Not the last word. Notes on being halfway through

I first started writing the following during term time. Now I finish it.

(And a very long explanatory note: I wrote what I write here because of this longstanding struggle with this question: how to intervene in the world for the good? Answering this question, I had always thought that USP would be the best place to start doing things, which explains many of the above words and attitude. Then, reality *kinda* got in the way. I wrestled with the point of student community - what it is, how it is, and then, I got caught up in student politics. Learnt many lessons, and after some processing, came to the conclusion that my overall strategy could have been a failure.

Maybe USP wasn’t the best place that I thought it was, and maybe I was erm, ignoring the obvious realities that were going on in the lives of people in my age group. I have been quite privileged though, in that I had an earlier exploratory phase that has continued on in various forms, so I don’t exactly need undergraduate days as an exploratory phase. Rather, my time here has been spent largely on consolidating and learning in a more focused way about the things I’ve been interested in, hence I was more erm, able to push through and conceive of certain things.

Friends have *kinda* advised me to move on and really to start thinking on what’s ahead - careers at think-tanks, looking at graduate, education, taking things to a whole new level in terms of depth and breadth. If I really wanted to start learning about intervention in the world, I should be looking outwards to research and the various ways to do that, and maybe not so much inwards in the USP student community. :S

For now: Let USP be. Let friends be. Have fun. I’ll try to have fun too, but I’ll also have to wrestle with my own telos (not that I know what it is), about what I have to do (even if it makes me isolated at times).

What is USP?

This question popped up in my head for multiple reasons. I ask this because from anecdotal evidence, there have been misunderstandings about what USP is, and what USP students do. Individuals, both friends and strangers, often ask, ‘what is USP’, and ‘what do they do’, and they often do so with a few assumptions; that USP students have a scholarship; that USP students are genuises; that we are ‘atas’ and elitist, and various other claims.

I can’t address all these various claims comprehensively, and besides, I am not in the best position to explain what USP is. Why is that so? Simply because there is just so much diversity in USP. A single label, other than the ‘membership in USP’, cannot encompass the entire set of people who pass through the programme. Again, as a reminder, the standard disclaimer of non-representation must be mentioned here. I write for myself, and even if most of the things mentioned are agreeable to most, there will still be dissensions. I can only again, write for myself, based on my personal experiences thus far in the programme.

I come back to USP again - just what is? According to the vision and mission as plucked out from the website, it is:

Our Vision

To be a talent programme that produces graduates who lead in forging new insights and mindsets across disciplines and cultures.

Our Mission

To provide a unique undergraduate experience for highly talented students to realise their full potential.

To attain our Vision and Mission, we aim to:

1. Attract and develop a diverse range of talented individuals who demonstrate the potential to be leaders in intellectual, economic, cultural or social spheres in Singapore and the world.

2. Build and nurture a close-knit and vibrant community of scholars (comprising faculty, students and alumni) that is committed to excellence in their diverse interests.

3. Enable this community of scholars to be connected to the global network of scholars, through dialogues and strategic collaborations.

4. Continuously innovate to provide an enriching and globally-oriented educational programme, aimed at stretching the students’ intellectual, leadership, and personal capacities.

5. Provide students with the best of the world through tie-ups with world-leading innovative educational programmes.

I guess the vision and mission statement says a lot, but then again, doesn’t really say much. For one, the vision and mission does not reflect the emphasis on inter-disciplinary inquiry of USP. For another, statements like these can’t really seem to bring out the quality of experience of students who have been through the programme. For example, what exactly does ‘close-knit and vibrant community of scholars’ mean? And how does that square with the overall academic/intellectual focus of the programme? And for those who are end-driven, what is the outcome of the programme - what do ‘I’ get out of it after I graduate?

I can’t answer the last question that I raised, simply because I have not graduated. As for the others; again I can only answer for myself.

The experience of being in USP is one that cannot be simply described in the words or the descriptions of the module codes, nor the CVs of the instructors that form the faculty or of the administrative staff. Neither can the experience be described in the countless photos and videos and prose describing and capturing the moments of great fun. Nor the Facebook posts nor the voices of the seniors reminiscing of the moments came and past. All of that together, can only provide the barest of glimpses into what USP ‘is’.

From my perspective, USP seems to be addressing the question: what happens if you put 600+ bright, motivated students together, in a programme where ideas are flying around every second? Here, I want to qualify ‘bright’, of which intellectual capability is just one component. There is of course, the more intangible qualities of curiosity, independence, the ability to make tangential connections, etc,. There is a serious attempt to look at ideas from the perspectives of different disciplines - the philosophy and biological aspects of evolution; the mathematics of social sciences; the use of computing in the various disciplines - all of these are taught, and more. The intellectual aspects of the programme, combined with the community, makes for a potent combination in sparking connections in the minds of those who choose to participate actively.

If I may dare claim, there are a few qualities that seem to be a common thread that keeps surfacing. One of these is this plain curiosity, of wanting to know more, and going beyond the material that is given. This curiosity also manifests itself in wanting to learn more about the other disciplines, no matter how distant from one’s own. The other quality, although more enforced, is this commitment towards clarity and criticality of thought. When debating, USP students are nearly always going straight for the undeclared assumptions and implications of any statement. The two qualities, though obviously varying amongst USP students nonetheless serve as bases for a common understanding of what the experience in USP is about.

In more indirect ways, the experience of USP challenges the orthodoxy of education in Singapore, and this is where the differences between USP and non-USP students become the basis of the various claims and labels that have been put on USP.

