Slow Weekend, Dealing with the Stigma against Westerners

I will go ahead and wrap the weekend up in one posting as most of the weekend was spent studying and catching up with the logistics of being overseas.

I had breakfast with my roommate this morning and got the usual “You aren’t like most Americans” spiel. I explained that American Pie, MTV, and George Bush are not what made America into what it is today. Still, it is difficult to dissuade people that westerners are not all lazy, overly-aggressive, and prone to party hard. My case is not helped any by news headlines in Iraq, hung-over westerners sleeping through lectures, or the stigma of Asians being more technically gifted. 

As for the technically gifted argument, I have a strong opinion on this…

While I agree that most American students may not be able to match the technical prowess of Asian students, when it comes down to understanding a new problem, planning for a solution, and seeing the job through to completion then I believe the western education system is excellent. Students are not “trained” to solve a set of problems, but rather to approach each problem as if it is unique and solve it as such. This creates less apparent ability than is common in Asian countries because the emphasis is on breadth of knowledge over depth of knowledge.

In examining the effectiveness of the two methods…

The best analogy I can think of is to look at both a technician and an engineer: a technician may have all the hands-on know-how, but an engineer will still be the boss for his broad range of problem-solving skills. This is not to say the engineer is useless when it comes to the nitty-gritty hands-on jobs, just as the technician is not useless at the planning portion. The style of the technician and the engineer are simply different.

One great feature of NTU that I have failed to mention is that each professor creates a digital recording of their lecture that they make available online. This was a godsend because I arrived in Singapore a couple days late and have been changing my classes around all week. It may even entirely defeat the purpose of getting up for my 8am courses.

I am afraid that will have to be all for today as I don’t have many interesting stories to tell. Maybe I can try spitting on the street and see where I end up.