Sanctuary 
Why I do not donate to NUS
This is in reference to a ST article - Just 1% of alumni donate to NUS, By Sandra Davie, Education Correspondent.
The reason I will give for now - Is that I am not actively looking for a job now and my financial reserves are... dangerously low. I would like to keep my state of jobless freedom for now and I do not think that it will change as NUS is now calling for donations. >.<
1) Quoting ST: "first annual giving drive in September last year, by sending out appeal letters to 150,000 former students"
Personally, sending the appeal letter to me now is kind of pointless? I just graduated? I got my own tuition fee loans to settle? Got to pay back else it is 4.7% interest? How many batches of students are covered in the '150,000 former students' anyway? A suggestion will be to try removing the ones that are freshly embarking on their journey to the pits of debt hell because of the following reasons - aging jobless parents; tuition fee loan debtees who have to pay back at least 500 a month else they will still be paying for the tuition fee loans after they are 30; those following the government's call for more babies and getting married and thus having to pay 800 dollars a month for the next 20 years on a 4 room flat and other misc expenses that are neccessary but adds up to very huge. The list goes on. If you are not damn rich or what, you will not any savings at all for the next 5 years unless you earn a lot more than the 2.5k that my friends are earning.
Ok la... Maybe someday we might REALLY strike it rich and all be earning a lot more than 2.5k a month. RIGHT. Too far in future - I can't see it. Not relevant to me.
I mean seriously, how many of us have spare cash? The call for donations and the guilting of people to do so gets annoying.
From the endless flag days to the regular heart and kidney foundation thingies and now we have this too? Blaming us for not sparing any cash for the needy when we are not exactly very affluent.
How many of the 150,000 former students are in this category? Almost everyone below the age of 35 I suspect.
2) Comparison to elite foreign universities.
Different culture. Different paychecks. Different systems. I do not aspire to be Harvard-class in my donations. Sorry, it is just not one of my childhood fantasies.
3) Feeling of dodginess of err.. misc.. stuff..
Quoting ST: "A common question we face is, Why should I give? Isn't this the Government's responsibility?" and "Government funding here is generous - about 70 per cent of the cost of educating a student comes from public funds"
The... foreigners... get... it... too... But that is not the point for this issue.
Yes. They bother to break down what our donations is for (so they claim anyway). I heard from a friend of mine from medicine faculty that NUS NEVER does break down what our school fees is for. The medicine faculty has tried in vain for decades to obtain a straight answer from them and even brought the matter up to parliament and in the end no breakdown is ever obtained. Eventually, what my friend remember of the answer was: "It is all placed in a big pool of money somewhere and the office of finance is unable to break it down".
GG.
I do not believe NUS will ever break down how they are spending our 6k school fees and the additional 70% of the government funding. But I see. Could it be in the new University hall that is so grand and... useless (to me at least)... Could it be in the new house/building our high ranking NUS staff got? Could it be in the roads that they repaved for no reason other than to receive the cars of important guests? Could it be in the events held in school with regards to research that always seem to get limitless funding when we always have to beg for funds for student activities? Could it be that it is used for the impeccable landscaping of the NUS facilities? Maybe they paid off a wizard somewhere to magic away all the fallen leaves that - wait a minute - can you even find a dead leaf the streets of NUS?
Sidetracking a little, I was walking in SMU recently and it felt wonderful to have many dead leaves on the ground and floating in the wind around me. It feels so nice and reel like those colleges you see in TV. In real life NUS, it is just rare to find.
4) Status of students in NUS
Face it. We are the lowest part of the food chain in NUS. Except for those poor aunties that have to clean the toilets every 2-3 hours at budget rates and have to walk up and down stairs though some have leg problems.
Overall rigidity of the system. More concerned about their admin than wanting to help us. They did not seek for my understanding so I am bad mouthing them now. Too bad.
A computing professor lamented to a friend of mine that it is better to do research in NUS because you can obtain helpers for free.
