...is it just for that cushy Wall St job?
Wed, Jun 25, 2008
The Straits Times
NEW YORK - A PROMINENT education professor at Harvard has started leading 'reflection' seminars at three highly selective colleges, which he hopes will push undergraduates to think more deeply about the connection between their education and aspirations.
Dr Howard Gardner hopes the seminars will encourage more students to consider public service and other careers beyond the consulting and financial jobs that he says are almost the automatic next step for so many graduates of top colleges.
'Is this what a Harvard education is for?' asked Dr Gardner, who is teaching the seminars at Harvard, Amherst and Colby with colleagues. 'Are Ivy League schools simply becoming selecting mechanisms for Wall Street?'
Although other people have expressed similar concerns in recent years, his views have gained support on the Harvard campus with students, faculty and even the new president, Dr Drew Gilpin Faust, who made the topic the cornerstone of her address to seniors during commencement week.
She noted that in the past year, whenever she met students, their first question had always been the same: 'Why are so many of us going to Wall Street?'
On other campuses as well, officials are questioning with new vigour whether too many top students who might otherwise turn their talents to a broader array of fields are being lured by high-paying corporate jobs, and whether colleges should do more to encourage students to consider other careers, especially public service.
As Mr Adam Guren, a new Harvard graduate who will be pursuing his doctorate in economics, put it: 'A lot of students have been asking the question, 'We came to Harvard as freshmen to change the world, and we are leaving to become investment bankers - why is this?''
In her speech, Dr Faust acknowledged the appeal of the jobs - the money, the promise of stimulating work, the security for students of knowing they will be working alongside their friends, a commitment of only two or three years.
She urged the students to search for measures of personal success beyond financial security despite 'the all-but-irresistible recruiting juggernaut'.
In his commencement speech last month at Wesleyan University, Mr Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, voiced a similar theme when he sounded an impassioned call to public service, and warned that the pursuit of narrow self-interest - 'the big house and the nice suits and the other things that our money culture says you should buy...betrays a poverty of ambition'.
Universities are so concerned about this issue that some - Amherst, Tufts, the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard, for example - have expanded public service fellowships and internships.
'We are in the business of graduating people who will make the world better in some way,' said Dr Anthony Marx, Amherst's president. 'That is what justifies the expense of the education.'
This year, Tufts announced that it would pay off college loans for graduates who chose public service jobs.
And officials at Harvard, Penn, Amherst and a number of other colleges say one reason they have begun emphasising grants instead of loans in financial aid is so students do not feel pressured by their debts to pursue lucrative careers.
Source:
Thursday, July 03, 2008
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
My Pimped ride
New wheelset.
Black Mavic 717 rims
Black DT Comp spokes
White Megan Hubs
White Hubs.
White cables and housings
White Mortop grips.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Oxy-moron theory of IT Industry
Stage one - You don’t know much
You are in awe of all the other techs. You make a lot of dumb mistakes. You feel like you are swamped all the time. You have to read a lot before you dare try anything for fear of breaking something. Everybody dumps on you because you are the new kid. Things take longer for you to accomplish. You work a lot of overtime, often without pay. You don’t get paid a lot. You wonder if you’ll ever get a break. You realize that school didn’t quite prepare you for the real world. Work hard. You’ll make it.
Stage two - You know a lot of stuff
You’re good and you know it. So does everyone else around you. They can see that you are good. You don’t have to tell them. Things get done quickly. You even amaze yourself sometimes. You are valuable and can command a good salary. The managers and business owners want to keep you on board. They want you to be happy and offer perks to entice you to stay. You get calls from headhunters all the time. It is very flattering and a nice position to be in. Life is good. Enjoy it while it lasts.
Stage three - You don’t know much again
Technology is passing you by. The young techs seem to know so much more than you. It takes longer to figure things out again. You are probably in a position where you can delegate so you do. You are most likely in a management role and spend more time with people issues than tech issues. You are looked on as wise and experienced. You seek input from other techs before making big decisions. It’s not a big deal that you don’t know all the details anymore. You’ve got the big picture. Let others work out the details.
Source:
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/techofalltrades/?p=145&tag=rbxccnbtr1
In short, Jack of all Trades, Master of none.
