What have I been doing?

I’m an idiot.

That’s the sobering fact I learnt today, after not being able to score 2 extremely easy papers. When you’ve been in QF for a while, you kind of take for granted that you’ll get killer papers, and that no one else can do them too. It’s also well known that the marginal benefit from studying is very little, because unless you have a flair for the math and do some hardcore studying (read: tear through many books written in greek and know theorems with strange names by heart), you’ll never get it. Especially not when there are other courses and other committments that are more urgent and where the results are immediate.

That’s why we always laugh at the impossible to comprehend notes and the insane amount of work that QF gives us. But when you can’t even do the simple questions, it’s not funny anymore. To add insult to injury, it’s an open book exam where I had the answer right in front of me, but when I attempted to do the question myself, I make spastic algebraic errors even a secondary school student shouldn’t be making – and I submitted them undiscovered.

What’s left for today is bitter disappointment. I disappointed both myself and the professor with high expectations for me. He’s a professor I really respect and whom I actually care to impress, but I only disappoint him again and again. That’s the problem with over-promising, I’d much rather stay low profile and do well in my own way.

Making stupid mistakes in exams may be a small thing, well, everyone does from time to time, and I don’t have the delusion that I won’t. But not being able to answer simple conceptual questions quickly and accurately feels terrible – how can I call myself a QF major if I don’t get my fundamentals right? (Actually, it applies to accounting too, except that I’m only an accountant by training, and don’t envision calling myself an accountant – ever.)

The past 2 terms have been a joke – I think I’ve just been muddling through. I really need to get my act together, quit wasting so much time watching TV and entertaining silly interests, and get down to grinding through the math and setting my finance fundamentals straight. I should learn programming proper too. I need to stick to my goal of getting a good masters in financial engineering, which means I need to get myself enrolled in one and get someone to sponser it. That also means I need to prepare myself for it and do well enough at work to deserve a scholarship.

My job in risk will be demanding, and the department’s ties with my professors mean I really cannot afford to screw up. And I don’t even want to settle for mediocrity, so I seriously need to buck up. When I’m left with just 2 accounting courses next week, there should be no excuse for not spending more time and effort on finance. 

Ironically, after the exams, I realize it’s time to hit the books.

Living for June

Now that there are confirmed plans for after graduation, there is only anticipation. Life’s going to be good, but only when June comes. That’s when there will be change – a different environment, different responsibilities, opportunities, and also, finally being able to concentrate on a specific area of work instead of dealing with 7 while simultaneously entertaining the various silly interests of mine that surface from time to time.

And all the fun I’m going to have in Australia. That will come, I have to be patient.

Meanwhile, I’m in both accounting and finance hells. I wish I could understand Finance Theory better though, or at least be able to sit still long enough to try and understand it. It’s incredibly mind boggling, which makes it interesting, but not very fun when there are 5 other courses to do. As for Accounting Theory, well, maybe… not.

Leaving school and moving on to a new lifestyle will be good. It’s time to get out of this 17 years (!!!) of structured education drudgery which my mind is beginning to reject, showing signs of restlessness. At this point in time, I actually find being the lowest life form in the corporate food chain a strangely attractive prospect compared to being the boss of my own learning. Furthering studies? Most likely, but just not anytime too soon.

A thought

The most terrible thing is not that life is tragic.

What’s worse is when life is really good, but you can’t enjoy it.

This happens when you have an air ticket booked for Australia, but on it, it says “depart on 4 Jun” instead of “depart on 4 Mar”.

And on 5 Mar you have a killer paper.

High-tech annoyances

Everyday when I go to school, I’m haunted by large LCD TV screens on every level of the school building that loops a powepoint presentation on the number of job cuts each prominent employer is making, and all the networking sessions our career services office has kindly planned for us.

Should that even have a place in an institution of higher learning?

Why aren’t they showing the latest world news, research discoveries, and discussions on academic issues and current affairs instead?

If the shiny new LCD TVs are just going to be used to propagate such propaganda and noise, I suggest we sell them all in view of the latest budget cut, or at least turn them off to save Gaia.

