While the rest of the island celebrates Hari Raya, our class is stuck in school for classes today. Some of us were joking that we should complain to MCYS (or whoever it is that promotes Racial Harmony Day)
The first week here has really flown by though. Haven't had the time to update because so much is either happening or I'm in transit from home-school or school-home. I'm a little annoyed that the commute is an hour one way each day but I guess it's all about the tradeoff between time and money. More importantly, I feel like I'm missing out on opportunities to interact with other people in my class. I guess that comes with studying in your home country. You inevitably feel torn between spending time with the friends you've made before school and meeting all these new people. If I had started in France, I'm pretty sure there'd be much less of an internal conflict.
Classes have been pretty interesting so far. While the first 2 periods are described as B-school bootcamp, I'm thankful for the study/work experience I bring with me that has given me a good foundation for what I'm being exposed to now. As much as I dislike accounting, I'm appreciating the opportunity to at least understand it better. If you want to work as a manager in the modern economy, I don't think you can run away from something like that. I also like the balance between hard skills and soft skills classes. Coming from an undergraduate engineering background, I never had the chance to spend any significant amount discussing/debating/learning about organisational behaviour or business ethics. I enjoy the intellectual discussion and practical learning that takes place in these classes as it forces you to step back and examine interactions and situations you often take for granted, or in the case of business ethics, challenge your beliefs and your point of view while discovering that there are a lot of potentially murky situations out there.
The first weekend trip has been planned and the destination is Bintan. I can't make it because of the Sheares Bridge Run on Sunday and I guess it's not really my idea of an exciting weekend destination but it's close by and logistics are easier to manage. Wherever these guys go, I'm sure they'll bring the party as was the case for Wednesday night drinks. If not for us, the bar would have been pretty empty!
Apparently there are traditions for Monday/Wednesday night drinks here on the Singapore campus. The unspoken norm is that there are Friday night drinks too of course but albeit less formal. As my ex-colleague put so nicely, these are of course opportunities to "network" and get to know each other better. Good thing then that working in London increased my tolerance to alcohol. ;)
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