Fare-Fucking-Well
My exam results arrived a few days ago, and I can at last confirm that my wasted year is finally, gloriously over. No more lectures which substitute Powerpoint presentations for actual imparting of ideas, no more constant cringing at people speaking in accents which are part-English, part-American, part-Singaporean and COMPLETELY annoying, and generally no longer having to be in a university I do not give a damn about and never will.
There were always many reasons why doing my law degree in London was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made, but until this year, those reasons were never academic. I didn’t choose UCL because I thought it would give me a superior legal education to NUS, but I spent most of this DipSing year thanking my lucky stars for that choice. So goodbye, NUS. May we never meet again.
i read that, and i went ‘oh my god’ because it’s exactly what i felt when i did my one year at nus. and when i quite and came here to london, i knew exactly what i missed about my education at that place. absolutely nothing.
hurrah to you for getting it over and done with~! hurrah hurrah hurrah~!
**round of applause**
I’m glad you said that, phunkstar, because I was worrying it was just me being a grouchy bitch homesick for England.
I’m from NUS and I was sorry to read that you felt it was a wasted year. (I’ve been reading your blog for a while, and enjoy your writing very much. My first time commenting.) I went to NUS law out of necessity rather than choice, but I haven’t any regrets. Yes, the teaching can be awful. Yes, those of your fellow students who are only interested in The Answer can drive you nuts, especially when they make you, the only person in the class who seems to be vaguely interested in The Issues, feel guilty for holding them back. But NUS law has its moments, even if you have to actively seek them out. There are a handful of faculty members who are outstanding teachers and brilliant scholars who are dedicated to their craft. There is one in particular with whom I did a short dissertation in the first semester of my final year, and from whom I learned more in those few weeks than I ever did in all my years at law school put together. And no, she doesn’t do Powerpoint presentations :)
localgrad, I guess I probably just wasn’t as lucky as you. The strange thing is that the lecturer I liked the most – Chin in Evidence, because of his obvious passion for the “issues”, and because I genuinely found him an engaging speaker, especially his little anecdotes about legal history – is the one everyone else seemed to slam a lot. Go figure.
Lest I be misunderstood, I don’t think NUS has a lousy law school (indeed, many NUS students I came into contact with were clearly brilliant and would probably have shone at any overseas uni), but after studying in UCL, I can definitely say NUS law school just doesn’t have a culture or style that I enjoy learning in. I only realized this when I was on the DipSing – before that, I had always assumed I’d have been happy enough there if I had chosen to stay.
hi michelle, I hope you dont take this the wrong way….but I think the main reason why you are so unhappy is because you miss england and your friends there….I dont think you will be happy even after dipsing….if it is at all possible, maybe you can look into going back to england for a training contract….
xyz: That is most definitely the underlying cause of everything but I’m trying not to focus on that these days because there’s nothing I can do about it. I have to be in Singapore over the next couple of years to serve out my scholarship bond, so there’s no point trying to escape to England…yet. ;)
good luck then michelle…try to see things in a positive light…and i hope things turn out well for ya…