A pharmacy student informed me that ALL pharmacy students have to spend 10+ weeks of their Jul holidays almost EVERY holiday working for guardian at a I-could-only-describle-as-'measly' rate of 5 Singapore Dollars a day. Even SAF pays more. I cannot believe that I am actually saying that.
Approaching school admin to help you solve your woes is only met with red tape after red tape as you are led in circles to find an answer, which you will find once someone decides that you bugged them enough that they rather take responsibility for your problem.
At least 2 faculties out of 2 that I know do not give a flying shit about poly students when it comes to the planning of their academic module planning.
Term breaks turn from 'one week full of project work' to 'no term break with school and same amount of project work' to "4 days of pseudo term break (after they consulted an oracle probably given the stuff that they had to think about when finally deciding on the number 4) that all the lecturers try to pretend that it is not really a break anyway by inserting lectures".
Random sidetrack: I do not know what happened to Aaron Tan but looking at the aftermath, the ones that caused his misery are really... really... CCBs.
Anyway, yes we graduated and somehow they are trying to make us feel important now.
5) Learning experience
Quoting ST: "NUS helped me discover myself and my true potential"
Sadly, in summary, the most important thing I learnt there is we all have different agendas so let us all try to reach it while being with each other. I do not regret and I do appreciate that I am in NUS SoC. It is just ironic that I do not think I turned out the way they wished for us to turn out. I like it like that though. =x
6) "Last year, it employed a direct marketing company to do the calling."
I am sorry I am partly an Communications and New media (Used to be known as Info-comm.) graduate and somehow the training I receive there makes me view marketing with great suspicion.
My reaction is: "OMGWTFBBQ is that what they are using our school fees for too?" But then on secound thought if it works I do not really mind.
I really do not like the way charities are going in Singapore.
It is not like I am so damn sheltered I cannot see the plight of the beneficiaries. Even if I wanted to donate I will donate to individual people. Where I know how my money is being spent. Not to something like NKF. "Remember remember the fifth of november; the gunpowder, the treason, the plot." This qoute has nothing to do with the issue but it just slipped into my thoughts.
Here is my excuses for not donating. What's yours? =D
The reason I will give for now - Is that I am not actively looking for a job now and my financial reserves are... dangerously low. I would like to keep my state of jobless freedom for now and I do not think that it will change as NUS is now calling for donations. >.<
1) Quoting ST: "first annual giving drive in September last year, by sending out appeal letters to 150,000 former students"
Personally, sending the appeal letter to me now is kind of pointless? I just graduated? I got my own tuition fee loans to settle? Got to pay back else it is 4.7% interest? How many batches of students are covered in the '150,000 former students' anyway? A suggestion will be to try removing the ones that are freshly embarking on their journey to the pits of debt hell because of the following reasons - aging jobless parents; tuition fee loan debtees who have to pay back at least 500 a month else they will still be paying for the tuition fee loans after they are 30; those following the government's call for more babies and getting married and thus having to pay 800 dollars a month for the next 20 years on a 4 room flat and other misc expenses that are neccessary but adds up to very huge. The list goes on. If you are not damn rich or what, you will not any savings at all for the next 5 years unless you earn a lot more than the 2.5k that my friends are earning.
Ok la... Maybe someday we might REALLY strike it rich and all be earning a lot more than 2.5k a month. RIGHT. Too far in future - I can't see it. Not relevant to me.
I mean seriously, how many of us have spare cash? The call for donations and the guilting of people to do so gets annoying.
From the endless flag days to the regular heart and kidney foundation thingies and now we have this too? Blaming us for not sparing any cash for the needy when we are not exactly very affluent.
How many of the 150,000 former students are in this category? Almost everyone below the age of 35 I suspect.
2) Comparison to elite foreign universities.
Different culture. Different paychecks. Different systems. I do not aspire to be Harvard-class in my donations. Sorry, it is just not one of my childhood fantasies.
3) Feeling of dodginess of err.. misc.. stuff..
Quoting ST: "A common question we face is, Why should I give? Isn't this the Government's responsibility?" and "Government funding here is generous - about 70 per cent of the cost of educating a student comes from public funds"
The... foreigners... get... it... too... But that is not the point for this issue.
