Well, it's not exactly the end yet. I still have exams in a couple of weeks' time. Also, should all go well with my Honours application (I sincerely hope so!), I will be commencing my Honours year the following semester. But it is officially the end of lessons here at UQ, and until I receive an official letter from my Faculty confirming my successful Honours application, I can only assume that the 'student' chapter of my life is coming to an end.
Lessons officially ended last week, but till now my mind is still a whirl of thoughts and feelings about The End. I mean, I have been a student nearly all my life, beginning when I first started nursery and till now at the end of my undergraduate studies. While I do have some working and internship experiences, being a student is the only real job I have ever done all these years. So now that I am on the cusp of entering the real working world, I can't help but feel a mix of sadness, nostalgia, fear and excitement.
My Mum likes to tell me that being a student is the best time of one's life. That's because for all the stress homework, exams and tecahers give, coupled with the trials and tribulations that come with growing up, a student's life is still a shelthered one. Most students will depend on their parents to varying degrees for financial support, for one thing. Also, when you're young, people are more forgiving when you make mistakes. Once you become a full-time working adult, there're more responsibilities to take on and expectations of you are raised a notch. For perhaps the first time, you are truly on your own when it comes to supporting yourself.
For me, I feel the pressures of finding a job after I graduate more and more. It just doesn't help that the International Labour Organization recently warned that youth unemployment has become a serious issue worldwide since the Global Financial Crisis. I fear that I too might be one of those millions of qualified, educated but frustrated young people who either cannot find a job or end up being under-employed. The unemployment situation in Singapore isn't as bad as in Europe and USA, but with increased immigration of late the competition for local jobs have intensified. Ideally, I would like to get a job here in Australia as I feel Australia has more opportunities for my areas of study, but so many other international students also want to find a job here, which means greater competition for the permanent residency needed to apply for most Australian jobs. Probing deeper into my fears, I think I am basically afraid of leaving the comfort of student life and entering the uncertain, fast-changing territory of the working world.
I do have my dreams and aspirations, which I have been working very hard to achieve, but in the face of the unknown, there is no guarantees that they will definitely be attained. But I take comfort in the fact that at the end of student life, I have no regrets. I fought for and got to study the subjects I was interested in, my passion for my two main fields of study at university has been nurtured greatly and I have had the privilege of attending wonderful schools and learning under knowledgeable academics. Student life has been stressful, no doubt, but it had also been fun, fulfilling and comforting. I wish I had appreciated this more earlier.
Special mention must go to my University, for it was here at the University of Queensland that I really and truly blossomed academically and as a student. Until I joined UQ, I had only been an average student in Singapore. I worked hard in my studies, but so did everyone else, as that was how you survive the highly competitive education system in Singapore. I did manage to attend a couple of prestigious and popular schools in Singapore, but I wasn't one of their alumni who left with stellar grades and would be featured as 'high-achievers' in school magazines. I never had stellar grades in Singapore. I couldn't even get into the Faculty of Arts of the National University of Singapore because it was so competitive and my 'A' level grades were just decent. All this changed when I was accepted into UQ. At first, I had a big academic culture shock when I started university as the environment, responsibilities and expectations of university students were quite different from what I was used to in Singapore. It took me a few months to get used to everything and settle down. After that initial difficulty, though, everything was mostly smooth-sailing to my surprise. At the end of my first year, I received a Dean's Commendation from the Faculty of Arts. Subsequently, I have received a Dean's Commendation for nearly every semester except the first semester of last year when I went on exchange to the UK. In addition, I managed to go on exchange to the University of Leeds last year and I recently completed an internship at a public sector organization here in Brisbane. I'm still surprised that I achieved so much here as compared to my student days in Singapore, but I believe I can attribute my success to the academic environment of UQ. There is more academic freedom in UQ, exams are not the be-all and end-all as is often the case with education in Singapore and I got to learn under many academics who are passionate about their areas of expertise. I also received a lot of social, emotional and academic support here at UQ (and from my wonderful parents back home), without which I am sure I would not have achieved as much as I have today.
This is why I so badly want to do my Honours year the following semester. I love studying in UQ, and I have an area of interest I want to pursue more deeply in an Honours thesis. And having studied abroad in two countries, I realize that the world is such a vast place that is uncertain and ever-changing but where there are still opportunities that await. Singapore will always be home to me, but as I have said before in this blog, Singapore is small in more than just the literal sense.
But maybe I need not fear so much what the future brings, for I do have rich and fulfilling school experiences (especially the ones I had in UQ) to speak of that would no doubt be of use when I finally start working. I cannot say with certainty what will happen in the future for me, but no matter what job I take on or wherever in the world I end up working, I have these precious student experiences that have greatly shaped me to become who I am today.
No matter what happens in the future, no one or nothing can ever take away the things I experienced, learned and loved during my student days for they are all in my heart and mind now.