Yes, I do want a job, very much so. But I’m not here to make the school’s statistics and KPIs.

A Journal Entry

Some work’s been done, just enough for me to realize I’m pretty much done for. Maybe this time, I’ve gone a little too close to the edge.

If anyone ever feels like touring an university, forget the designed co-curricular activities and open house day, see it in the crunch week – that’s what real life feels like, because we normally don’t make handicrafts and display them on booths where we gather to play games.

Well, we normally don’t walk around like zombies either, but in real life, there are times when you sleep at strange hours and wake up at even stranger hours, only to come to school and see people with the lives drained out of them. This post was started at 9.20am in school, perhaps the first (and hopefully) only blog post to ever be written at such an ungodly time and unholy place.

Cramming for the exams is not fun, but ironically (and unfortunately), it is the necessary evil for really remembering and understanding some things that we’re learning. Sometimes, all it takes to facilitate understanding is a little last minute panic. It adds some excitement and dread to our otherwise mundane lives too. I’ve mastered the art of self-delusion.

Today, someone told me that up to this point in life, I’ve spent all my time trying to make myself better at doing things, as oppose to managing people. Partly true, considering how I’m going to be tested individually on my cramming skills yet again, but it better not be entirely true, because if it is, then I’ll be really sad because I’m still not doing things perfectly.

At some point, it becomes somewhat like a hobby. Learning things for myself just so that I can do it too. And then I forget that, it’ll be way cooler if I can do things myself, but never ever need to.

Studying Wrong

When the work piles, the flesh gets weaker. Flesh being that piece of flabby thing in my head.

Flesh gets distracted too.

Games I would otherwise not be interested in, compulsive desire for new music, irrational want of new audio equipment, the tastiest, most unhealthy food, the silliest tv programmes… any and all types of distraction.

I’m really trying to enjoy the very last bits of my education. But it has gone wrong. The topics I’m studying now are much more challenging, and much more interesting, yet all the tests and assignments coming all at once before I even have a weak grasp of the concepts is too much to handle.

These 2 weeks has been worse than schooling 2 days and working 3. I’m just wasting away, procrastinating everything and feeling terrible for wasting so much time and not being in the panic mode I should be in.

Combine all this with the bleak economic outlook while I’m preparing for full-time work, the apprehension of applying to banks (will it still be there tomorrow, after I send in my application today?), and the fears of finding myself jobless or stuck in a job I hate.

This shouldn’t be the way I spend my second last schooling semester.

I’m missing the pre-university days when I have 2 full years to complete the courses. 12 weeks is too little time for anything. I’m just scrapping the surface, making believe that I learned something, when really, I can barely explain anything I’m learning now clearly and in depth.

All this is making me feel extremely inadequate.

Running Dumb

It’s the time of elections for student groups. This means that there’s plenty of funny nonsense to pick up around school, nonsense in the form of election posters. Most posters are stupid, with silly slogans or none at all. Others are just plain weird. It’s time to fire some marketing managers.

If you’re the marketing manager coming out with a slogan to catch the eyes of bimbos who just needed some cosmetics and can’t be bothered about the chemical make up of such products, a catchy slogan like “Because you’re worth it.” is clever and effective. But if you’re running for office as leader and representative of the student population, it’s plain dumb to put “Because you deserve the best. =) ” (yes, smiley face included) under your name. Well I’m sure I deserve the best, but your poster is really not convincing me that you are the best. I don’t even freaking know what you stand for, other than some egoistic idea about you being better than everyone else.

If you’ve got a strange name that can relate to words with meanings, it’s not exactly the most intelligent thing to form slogans that play with your name. “If you wonder if there’s more to life than mugging, wonder no more.” just keeps me wondering about what plans you have. Do you mean that the “more to life” means living my life through you as you hold some office? Other slogans about adding drama and wonder into my life is just plain weird.

The worst type of posters are those that has only a professionally taken picture and no slogan or information except “Vote for XXX” and “Support YYY”. Such posters does nothing but scream “Support me because I’m so good looking!” Then there’s a dim-witted one that says “I’m running!” Well, I pretty much figured that out since you have an election poster. So do you mean I’m suppose to be so thankful to you for running that I simply have to vote for you even if you have no plans at all?