Yes. They bother to break down what our donations is for (so they claim anyway). I heard from a friend of mine from medicine faculty that NUS NEVER does break down what our school fees is for. The medicine faculty has tried in vain for decades to obtain a straight answer from them and even brought the matter up to parliament and in the end no breakdown is ever obtained. Eventually, what my friend remember of the answer was: "It is all placed in a big pool of money somewhere and the office of finance is unable to break it down".
GG.
I do not believe NUS will ever break down how they are spending our 6k school fees and the additional 70% of the government funding. But I see. Could it be in the new University hall that is so grand and... useless (to me at least)... Could it be in the new house/building our high ranking NUS staff got? Could it be in the roads that they repaved for no reason other than to receive the cars of important guests? Could it be in the events held in school with regards to research that always seem to get limitless funding when we always have to beg for funds for student activities? Could it be that it is used for the impeccable landscaping of the NUS facilities? Maybe they paid off a wizard somewhere to magic away all the fallen leaves that - wait a minute - can you even find a dead leaf the streets of NUS?
Sidetracking a little, I was walking in SMU recently and it felt wonderful to have many dead leaves on the ground and floating in the wind around me. It feels so nice and reel like those colleges you see in TV. In real life NUS, it is just rare to find.
4) Status of students in NUS
Face it. We are the lowest part of the food chain in NUS. Except for those poor aunties that have to clean the toilets every 2-3 hours at budget rates and have to walk up and down stairs though some have leg problems.
Overall rigidity of the system. More concerned about their admin than wanting to help us. They did not seek for my understanding so I am bad mouthing them now. Too bad.
A computing professor lamented to a friend of mine that it is better to do research in NUS because you can obtain helpers for free.
A pharmacy student informed me that ALL pharmacy students have to spend 10+ weeks of their Jul holidays almost EVERY holiday working for guardian at a I-could-only-describle-as-'measly' rate of 5 Singapore Dollars a day. Even SAF pays more. I cannot believe that I am actually saying that.
Approaching school admin to help you solve your woes is only met with red tape after red tape as you are led in circles to find an answer, which you will find once someone decides that you bugged them enough that they rather take responsibility for your problem.
At least 2 faculties out of 2 that I know do not give a flying shit about poly students when it comes to the planning of their academic module planning.
Term breaks turn from 'one week full of project work' to 'no term break with school and same amount of project work' to "4 days of pseudo term break (after they consulted an oracle probably given the stuff that they had to think about when finally deciding on the number 4) that all the lecturers try to pretend that it is not really a break anyway by inserting lectures".
Random sidetrack: I do not know what happened to Aaron Tan but looking at the aftermath, the ones that caused his misery are really... really... CCBs.
Anyway, yes we graduated and somehow they are trying to make us feel important now.
5) Learning experience
Quoting ST: "NUS helped me discover myself and my true potential"
Sadly, in summary, the most important thing I learnt there is we all have different agendas so let us all try to reach it while being with each other. I do not regret and I do appreciate that I am in NUS SoC. It is just ironic that I do not think I turned out the way they wished for us to turn out. I like it like that though. =x
6) "Last year, it employed a direct marketing company to do the calling."
I am sorry I am partly an Communications and New media (Used to be known as Info-comm.) graduate and somehow the training I receive there makes me view marketing with great suspicion.
My reaction is: "OMGWTFBBQ is that what they are using our school fees for too?" But then on secound thought if it works I do not really mind.
I really do not like the way charities are going in Singapore.
It is not like I am so damn sheltered I cannot see the plight of the beneficiaries. Even if I wanted to donate I will donate to individual people. Where I know how my money is being spent. Not to something like NKF. "Remember remember the fifth of november; the gunpowder, the treason, the plot." This qoute has nothing to do with the issue but it just slipped into my thoughts.
Here is my excuses for not donating. What's yours? =D
posted by malc at 10:52 AM
2 Comments:
My excuse is.... "I'm a ninja?"
AWWEEESSSOOOMMMEEE >.<
*giggles*
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