You are in awe of all the other techs. You make a lot of dumb mistakes. You feel like you are swamped all the time. You have to read a lot before you dare try anything for fear of breaking something. Everybody dumps on you because you are the new kid. Things take longer for you to accomplish. You work a lot of overtime, often without pay. You don’t get paid a lot. You wonder if you’ll ever get a break. You realize that school didn’t quite prepare you for the real world. Work hard. You’ll make it.
Stage two - You know a lot of stuff
You’re good and you know it. So does everyone else around you. They can see that you are good. You don’t have to tell them. Things get done quickly. You even amaze yourself sometimes. You are valuable and can command a good salary. The managers and business owners want to keep you on board. They want you to be happy and offer perks to entice you to stay. You get calls from headhunters all the time. It is very flattering and a nice position to be in. Life is good. Enjoy it while it lasts.
Stage three - You don’t know much again
Technology is passing you by. The young techs seem to know so much more than you. It takes longer to figure things out again. You are probably in a position where you can delegate so you do. You are most likely in a management role and spend more time with people issues than tech issues. You are looked on as wise and experienced. You seek input from other techs before making big decisions. It’s not a big deal that you don’t know all the details anymore. You’ve got the big picture. Let others work out the details.
Source:
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/techofalltrades/?p=145&tag=rbxccnbtr1
In short, Jack of all Trades, Master of none.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Decline of engineer
Trend
Decline of the engineer
Fears of Singapore heading towards becoming a high cost, low-tech city are not unfounded. By Seah Chiang Nee.
Jun 14, 2008
AFTER more than 10 years of building schools, a young friend, who is a civil engineer, has put away his hard hat to become a teacher in a secondary school.
It was a big career switch for him and a loss to the profession. He had graduated from Purdue University, one of the top engineering schools in America.
Another friend, an electronics engineer, distanced himself from his computers and became a professional photographer.
These are two cases that I am personally aware of in the decline of a profession that was once considered the cornerstone of Singapore’s development.
Many engineers have moved into the more profitable financial sector or sales and service jobs that are in greater demand.
It’s happening in the legal profession, too. The number of lawyers in Singapore has been in gradual but steady decline in the last few years.
“The attrition rate of lawyers is high, and the supply is not sufficient given the rising demand here,” said a recent report.
This professional decline is propelled by globalisation and the state’s move into a service economy. It is beginning to worry parents who sacrifice much to send their children for higher education.
Some engineers, I am told, are planning to get on the casino bandwagon. Two mega gambling resorts are due to begin operation here in 2010.
With more than a million foreigners working here in low-level work, this decline is leading Singaporeans to wonder whether the city is losing sight of its high-tech strategy.
Retired civil servant Ngiam Tong Dow, for one, is worried that the country may be heading towards a high cost, low-tech economy like London and losing its competitiveness.
Britain’s economic decline set in because ‘their best and brightest from Oxbridge, instead of going into engineering and running factories, went into the (financial) City of London’, he said.
“City of London ... they are not creators of wealth, they are just shuffling assets around the place,” Ngiam said.
This had allowed the United States to overtake Britain because “while some of their best went to Wall Street, their best still go into engineering,” he added.
If Singapore were to follow suit “I think we are done for”, said the bureaucrat, who helped to pioneer Singapore’s economic development
Recalling the 1970s, Ngiam said: “I used to tell everybody, what I want is 1,000 engineers, 5,000 technicians from the polytechnics, and 10,000 Institute of Technical Education workers. ‘You give me that, I grant you a job’.”
That has worked only too well. At the peak 40% of the university graduates were engineers.
Local institutions were meeting domestic demand with “a steady pipeline of 30,000 engineering and technical manpower each year”, a minister said.
And according to the Ministry of Manpower, the engineering-related sector still provided the largest number of job vacancies over the past two years.
In 2006, a third of the 3,639 top ten professional job vacancies were in engineering, it said.
And of the top 50 chief executives in Singapore, a third were engineers by training. An official said there are more than 50,000 practising engineers in Singapore, 50% of whom are women.
It is not known how much of these rosy statistics were made up of foreigners.
And as casino gambling and tourism catches hold, the profession’s future has become cloudier. Singaporeans will likely gravitate towards better paying jobs, irrespective of their training.
Interest in engineering courses has already been dropping.
Five years ago, 30% of the 16,000 polytechnic applicants chose engineering as their first-choice course. Last year, only about 15% of 18,000 students did so.
