer science who has considered dropping out of school. Being very clear about what he wants, Chang took advanced courses and even M.A. level ones in his first two years, and he also became acquainted with experienced lecturers and programmers much older than he is. As long he does not flunk out, Chang puts little time in things outside his interest. Instead, he spent time traveling and studying whatever skills and knowledge attracted him. Speaking of his career, Chang said: “In the journey of my life, I may walk slower and longer than you do, but I enjoy every day that I live.” To Chang, it seems that there is no use spending time on something that one is not interested in. On the other hand, there seems to be a price behind every choice we make: there have been some conflicts between Chang and his family about his decision to drop out of school. I guess the lesson that I learned is to be clear about what you want, think carefully before making a choice, and stick to it once the decision is made. The last person I am going to introduce falls on the left end of the spectrum. Adler Yang did not mean to enter university at all. As a self-learner with both parents from an educational psychology background, Adler has been observing and trying to figure out a solution for Taiwan’s education problem: that people spend time studying without any sense of direction and end up working in a totally different field. Adler encourages people to take control of their own lives instead of simply following the mainstream. But once Adler entered university, he found that it is in fact very hard to go against the mainstream. So he came up with the idea of “bypass grafting,” a term usually used in heart surgery for when a patient’s artery is blocked. A doctor conducts bypass surgery because there is no time to clear the blocked artery. The spirit of Adler’s plan is to find resources or solutions outside the education system. To this end, Adler has begun to create a space where people can discuss and think about problems on their own terms. To me, Adler’s perspective may serve as an answer to our question: what can we do under such an education system? The environment is hard to change individually. Perhaps our best choice is to search for self-developing opportunities outside the classroom while keeping our academic performance above the average level a
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The Taida Student Journal has been active since 1995 with an ever-changing roster of student journalists at NTU. Click the above link to read about the authors Archives
May 2024
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