Education/employment/critical thinking..

Belatedly realised I have 2 lecturers named Tony this sem - INT's Tony and Tax law's Tony. Amusingly, both even look a little alike..Week 5 of uni just ended. If initially I thought this semester'd be slightly easier than the last, boy was I horribly mistaken.

This semester is when my lack of critical thinking skills is really apparent. Our Msian education system all along has been examination-based. Fail to do well in school/college/university = you're dumb. Totally wrong approach to learning I must say.

You're free to dispute with what I say, but majority of Malaysian employers still look at results when hiring people. Example, an accounting services firm came to Melbourne recently and their recruiters requested academic transcripts (high school to university) from potential employees. No mention of co-curricular involvement or community involvement.

Over here, I talked to a uni mate who recently secured a graduate position for next year with KPMG. Interestingly, she told me - they didn't even look at her academic results, which she said was "just average". They were mainly concerned with her involvement with community/clubs. That was probably what gave her the edge over other candidates.

Back to my (lack of) ability in critical thinking and analysis. Instead of choosing INT, I could've taken a simple (also known as easy to pass/score) 1st year elective unit. But I chose this. Many things discussed seems out of my depth. Tony talks about Marxism, juggernauts etc like its assumed knowledge. I'm vaguely familiar with other things discussed, but for most of it, I'm forced to turn to the Net or books.

When having "seminars" (don't know why for this unit they don't call it a plain tutorial), opinions are exchanged in a casual setting. Something that happens very typically with many Malaysians are - if asked for opinions, they say "yes/no/anything/not sure" without offering much reasoning or basis for saying so. In some settings, many are often quick to offer opinions and/or judge others, but most times this is done in private. When in the open however, they are reluctant to voice out.

A mentality inherent from school is - having different opinions from your teacher is akin to challenging their authority. Who cares if everyone knows the 1st chapter of Form X history was exposed as a hoax, as long as Teacher XXX says its in the book, we learn from the book - so be it. In secondary school, were we really learning world history? Books were so terribly outdated then (not sure if they've done any updating ever since). Spoonfeeding and the emphasis on exams is what's in our system. Good or bad? - form your own opinions.

I repeat this endlessly to myself - "the more I know, the more I realise I don't know"

It holds so true. So many times I've caught myself thinking inside a box, without giving much thought to other possibilities outside the box. Its abit like thinking in a straight line, without much flexibility or imagination.

oops gotta end here. Have some research to do, am so dead for online discussion. Don't know what I was thinking when I chose the topic "anti-globalisation movement" since I know absolutely NOTHING about it. =(