047 The SAJC PW results review 2

Yes, it's back. The PW special blog entry, yes, yes, I know this is one issue that no one is particularly excited to speak about, and today once again i heard someone speaking about PW and how, if you google SAJC PW results, you get particularly interesing results. I actually took the liberty to do it last night after finishing the entry and yes my suspicions about all those accusations were confirmed. But then again, I wonder whether it was simply a knee jerk reaction to the results, as the issue does not spread into entries any later than april 15th, which is a good thing, because i do sincerely hope that all of us will move forwards from this incident, and as Ms Carol Wong said during the University Forum, we must concentrate on the bigger A-level subjects. Of course, let this be a reminder that we are now a step behind the other students in other JCs and a motivation to change the students' attitude.

I try not to dwell on the post-mortem of the PW results and I am quite tempted to hold back my thoughts on this issue, but it is one issue I must address as a wake-up call to some of us. I don't have ample time today so I might yet say something about this today and the probabilty is that it will be in a third edition of this PW special series. But first, I must draw our attention to the JC1's PW this year. Their project is Groundbreakers or Entertainment, and from what I've gathered, the number of students doing the latter is so few that after speaking to quite a number of them, I have yet to hear any explaination about the latter's task requirement. The former on the other hand, is saturated. Almost every single prominent person in history I have heard, and i think that this shows that this project task is saturated. The PI deadline, i believe, is May 4, next Friday, and with one week remaining, I have heard horror stories about rejected PIs, a nightmare that plagued me last year, and it is a very desperate situation. Trust me, cooking up a new idea out of thin air is one thing, getting the details right is another, and making the tutor happy is an entirely different thing. I fear for the J1s this year, their situation seems quite difficult due to the narrow scope of the Groundbreakers task. You see, identifying a prominent person whose reputation isn't exactly overpublised is not exactly a picnic, and then generating new ideas to make the community aware of his contribution is rather difficult, simply because it isn't easy to come up with exciting new ideas that aren't cliches and the obvious things that people come with and at the same time, coming up with a sensible project that is feasible and not too bizzarre. They are walking on this narrow path, toeing the lines between these two scenarios, with the large number of students doing this task, the number of available candidates have narrowed down so much, that when someone asks me which person he/she should choose, I'm at a loss for words because I have to recall all the obvious people who have been taken by someone else. I now fear of another year of poor results, and yet another barrage of accusation.

While I steer away from suggesting that some conspiracy is stirring, there are just so many areas and issues to worry about in this most singular subject, the one subject that exposed students to A-levels, the first time students will place all their heart and soul in something in JC (at least in the academic field), and with all these problems, it is awfully disheartening to know that after all that, you get an unsatisfactory grade. Of course, like I always tell people, that there are things in life in which the amount of work put in is disproportionate to the results, and we should attempt them with an open heart, but to be honest, to remain optimistic throughout the course of the entire cycle is nearly impossible, there have been times where I nearly wanted to give it all up, and fail the subject, but I kept going on. However, I must admit the group's WR and my EoM were, shall we say, returned comparatively better results than the others, but the stress was still there, I vividly remembered the night before the first submission of the WR, it was and still is something that is stuck there in a part of my mind. I won't bore you with the details of this memory, but perhaps I will use it as a lesson learnt in perseverence because now I use it as a motivation to push harder in places where it is required as good results will follow. I know this is something inappropriate to say when any other person you know did not do as well as you did, but there is something to be taken away from here, and I feel that even if you did not do as well as expected, the fact that all of us made it through the entire PW process shows that we have indeed proven our worth in life, it was a challenge well faced.

I know I painted a very bad picture of the JC1 PW this year, I'm sorry but I am obligated to report what I think is true. However, all is not lost, in fact in PW, all is never lost. This a personal anecdote, and I hope you can draw the neccesary conclusions from this. Last year, in a streak of obsession over the Singaporean transport system, I wrote a project about transport interchanges and how to improve them. However, as my bad luck and inferior skills would have it, my first draft was rejected, not because it's illogical, but because it was too common and has no room for synthesis of new ideas, which is, pls take note, one of the most important, essential, fundamental, crucial, but most difficult part of PW when it comes to desiging your ideas, one of roots of your projects that you must cling on to if you want to do well in your project, a superficial project will not go far. Frankly, the raw idea for my project was not very developed, me, together with some insights from my group members redesigned the entire project in such a way that it manages to open new avenues for the development, and brought to the project a whole new breath of fresh air. In my opinion this is where many projects fail to do, open up their project so that it is not confined to the small space i feared so much last time. Back to my PI, my second draft was a radically new idea, albeit a little insensible. I proposed a tram system in Toa Payoh to replace the bus services. Here's the whole truth, I manipulated my PI such that the idea sounds really convincing, and for a moment, as i was told, you would almost believe the idea would work, but only when giving it deeper thought, you would realise that the idea was silly. But the important thing is to fulfill the criteria, about Generation of Ideas and Evaluation of Ideas, this implies that even if the idea is no good, as long as you develop it properly, it is possible that you can still do well. So, don't get alarmed if you were told that your idea doesn't work, just continue with it, but develop your ideas fully, but please take this with a pinch of salt, because i would not recommend this method if you have a better idea.

I'm quite tired now, and i need to sleep, but this is not the end of the SAJC PW results review, ther is one more installment to come and i will write it out if I'm free tomorrow. So, goodbye for now...