Some posters are much better, like the one with pictures of the candidate making funny faces and captions that include “crazy” and “eccentric”. The idea was that she’s funky, fun-loving and would spice up your SMU life. This is good because at the very least, I get a glimpse of who you are and what you stand for from your posters. There’s also a well thought out one with a list of values important to him. Many talk about change, nothing in specific but at least it’s not some meaningless and dumb slogans.

If we want to avoid becoming a university producing students who are “all fluff/looks/talk and no substance”, the least we could have are some good student representatives. From what I see in the posters, there’s no hope. Running for office means you need to show some plans, some ideas and something that you stand for. Catchy slogans are fine, but slogans that makes us wonder where your intellectual capabilities stand or what sort of personality you have is really, not helping.

A Greed for Learning

The craziness that is work will end for a while. No tearful farewells, havoc parties or emotional speeches, just plain lifting a load off my shoulder; both metaphorically and literally - the Dell computer with its humongous charger is a real big burden.

It has been fun. Tough, lots of complaints, lots of problems and work impossible to do without some superpowers. But I learned a company, heard much about an industry, met lots of people and made my first trips to Korea and Japan. I dined with management, presented at corporate meetings and even got to demand work from people I shouldn’t be ordering around. This company is crazy, they forgot that I’m only an intern, while other less enlightened companies forget why their criterias for picking scholars are different from those for administrative clerks.

There will be no break though, until I’m successfully jobless after graduation. There are things planned for the rest of my time in school. Looking back, I realise that ever since I started working at the age of 18, I’ve worked (intern/temporary/part-time) in 4 companies and for 3 individuals (on separate occasions), all within the span of 4 years while being a full-time student. People ask, what do you work so hard for? Are you that hard up on cash? Do you know you’re never going to be able to enjoy yourself once you start working full-time?

Actually, I don’t really think I work that hard. I complain a lot but I really do secretly enjoy loading on the responsibilities and cramming my schedule to the point that I’ve not had a break for almost 3 years. It’s really just plain greediness. I want to do everything and learn everything at once. And mostly, I just want to keep myself occupied – most of the jobs I’ve taken up are really quite menial, I’ve never had anything important enough that my decision can cripple a company, but I still pick them all up anyway.

What have I learnt? Nothing that I can immediately list down or elaborate into paragraphs.

Still, I have learned much. I know, because sometimes I realize that ideas come to me and I’m able to understand concepts and the deliverables expected from me much easier than people who have less work experience. Coworkers and bosses who belong to the older generation are sometimes surprised by what I know because they never did know such things when they were my age, at a time when internships were not as common for undergraduates.

I don’t have the delusion that I’m better or smarter than others. All that I know, I have simply, very accidentally and naturally applied bits of skills and knowledge picked up from experience. I happen to think of things and understand things faster because I’ve had some rather diverse work experience and have interacted with people from various backgrounds and with different specialties.

I’ve realized that, no matter what the nature of the job, whether or not it challenges you intellectually, does not limit your ability to learn from it. I don’t say this merely because it’s difficult to fault logically. I say it because I’ve personally experienced the effects. And because of this realisation, I know that I will continue to pick up small job opportunities, however “irrelevant” it is to what I really want to do, so long as it doesn’t take up too much of my time or affect my priorities.

Small jobs aside, I disagree with people who think that expectations for something more than the norm is too high an expectation for our full-time jobs. Sure, opportunities may be limited by the job market. But how will we find better ones, if we settle for what is the market average. Aren’t all of us money-savvy finance students obsessed with getting that alpha and beating the beta? Shouldn’t we demand even more from the investment of our time – time that we can never earn back?

Whenever there’s an opportunity for a simple part-time work experience that will take up part of my free time but not affect anything important, I’m not picky, I can be adventurous about what I do. After all, it won’t be a bigger waste of time than idling. But if it’s a full-time job that will prevent me from doing what I really want to do, I don’t want to settle for the average alternative. I believe that I should know and maintain my expectations, and find something close to them. If there are really no opportunities, then I’ll have to plan something and work towards making it possible.

