Culture of incompetence

Let's talk about competency incompetency.

Competence is a standardized requirement for an individual to properly perform a specific job. It encompasses a combination of knowledge, skills and behavior utilized to improve performance. More generally, competence is the state or quality of being adequately or well qualified, having the ability to perform a specific role.

source: wikipedia

Hmmm...

The education system liwat fucked us all.

That's what I can say.

I was about to bitch about how incompetent my TITAS group is (and the rest of the UKM students) but then as I type, my mind probed deeper to the roots of this.

See how blogging makes me think...

Ok. I am gonna bitch about my TITAS group or I will never get it out my chest.

Today was supposed to be presentation day where we present our assignment. My group's title is "Etika dalam Kegiatan Sains". A title which I think is overly cliched. There are so many ethical issues regarding science nowdays that I guess one cannot say that they can't find anything over the internet.

Let's go back in history just a little bit.

Last two weeks, I accidentally scheduled my Pengantar Pengurusan clashing with my TITAS group meeting. Feeling guilty, I stayed on the with the Pengurusan Group, because I did call for the meeting, absenting myself from the TITAS group meeting.

I joined them after finishing the meeting with the Pengurusan Group.

The moment they told me that I will be doing the "implikasi pemisahan sains dan agama" part, my heart just kecut.

I have no problem with the part given to me (I can just do the whole topic myself anyway), but I was so disheartened that they chose to follow the division of topics in the textbook (some lousy one published by UKM. Now I regret buying) which is obviously flawed. There is no coherence among the subtopics and the information/ facts is irrelevant to the ttile of the subtopic.

It was my bad that I couldn't make it to the meeting but if I had knew that this will be happening, I would have skipped the Pengurusan group meeting and attended this instead. I tried speaking to the group leader about the division of the subtopics but he said to find whatever we can first and then we'll discuss next week. At least we have some findings first rather than nothing.

So the first important step was already flawed. There is nothing else to expect.

Of course the following week, the discussion never happened, and we just copied our PowerPoint and the full type out to the group leader. He will supposedly compile everyone else's work and make it to one copy. That week, I reminded him to remind the rest to wear formal (at least a collared buttoned shirt, long pants, and shoes) during the presentation day as it was the standard wear for presentation.

But obviously, he didn't take my advice.

So today was supposed to be the presentation day. I was dressed in my nice white pants (my favourite) and a nice beige Padani shirt while most of them were dressed in T-shirts and jeans.

I was boiling inside.

The lecturer didn't bring his list of students so he asked groups to volunteer. Obviously my group leader didn't because "we are not ready yet".

Wtf. Presentation day and you are still not ready.

I'm boiling even more.

But nothing else I can do but to wait for next week lo.

Before class started, I was really scared for the presentation. Scared not nervous. I was worried that this group would pull my marks down. Kiasu I know. But when you know you've put in effort, you really don't want your results to be lowered because of other's incompetence.

When the presentations started, I nearly fainted.

The minute the first presenter opens her mouth to speak, I decided to complete my maths tutorial. They were either reading from the slides or reading from papers. Except one person. And when one person presents, the others congregate and giggle at the side like the kittens in my college. Total waste of my time.

That was it la.

Presentation skills pun tak ada.

I really have resigned to the fact that most students here are hopeless by my standards.

Seriously, I am selfishly worried for myself. I was about to say that I'm worried that if I am around these kind of people too much, I will become less and less competent but then I thought, if I am strong enough, I should be able to stick to my standards and not let others pull me down.

What I am worried is that the current standards of students does not allocate room for me to further and groom my critical intelligence. There is no challenge here. There are no critical opinions from students and no lecturer critical enough to get me thinking.

These are the kinds of questions that students ask:

• Exam dalam Bahasa Melayu atau Inggeris?
• Kena buat dalam PowerPoint r?
• Nak tulis berapa mukasurat?

-_-"

I miss Janet in this sense.

I'll probably learn more working than studying. No wonder the standards of our local universities are dropping in the international ranking. They didn't even make it to the top 200 last year.

The influence of culture is crucial in shaping who we will become. A family with a culture of acheiving excellence will have children striving to be the best, a workplace with a culture of collectivity will foster employee solidarity, and a country with a culture of democracy will have empowered citizens.

The culture in UKM (and probably other public unis as well) is one that of non-critical thinking, exam and 4-pointer oriented, and racially polarised.

I can try to stand out for what I believe and not conform to the culture here but my capacity only lies as an individual. Put me in a group where everyone just wants to take the easy way out, do assignments just for the sake of completing it and getting the 15% marks, and do things the boring and conventional method, I will drown.

I can try to pitch interesting ideas which need a little more effort and risk, but when others just want to take the easiest, simplest, and safest way out, there is nothing much I can do.

There is no room for creativity, experimentation, and risk-taking. Even if you have encouraging lecturers, you don't have supportive peers and other role models that you can use as a benchmark.

It does get depressing you know. Feeling yourself remaining intellectually static day by day.

I guess that's why I'm always online even when I already have nothing to do on the net. I'm looking for people to talk to me. Someone to stimulate my thoughts.

That's why I blog almost everyday. To slower down the effects of dementia. It's the only opportunity I have to think and reflect.

That's why when I met up with Feli that day, I have so much to say. Because I don't speak much when I'm here in UKM. People here speak of topics from a different realm.

No, I don't speak about the latest fashion, I don't place place orders for stuff from the chinese catalogue, I don't follow chinese artistes, I don't follow the latest movies, and I don't think people should be exclusive to their own race.

These are not my thing.

I somehow feel like we have lost our best talents to private unis and overseas. I wonder where the mainly-middle-class English-speaking people went. These were high achievers in secondary schools and they transcend all race. These were people acheiving averages 5 points higher than me, they were student leaders, public speakers, and good in their respective sports. They represented the school, awarded macam-macam awards, and these I would say, are deserving people.

But after Form Five, only the saki baki did Form Six. Itupun seekor dua.

THE DIASPORA.

Then the influx of chinese students from chinese national schools in Form Six.

When it comes to uni (at least in UKM), at least 90% of chinese students come from chinese national schools. So where are those from the national schools? I'm not trying to be racist or class-ist here but this is the racial and education background demographic that I observe.

Almost all the "terror" people I know are overseas.

I think this post is long enough. It's already 3am now. Although I have more to write but I'll save it for another day.

As long as I'm lonely and people are stupid here, this blog is not likely to be deserted.

If you're not from the public uni, you'll probably have no idea about what I'm talking about, but whatever..