Foreigners are, however, making up for the drop. One economist said: “We may be facing a future where many of the developers of technology and their managers will be foreigners.”
Singapore is in transformation and there are few sacred cows that cannot be slaughtered.
This means Ngiam has a good reason to worry about the future of the engineer.
In his first major speech, new Education Minister Ng Eng Hen said: “More education does not necessarily mean more growth, as most politicians and economists unthinkingly suppose.”
At a time when Singapore is planning a fourth university, Ng countered the argument that having more universities stimulates economic growth,
Tertiary institutions, he said, should maintain a “focus on quality”, rather than “expanding education thoughtlessly”.
Some economists fear the government may be tempted by quick GDP growth at the expense of building on its high-tech strategy when it imports such a large number of cheap migrants.
Years ago, under different circumstances, Singapore had vowed not to allow itself to be addicted – like the Europeans – to cheap foreign labour.
After years of strong economic – and population – expansion the country is where Europe is, having an army of low-skilled workers from abroad.
Nearly a million foreigners came, not to mention another 700,000 permanent residents.
They wait on tables, build our homes, clean our streets and perform numerous tasks that keep the country going.
The biggest change, however, is in government strategy, in the view of some commentators.
Whatever professional skill was needed in the past, the emphasis used to be to train Singaporeans.
Today, this need has all but gone. Instead to save time and money, the government is turning to the world to tap its readily available supply of professionals.
One side effect isn’t pretty. While foreigners arrive in large numbers, more of Singapore’s homebred talents are leaving to settle abroad.
(This was first published in The Star on June 14, 2008)
Source:
http://www.littlespeck.com/content/economy/CTrendsEconomy-080614.htm
Decline of the engineer
Fears of Singapore heading towards becoming a high cost, low-tech city are not unfounded. By Seah Chiang Nee.
Jun 14, 2008
AFTER more than 10 years of building schools, a young friend, who is a civil engineer, has put away his hard hat to become a teacher in a secondary school.
It was a big career switch for him and a loss to the profession. He had graduated from Purdue University, one of the top engineering schools in America.
Another friend, an electronics engineer, distanced himself from his computers and became a professional photographer.
These are two cases that I am personally aware of in the decline of a profession that was once considered the cornerstone of Singapore’s development.
Many engineers have moved into the more profitable financial sector or sales and service jobs that are in greater demand.
It’s happening in the legal profession, too. The number of lawyers in Singapore has been in gradual but steady decline in the last few years.
“The attrition rate of lawyers is high, and the supply is not sufficient given the rising demand here,” said a recent report.
This professional decline is propelled by globalisation and the state’s move into a service economy. It is beginning to worry parents who sacrifice much to send their children for higher education.
Some engineers, I am told, are planning to get on the casino bandwagon. Two mega gambling resorts are due to begin operation here in 2010.
With more than a million foreigners working here in low-level work, this decline is leading Singaporeans to wonder whether the city is losing sight of its high-tech strategy.
Retired civil servant Ngiam Tong Dow, for one, is worried that the country may be heading towards a high cost, low-tech economy like London and losing its competitiveness.
Britain’s economic decline set in because ‘their best and brightest from Oxbridge, instead of going into engineering and running factories, went into the (financial) City of London’, he said.
“City of London ... they are not creators of wealth, they are just shuffling assets around the place,” Ngiam said.
This had allowed the United States to overtake Britain because “while some of their best went to Wall Street, their best still go into engineering,” he added.
If Singapore were to follow suit “I think we are done for”, said the bureaucrat, who helped to pioneer Singapore’s economic development
Recalling the 1970s, Ngiam said: “I used to tell everybody, what I want is 1,000 engineers, 5,000 technicians from the polytechnics, and 10,000 Institute of Technical Education workers. ‘You give me that, I grant you a job’.”
That has worked only too well. At the peak 40% of the university graduates were engineers.
Local institutions were meeting domestic demand with “a steady pipeline of 30,000 engineering and technical manpower each year”, a minister said.
And according to the Ministry of Manpower, the engineering-related sector still provided the largest number of job vacancies over the past two years.
In 2006, a third of the 3,639 top ten professional job vacancies were in engineering, it said.
And of the top 50 chief executives in Singapore, a third were engineers by training. An official said there are more than 50,000 practising engineers in Singapore, 50% of whom are women.