I never believe those who say that taking a longer route is an unnecessary waste of time. I also never believe those who say that there are better ways to spend my time than an “irrelevant” part-time job. Well, maybe you have more important things to do, but for me, I don’t want to go into my full-time job being an ignorant green-eyed graduate with little/no work experience and be mocked by less well-educated coworkers who can do much more than me. I also don’t want to limit the scope of my experience at a time when I can still maintain many roles and responsibilities at once.

You say, you don’t have the luxury of long holidays once you enter the workforce. I say, you won’t have the luxury of enriching yourself and picking up diverse sets of skills once you leave your schooling life.

Lament the lack of muggers

One thing I’m hearing very often in SMU, is people lamenting the disappearance of “the first batch of SMU students”.

Well, I don’t know anyone from the first batch, but most descriptions I hear are centered around “not as grade conscious”, “truly different” and ”care to have fun”. In contrast to the pioneer batch, the newly joined students care more about grades than learning, muggerish bookworms chasing paper achievements.

Sure, I won’t like seeing dorky, tunnel-vision nerds clog up the library on week 3, but I also won’t like seeing SMU graduates who can talk big and look professional yet can’t go beyond impressing people with boombastic ideas of no practical impact.

That’s not to say that I think the first batch of SMU students are “all fluff no substance”. I think that students who seriously care about studying and doing well in school is as important as a fun-loving and eloquent bunch.

As much as you can say that there’s more to university life than studying, let’s face it, our main purpose for attending university is to learn a trade and get a degree. If your main purpose for attending university is to make friends, join university social events and recreational clubs and party late every night, then you’re wasting your time. There are a million ways to make friends, join clubs and have fun without spending a full 4 years and a hefty university tuition.

Besides, learning can’t be done simply by going to class and discussing issues with friends or chatting with your professor. Picking up technical knowledge requires putting a lot of time and serious hard work into reading, studying, thinking and practising. It involves long hours in the library poring through thick books and memorising facts (yes you do need to know some facts at your fingertips).

And face it again, grades are your Key Performance Indicators in school. If you haven’t put in the effort and understood your concepts, your grades will show. If you did, your grades will show too. Negative correlation between hard work and results is an anomaly. Negative correlation between knowledge obtained and results is an even more rare anomaly.

At the very least, people who cared about grades will bother to study for it, and in the process, pick up the necessary technical skills and knowledge (which you are supposed to in university anyway). It’s really not enough to be able to talk about things or pretend to know them.

Be glad for the muggers, they’re setting a standard.

Number Slumber

I’ve been playing with a lot of numbers these days, rows and columns of data that jammed up my excel. I’ve been doing a lot of charting and statistics too, which probably explains my hypersensitivity to the charts our dear PM Lee presented in yesterday’s National Day Rally. A fellow SMU student commented very aptly, “All SMU students know that charts don’t tell the whole truth.” Well, figure that out.

I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with numbers. Innocent sexy simple sophisticated numbers. I hate to love them. They make my life so simple and painful at the same time. I must be some sort of a masochist – I love things I’d never completely understand.

Today’s Investment and Financial Data Analysis (what a mouthful!) class has been interestingly boring. There’re some people who can make extremely complex concepts seem incredibly simple and intuitive. Then there’s my professor who has a knack for making things I thought I knew and thought were simple sound excruciatingly profound.

But the second half of the class kept me at the edge of my seat. Hell, all that I was trying to painfully figure out on my own for the past month was explained!

I’ll never forget the definition of a random variable. I tried explaining it to an accountant for 10 minutes in the stupidest manner possible “Er, a random number is random. It’s like, 0.524. RANDOM.” That obviously failed terribly at getting the point across.

The next time she (or anyone else asks), it’ll be “A random variable is a variable with an associated probability distribution.” Never mind if she still doesn’t understand, at least I’d put it across sleekly.

Smoke them like salmons.