Call me a smart aleck without a penchant for books. I was having breakfast with my collegemates when the subject of our previous progress test on catch-up-on-your-sleep theory subject Information Management came up. How did I do? I winged it! (Made up the answers.) Like “tembaking”, just for subjective questions. The test was relatively easy.
They asked how. I related to them that I learnt a bit of it from work. How would you get cheap labour in high quantities? Internships! College leavers who have to go for industrial training! 🙂
At that point I asked if industrial training was covered in Information Management to the remaining breakfast buddy. (The others don’t have my laid-back 5-minute-late attitude.) He went, “huh?” “You know, Information Management? The subject we’re having afterwards? (Or rather, just started…) The boring theory subject? CS219?”
At last he got it. CS219. This was besides the indeniable language barrier between a banana (Chinese who can’t speak Chinese) and a, well, Chinese-educated Chinese. Geez. Everybody refers to subject by their codes! (Which I can’t remember…) I remember last year when referring to our “database” subject. Seems I had to say the magic word, “SQL“. Uhuh.
Another subject we were taking this semester was Java. I had bragged enough of my workplace ASTRO with Xfresh that they duly asked, “Do you use Java at work?” “No.” Well at least I didn’t. It seemed like a cool concept but it was doing enough technical support replying to Xfreshers having trouble accessing the chatroom with their Bill Gates-owned (never mind that they might not have paid anything to Microsoft) Windows XP machines. (I’m not a Linux groupie and I like Windows when it’s nice.)
In my first year I learnt Macromedia Authorware 5. Such a tedious program indeed, that was to be phased out anyway. I’d have preferred they teach Visual Basic 6. At least we didn’t have to learn COBOL like some other assignment-a-week busy college… At that rate I’d say I’m taking my assignment-a-four-month-semester relaxed college for granted. Even at its relaxed pace the lab sounds like a factory with students on dot matrix printers churning trees of slides.
These students have been taught to memorize. It’s a pity. It’s still the same in a private college teaching Information Technology. I’m not even talking about those studious teacher-leech kids. These are people retaking one or two subjects from last year.
It’s sad too that despite their efforts to memorize they get the same B/C/D grades I get!
Mine, at least, takes less effort, just common sense, and when that fails, winging-it skills. God knows how important winging it is. Will you get high in a corporation by winging it or memorizing facts? (Don’t worry, I don’t wing it at work!) I don’t know what Mass. Communication students do but you can bet that winging it does wonders everywhere.
“Why don’t you just study, then?”
I’m lazy. When I do have time to study, books are too tiring. I don’t get the same comfortable posture in front of the interactive idiot box you’re staring at now! 😛
The idea of having to write something and quote somebody from some book [Albert Ng, Glaring Notebook, “Winging It”, 21st March 2003] scares me. Doing anything research-like scares me. Documentation scares me. I lose marks for my short and snappy documentation. (Even with my winging-it skills!)
Heck, talking about studies irritates me too. I’m not one for discussing the technical merits of accolade-ful universities and twinning programs. I know I’m good enough that paper is just something I can fall back on. 😛
Collegemates (actually one) who bug me like I GNU General Public Licensed my Java and C language irritate me like heck. To the point of inspiration – to the point of writing the Parasite Sonnet.
Even in class, I don’t take notes or pay attention to study tips on progress tests. This is even though question spotting is much more accurate in college! My handwriting has gotten worse since work is not 5-fingers-and-a-pen but 104-key goodness. There’s only one thing keeping my writing legible to myself – my poems and sonnets. They were written to keep awake in class!
I’ll end my smart aleck school story here. I’m reaching the end of my third A4-sized paper. Besides, class was just dismissed… 😛
P.S. I’ve fixed a long time bug with the anti-spam-bot mail links. Never noticed till today! :O I’ve also updated my About Me! page with a link to former officemate/frag buddy TheUseless.com.
