Up to a Certain Degree

If I manage to get my degree, it will be my first and probably my last business degree. There is only so much economics and finance jargon one can take before a mental collapse occurs. I may take up a second degree and it will either be in English or Mass Communications. After all the suffering I have gone through I certainly deserve something easy. The world of business is highly fascinating and unlike in esoteric and totally useless fields like theology and theatre studies, it is wholly based on the reality. The thing is, however, that I have no time to assimilate much of what I have learnt. When you are up to your throat in deadlines, you just want to finish the assignments. The understanding can take a back seat and in most cases it is nowhere to be found.

Furthermore, with so many paper mills offering cheap and easy business degrees, the monetary benefits a business degree used to confer is now hugely diminished. Why would a company hire a Shitholer who went through three tough years at NUS when it can jolly well employ an Ah-Tiong with an 18 month degree from Kaplan? True, the Ah Tiong may not speak English very well, and his knowledge may not be as good (how much can a business student possibly learn in 18 months?), but at least you don’t need to contribute CPF to him (less operating costs), and lose him for up to 40 days a year due to his reservist call-up (additional costs incurred). The market is so saturated with cheap business degrees that wages are depressed and people cannot find a job with a decent pay, despite being highly qualified (I exclude the paper mill degree holders from this consideration).

On an unrelated note, XH had tickets to a press screening but I was not able to make it because I had class. International economics is a very absorbing topic and my lecturer has been doing a pretty good job at teaching us. Unfortunately I was just too exhausted to pick up much and the only thing I managed to achieve was deciding on how to spilt our group assignment. (As usual, I took the essay questions.) On hindsight I should have just gone to the press screening instead. XH told me that he has free movie passes every week. How I envy him. Now, this is the kind of overtime I could learn to love!

This isn’t a day when I wake up and don’t think my business course is not worth it. Don’t get me wrong – I like studying about business. It’s just that besides the reasons aforementioned, the work load is just too heavy. When you have gone through over two years of academic life which is basically ‘rush, rush and rush’, and are having to keep up the pace for another year, you do feel jaded. And when you hear that students in other courses have like, weeks to finish a 1,000 word limit assignment consisting of a press release and a letter, you start to ask yourself whether your exertions are worth it. Both are degrees, but why such a staggering disparity in course requirements? The moon may seem brighter on the other side yes, but it is because it is really brighter. I am the sole survivor in my enrollment batch, at least among the people I know anyway. My fellows have either dropped out or been relegated. The bloke who talked to me during my university interview was not bullshitting when he said the attrition rate was 40%. I don’t know how long I can keep this up, especially considering my reslavery period will cut into my capstone module schedule. I don’t really care about grades anymore. I just want to get it done and over with.