Is is a loss of university?

        University is ideally the best place for academic research and study, just like the school Academy founded by Plato as a school of philosophy. Although the history of such schools is very long, the spirit of Socrates’s “love of wisdom” should never vanish. Thus, studying in university itself should be an on-going process of persuit of knowledge, as well as of spiritual and mental enlightenment. Unfortunately, this seems exactly the reverse in Hong Kong. What we have in university, are attendance and grades, piles of loan documents, club activities, and sexual scandal. There are still, of course, excellent students, professors or scholars. However, behind all these few people, there are load of students who spend three years of their life in university, just for the graduation certificate. I would like to point out some facts that contributes to such a situation directly or indirectly from a student’s point of view.

        To study means to learn. The willingness to learn is the key to making good progress in studies. In Hong Kong, many students are persuaded by their surroundings, such as parents, mass media or social norm, to strike for getting in university in order to earn a better living. This is not new saying but the situation is getting worse. Many students who come from pre-job training institutes such as IVE, began to earn good reputation for their competence over university students in certain fields, such as design, films, etc. The loss of confidence towards the value of the graduation certificate makes students perplexed about their future. Apart from this, the decrease in size of job market due to the narrowing down of industries and saturation of supply of university students, also alert students that they might not be able to find a good job even having graduated from university. They are afraid that they would perhaps still be a mere salesman or waitress. Mass media also helps spread the hopelessness of them. The news of doctors find it difficulty to buy estate, or employer is losing their confidence towards university students, or the like, all make students in university or those who are on their way, do not understand whether their original goal can be achieved. They end up giving up and drifting along.

        A seed needs to be farmed in good lands in order to grow strongly. The same logic applies for students. The structure of university curriculum and basic requirement for graduation become another factor that adds to the difficulties. For one thing, there are courses repeating things learnt in secondary schools or even other courses. A student studying in normal secondary school and got a pass in HKALE Use of English should be able to write all kinds of simple essays, regardless of the genre. Now students are required to learn the basic paragraphing skills, or article structure again, not for a short revision, but the whole semester. Another example, one might have learnt basic programming in course A, or during secondary school when preparing for HKALE computer application exam. Now he wanted to get into course C, but that course requires him to finish in advance course B , which teach things that are basically the same as course A or that from HKALE. All these messy curriculum design drives students crazy and make them frustrated for having too many mandatory courses, which he might not need to study. Those courses that are designed to imitate liberal studies are especially good example to show such problems. I have heard from many other students complaining the redundancy of such courses, yelling these extra courses which have nothing to do with their major is draining their patience, energy and time. Worrying about their grades or GPA, they turn out to choose all courses with nice professors that give an easy grade, or courses that require less workload due to the lack of content of the course itself.

        Whether or not there is any need to provide students with such courses is still debatable. The reason or intensity of willingness of students studying in university is much diverse than those aforementioned. Still, universities in Hong Kong are competent and ranked very high among the rest of the world. However, the truth is, most of the university students do not care. They only care about jobs, and fun.

A moment in japan

I started to realize this was the tenth day I stayed in Japan alone when I looked to the sky. The sky is plain blue and clouds are like white soap bubbles, moving very slowly. “Oh, clouds are so beautiful here.” I was thinking while imitating the clouds along this almost empty street. One, two, three... and no more. There were only three people walking on the street with their speed slowed down, just like me. Their back looked very calm, silent, and peaceful. Just in a while my eyes went back to the sky again. The sky was so blue that almost everything on the street looked less attractive. I kept staring at the clouds, watching them moving, moving my body as if I was going to be one of them.

        I did not have a destination. It was the thoughts of not wanting to waste the trip making me walk down the street. I took out the camera without switching it on, moving around to see how little I was. The pedestrian now seemed much bigger inside the camera viewer. The very little shadow of a few people made the street even bigger. Signs installed along the street made the composition more alike to a picture talking about a void street. The buildings were short, leaving the upper part of the viewer a slice of blue sky, although the grey color of the buildings did not quite match with the sky blue. I looked to the sky again.

        Without being aware I climbed to a cross-over bridge, again. I liked the bridges here. This kind of bridges were really great in Japan, thanks to the shortness of buildings and cleanness of the air. When I stood in the middle of the bridge, rised my heads, felt the wind, listened to the beep sound produced by the cars below, everything was just so fine and the clouds were there sharing my joy. I forgot to take photos, and eventually closed my eyes. Now I can still feel the clouds moving even with my eyes closed. The sound of car moving became very clear. It came from far away, passed by, and then left. So did my mind.

        It was not until many minutes later when I opened my eyes. My eyes just got a little bit wet. I thought it was because I was sleepy and that was the tear when I yawned. Who cares? The sun was getting more excited and then gave a beautiful pale-orange color to the street. The grey building now become a good subject matter for paintings. The cars gave the roads shades, and I could see my shadow being projected on the bridge. It was long, but not dark. The same warm shadow appear next to every person on the street. It was not until many minutes later when I started thinking I wanted back home.

Reflective essay

        When talking about life goals, people always think of something different from their interest, such as making big money, earning good reputation, etc. I am exactly the reverse. My life goal is the projection of my interest: I want to be a philosopher, an artist and a game producer.

        I had first used the word “scholar” instead of “philosopher”. The reason why I then changed is I think scholar is too narrow. What I mean narrow is, it is a specific name for those who love wisdom and work in academic fields. This is not a suitable word for those who only love wisdom – even out of academic curriculum. I think Socrate would be the one who most fit the above description. He is famous for his enthusiasm towards any kind of knowledge. He is always humble and talk to people in order to acquire more knowledge even though he did not know that person before. I admire him very much and I always imitate him to talk to people, not only in academic curriculum, too.

        I first grabbed a pen to draw the robot toy that I love when I was around three. I was lying on the floor, holding the pen in a wrong way as if it is a hammer. I first knew the term “drawing” and a book talking about such skills when I was around nine. I asked my dad to buy some related books for me and my journey towards a fascinated world began. I got a D for Visual Art in HKCEE and a B in HKALE. The grades mean nothing, but I was able to learn a lot through the lessons taught by my great visual art teacher, such as art history, art related philosophical question, etc. Art and Philosophy are the two important things in human civilization, I believe.

        What made me want to be a game producer is my gaming experience. I started playing video games when I was just three. The first gaming experience was so enjoyable that I can still remember the exciting scenes in that game very clearly. Such excitement did not vanish as time flies. Instead, I am still playing video games, which had become even more complicated and artistic. Every time I now play a game, I was like reading a book, or watching a movie, or seeing a painting. Such good experience makes me want to deliver the same joy to others and bring video games to a higher level as an art, by creating my own games with the knowledge of art and philosophy.