What is this orthodoxy? The orthodoxy seems to include several points, one of which is the acceptance of the highly competitive society, where one should get distinctions at all costs, if not suffer the consequences of poor job prospects. This hyper-competitiveness leads to the tyranny of the normal curve, where the average moves towards the B/B+ region, where the student body verges towards a dog-eat-dog world. These negativities, are no doubt nearly inevitable, and I am no idealist in claiming that these negativities can be eliminated.

USP, I thought, challenges the attitude above. Curiosity and openness to new ideas are emphasized, and an exploratory attitude welcomed. In other words, USP challenges the orthodoxy of the education-economy link, and challenges too, the minds that go through the entire experience.

To those who have chosen decisively the area of their studies and future vocation, I guess that something like USP will not be able to meet their expectations, simply because the USP experience is meant to do certain things, and not other things. The keywords mentioned above - curiosity, exploratory attitude, openness - do not apply equally well to everyone. There will be people with a single-mindedness towards their field of studies - could be anywhere from the sciences to the engineers to the philosophers to the economists - and that is completely justified. USP is not an entirely open institution - no institution can be completely open to anyone. There will be parameters and requirements that individuals have to meet in order to gain entry and membership. What can change, is how the institution chooses to interact with other institutions and other groups. USP will be a perfect fit for people with certain dispositions, but a puzzle for others, and even an abomination for others still.

I am sure that a single piece of writing like this cannot make sense of the USP experience. After all, this is one author among many possible authors, and everyone has a different voice, different things to say. This, however, has been my piece, and I hope to some people, they can decide better for them whether USP is a good fit. I can’t promise anything, but the trend has been that, for those who choose to take active ownership of their education, and choose to participate in the numerous opportunities available, the time at USP will be a rewarding one. While the statement is true for any institution in general, it is especially true for the context of USP. The sheer density and quality of the intellectual exchanges; the numerous opportunities for leadership, initiative and exposure - all of these provides a compelling experience for an undergraduate who aspires to make a mark for themselves in their own lives, and maybe, for society and the world.

For the single-minded, pragmatic scholar, the immediate rewards of USP will not be so obvious. One cannot so easily make the linkage between breadth, critically and openness to an immediate job prospect compared to say, the knowledge of the civil engineer or the training of the statistician. One cannot immediately know where the jobs are in what sector - for the student in USP, the skill profile matches the requirements of many other jobs. I might go out on a limb and claim that there is an USP-edge here, that the skills acquired through the course of study at USP provides the graduate with additional skills that add value to the existing skill acquired through the major. The USP-engineer could potentially see connections than the non-USP engineer, and so on… Yet these skills are the intangibles - can’t be graded, can’t be quantified, with only the CAP being a proxy as to how well the person has acquired these skills.

I would have my own objectives about what USP is, but then again, I am only a single voice, and there will be others with competing or complementary stances towards what USP is. Beyond the education, beyond the objectives, I have always thought that USP would be the place where the world begins to get changed. The skills of critical thinking, when applied in the broadest context, leads one to begin thinking about the faults and successes of the world we are living in. Critical thinkers could examine the points of failure in the various systems of the world - not to pigeonhole, but providing examples: engineers could look at how systems are being inefficiently designed, architects looking at the aesthetics, economists could balk at the distribution of resources, and so on…

Going back, the strength of USP have always lay with the creation of a cohesive student community, both in current cohorts, and in the alumni. The alumni would probably begin to make their small impacts in the area of their profession or specialisation; the students would merely be starting to acquire these skills. Still, the whole point of a community, in a functional/instrumental sense, is to facilitate the development of these skills. Yes, community is important for its own sake of psychological, emotional and social development, but the point of that would be…? I would propose here, albeit in a slightly mechanical fashion, that the whole point of community is to enable us to make the impact that needs to be effected in the institutions that we will end up in - no matter in the academic, private or public sectors. The whole point of being in a community is to be nurtured for the things greater than ourselves. To do the things that matter. Yet, I struggle with this notion having the attitude that knowledge is important for its own sake, even if it has completely no utility value.

Arguing that the time in USP has a teleological underpinning is very contentious, I admit. I know that not everyone will agree with this, and that perhaps, people just want to be left to their own devices, making their own way through, enjoying the experiences that come along the way. Let me put it unequivocally here - there is nothing wrong, nothing morally wrong with this attitude. People will want to use the many years here as a time for experimentation, to try things they have never tried before, and it should be encouraged. After all, the years of genuine freedom will come to a close, as we become tied to deadlines and the rigours of work. Heck, I’m beginning to rethink the idea of self-actualisation even. Since self-actualisation is a verb/noun - it describes a process inasmuch as it does, a destination. People are constantly in the state of becoming and so, we have really, only some control about who we are, and who we want to be. Circumstances beyond ourselves thwart our own objectives - who is to say that we are in complete control of our own fates? Still, I would want to argue that our time in USP matters, in that the opportunities and the attitude of the programme could begin to lead us to ask these niggling questions: what’s the point of my life? and what do I do with the experiences and knowledge that I have? These are questions of Final Causes, of telos in the Aristotelean sense. Yet these questions form the basis of our angst…

In the longer and larger schemes of things, everything changes, especially human institutions. USP will continue long after I graduate - it will continue to evolve and mutate - like all human institutions will. The values will change, the culture will change, and it is in the changes that egos are bruised, feelings are hurt. And it is all inevitable. But that’s how life is - it is about change. What I write will only be relevant for the here and now; whatever happens in the future - that’s for then (and requires a separate post).