Life

Tuesday, 27 September 2011
15:46

I was reading through some ranking lists of top Engineering schools in the world and realised that amongst the top ten, despite the variation in rankings of some schools, most of the top school were located in the US.

As I've already known too, Imperial College London was about 5th-7th on the list, with OX-BRIDGE being the only better schools (there were some disparities though, some rankings stated that only either of the schools were better than Imperial, while others ranked both above them). That was a satisfying thought, knowing that the school I'm aiming for remains relevant and competitive in the world's top schools. But the inevitable question came:

If there were so many top U's in the US, and also accounting for the fact that NUS ranking is also considerably good on those rankings(though not top 10 in the world), why aren't I targetting those schools?

Let's begin with NUS first, since it's a topic I'm more familiar with. Basically, I have two reasons for not aiming for the local university.

First, I believe that in life, we should always aim high. This statement in itself explains many other things about me besides my U choices. The fact that I always ran for Presidency in my CCAs(other than in CA of course) and also the fact that I came to RI. The benefits of aiming high are inexplicable. When you target something THAT unachievable, you'd stretch your limits to levels which you never thought was possible. On one hand, the momentum of pushing the limits drives the adrenaline within you and makes you hunger for more. On the other, the fear of failure compels you to attempt even crazier stuff so that ultimately, you end up in a cycle of insanity that accelerates you as a cyclotron would an electron. The end result is an individual that has improved much more than when he first began on his journey, regardless of whether he achieves his goal. Living by this standard, it is clear that I would not allow myself to settle for a University with a ranking worse than top 10 in the world. If so many others could be enrolled in those schools, why can't I?

Second, I believe that for the most part of my life, I've been very much sheltered and within my comfort zone. Studying abroad forces one to venture into unfamiliar cultures and lead a life (almost completely?) different from the one that he led previously. I'd pretty much like to acquire independence by having to LIVE WITH IT and not live trying to become independent knowing that I still have people I could rely on when I get into trouble. Any form on independence I acquire from such an experience can at best be pseudo, I think.

And thus my decision to study abroad, in the UK, more specifically. I admit, UK was a decision I made back when I was too lazy to attempt the SATs and while I was still quite illusioned about the UK culture being less foreign than the US. However, the recent riots in the UK were warnings to me that perhaps I didn't know the UK as well as I thought I did. Moreover, friends were also trying to shake my firm conviction of going to the UK instead of the US, and I must say, they must have had achieved a certain amount of success in their endeavor for me to have questioned my own decision.

So now in the pre A's preparation period I'm back to looking up on U's, or more specifically, looking for sources of motivation to keep me going for the subsequent month. I must say, on careful scrutinization, US colleges do actually look no less appealing than Imperial!

And as I've already revealed earlier on I'd been discussing U applications with some of my friends recently (not that recent actually, I've been doing that since July). Most of them, especially the ladies, were already experts in U's applications and I must say they really provide some useful tips on the application processes.

One of them actually asked me which school I wanted to attend and she realised that Imperial doesn't offer the course that she wants to study (to my disappointment :X, I don't know if it was to hers too). So I went on to ask her about her U choices and she gave me quite a few UK and US U's. So as I was looking through the top U's and the courses they offered just a moment ago, I actually took note of whether these top Engineering schools were actually top Law schools as well. I came across Stanford University and the world became a notch more exciting.

Oh dear.

I've been having these weird thoughts lately;
like,
Is any of this for real, or not?