It is not known how much of these rosy statistics were made up of foreigners.
And as casino gambling and tourism catches hold, the profession’s future has become cloudier. Singaporeans will likely gravitate towards better paying jobs, irrespective of their training.
Interest in engineering courses has already been dropping.
Five years ago, 30% of the 16,000 polytechnic applicants chose engineering as their first-choice course. Last year, only about 15% of 18,000 students did so.
Foreigners are, however, making up for the drop. One economist said: “We may be facing a future where many of the developers of technology and their managers will be foreigners.”
Singapore is in transformation and there are few sacred cows that cannot be slaughtered.
This means Ngiam has a good reason to worry about the future of the engineer.
In his first major speech, new Education Minister Ng Eng Hen said: “More education does not necessarily mean more growth, as most politicians and economists unthinkingly suppose.”
At a time when Singapore is planning a fourth university, Ng countered the argument that having more universities stimulates economic growth,
Tertiary institutions, he said, should maintain a “focus on quality”, rather than “expanding education thoughtlessly”.
Some economists fear the government may be tempted by quick GDP growth at the expense of building on its high-tech strategy when it imports such a large number of cheap migrants.
Years ago, under different circumstances, Singapore had vowed not to allow itself to be addicted – like the Europeans – to cheap foreign labour.
After years of strong economic – and population – expansion the country is where Europe is, having an army of low-skilled workers from abroad.
Nearly a million foreigners came, not to mention another 700,000 permanent residents.
They wait on tables, build our homes, clean our streets and perform numerous tasks that keep the country going.
The biggest change, however, is in government strategy, in the view of some commentators.
Whatever professional skill was needed in the past, the emphasis used to be to train Singaporeans.
Today, this need has all but gone. Instead to save time and money, the government is turning to the world to tap its readily available supply of professionals.
One side effect isn’t pretty. While foreigners arrive in large numbers, more of Singapore’s homebred talents are leaving to settle abroad.
(This was first published in The Star on June 14, 2008)
Source:
http://www.littlespeck.com/content/economy/CTrendsEconomy-080614.htm
First ride to Pulau Ubin
1320 set off from home to Kai's house
1345 arrived at Kai's house
1430 Changi Village Jetty.
We were supposed to cycle with Kai's colleagues but only 1 turned up. We took the boat heading towards Pulau Ubin.
1 way trip
$2.50 /pax
$2 /bike
GPGT our bikes inside the boat.
Changi Chalets.
Welcome to Pulau Ubin
Map of Ubin
Look like Fillipino?
Is that JB? Why got HDB flats.
Ketam Bike Trail
Dangerous starting point
Steadily controlling his bike.
Here I gooooooooooo!!!
Attacking the slope.
Kelong in the middle of the sea. I wonder how the postman deliver the letters?
The address would be Straits of Malacca, SE of Johore, Bearing North, East ...
Map of the Bike Trail
Scenic view of the Quarry
Me attacking the slope.
I love this pic, looks so professional poseur LOL!
After we riding at Ketam, decided to get some drinks at one of the villager's house. The weather was scorching hot.
Fat cat having its afternoon nap, ignoring all the noise. PS the cat is not harmed in anyway. Thats the table leg.
Picture of the village's house. It belong to an old man think around 60s yo. It really bring you back in time compared to what we are living. Air-con, LCD TVs, Home theatre systems, Computer, Internet Broadband, Cable TV ...
I challenged Kai and his friend would they want to live in Ubin for the rest of their life without leaving the Island but given $10,000/month. No answers LOL!
We are a the border of Ubin, behind steel fencing. Closeup view of the Kelong.
My new pimped ride, see if you noticed any differences.
Next is to a place call Secret Garden. It's located not too far away from the Jetty. Just behind the Police Station.
Looked like little tombstones.
Do you dare to eat Laksa?
Sweet cooling leaves with multiple benefits.
Scenic view.
Kai ready to dance Hip-Hop, with his make-shift banana, oopss Bandanna.
Relax one corner.
Another scenic view.
Kai despite being a Hip-Hop dancer, he getting ready to join Bollywood, dancing around palm trees.
I saw a huge monitor lizard.
I saw a flying cockroach LOL!!!
Then we headed back to Changi Village for dinner and cycled back home via ECP.
