I’m sorry to make light of these grave matters, but a colleague put it this way and I thought it was quite an interesting take: too much stress in NTU, too much partying in NUS. This is about the two student deaths that occurred this same week. A student at NTU was said to have stabbed his professor apparently after having lost his scholarship due to deteriorating grades then subsequently falling to his death, and an exchange student at NUS apparently passed away after having had too much to drink.
One is about stress, the other is about partying albeit only in his dorm room. It sounds like NUS is a fun place to be. Then again, exchange students are not your typical student. I tend to think of them as the “better” students who are taking a break. Just like professors have sabbaticals, the lucky students also have their overseas exchange programmes. Drinking at 5am in the morning? They must be very free. When I stayed in hostel, if I had been awake at 5am, it would have been because of rushing to meet project deadlines or something equally stressful.
This leads me to recall a recent news snippet I heard on our local morning radio programme about Beer Pong, a popular drinking game in US universities, about which a recent study from the US Center for Disease Control (CDC) stated had contributed to the spread of Herpes, Mono and other diseases. However, the CDC responded that they had not published such a study. (Yeah, but they did not deny carrying out such a study…)
Regarding PhDs, most of Nanyang (probably 95%) professors push you like hell. Officially you are not entitled to any holidays, and subject to your performance. In my department, they don’t give you any holiday to tell you the truth unless you have publications (or rarely if professors agree to). This is insane. For me, I was without salary for nearly one year. This is not a place to be. Some professors put daily meetings. I heard one prof in computer department has established cameras to monitor students, whether they work. Usually working hours are like 10 to 10, but some people even slept in the lab around 5 o clock which is prohibitted, but continued working from like 10 again. Honestly, I am thankful for NTU and Singapore for giving me such a great opportunity, but I lost so many things. Important to note that RSS (typical one) doesn’t allow you to leave with a master. So, you cannot leave with a master. It’s like you cannot even leave without a loss. I understand that NTU is on a mission to make it within first ten ranked universities. But people here don’t work for passion but to get publications, sacrifising valuble lives of innocent students. Don’t come here, telling this with lot of love to both the university and the students. They don’t learn.