Reached home, my ass hurts so much, got to miss the next day ride with C2C people. Pity.
1345 arrived at Kai's house
1430 Changi Village Jetty.
We were supposed to cycle with Kai's colleagues but only 1 turned up. We took the boat heading towards Pulau Ubin.
1 way trip
$2.50 /pax
$2 /bike
GPGT our bikes inside the boat.
Changi Chalets.
Welcome to Pulau Ubin
Map of Ubin
Look like Fillipino?
Is that JB? Why got HDB flats.
Ketam Bike Trail
Dangerous starting point
Steadily controlling his bike.
Here I gooooooooooo!!!
Attacking the slope.
Kelong in the middle of the sea. I wonder how the postman deliver the letters?
The address would be Straits of Malacca, SE of Johore, Bearing North, East ...
Map of the Bike Trail
Scenic view of the QuarryMe attacking the slope.
I love this pic, looks so professional poseur LOL!
After we riding at Ketam, decided to get some drinks at one of the villager's house. The weather was scorching hot.
Fat cat having its afternoon nap, ignoring all the noise. PS the cat is not harmed in anyway. Thats the table leg.
Picture of the village's house. It belong to an old man think around 60s yo. It really bring you back in time compared to what we are living. Air-con, LCD TVs, Home theatre systems, Computer, Internet Broadband, Cable TV ...
I challenged Kai and his friend would they want to live in Ubin for the rest of their life without leaving the Island but given $10,000/month. No answers LOL!
We are a the border of Ubin, behind steel fencing. Closeup view of the Kelong.
My new pimped ride, see if you noticed any differences.
Next is to a place call Secret Garden. It's located not too far away from the Jetty. Just behind the Police Station.
Looked like little tombstones.
Do you dare to eat Laksa?
Sweet cooling leaves with multiple benefits.
Scenic view.
Kai ready to dance Hip-Hop, with his make-shift banana, oopss Bandanna.
Relax one corner.
Another scenic view.
Kai despite being a Hip-Hop dancer, he getting ready to join Bollywood, dancing around palm trees.
I saw a huge monitor lizard.
I saw a flying cockroach LOL!!!
Then we headed back to Changi Village for dinner and cycled back home via ECP.
Reached home, my ass hurts so much, got to miss the next day ride with C2C people. Pity.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Haig Road Western Food
I wonder you guys watch a Channel 8 programme where hosts, Zhou Chong Qing, Quan Yi Feng and Kym Ng help to revive those stall-owners. Apparently 1 episode showed a western stall near Haig Road.
Their specialty was having cheese and ham between 2 pork chops. My sis had always hinted she wanted to try it.
The place not hard to find. Internet forums state its a coffeeshop beside BLK 23. If you know where is CDAC, its just behind it, 5mins walk.
The speciality IIRC "Cordon Bleu Pork Chops"
$6, abit too dry but the quality of salad surprised me.
3.5/5
Grilled Chicken Chop in mushroom sauce with rice and egg.
$4, generous serving, using the meat near the thigh very tender, fantastic mushroom sauce, not those Campbell sauce. Rice cooked just nice.
5/5 best western i ever eaten.
Beat Botak Jones in taste
Beat Astons @ Bedok in portion.
Closeup of the Cordon Bleu Pork Chops, can see the cheese oozing out.
My new pair of cycling gloves. Fox Digit, color suits my bike. Bought from C2C, thanks Ben.
Their specialty was having cheese and ham between 2 pork chops. My sis had always hinted she wanted to try it.
The place not hard to find. Internet forums state its a coffeeshop beside BLK 23. If you know where is CDAC, its just behind it, 5mins walk.
The speciality IIRC "Cordon Bleu Pork Chops"
$6, abit too dry but the quality of salad surprised me.
3.5/5
Grilled Chicken Chop in mushroom sauce with rice and egg.
$4, generous serving, using the meat near the thigh very tender, fantastic mushroom sauce, not those Campbell sauce. Rice cooked just nice.
5/5 best western i ever eaten.
Beat Botak Jones in taste
Beat Astons @ Bedok in portion.
Closeup of the Cordon Bleu Pork Chops, can see the cheese oozing out.
My new pair of cycling gloves. Fox Digit, color suits my bike. Bought from C2C, thanks Ben.
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