Academic Challenge

I can feel that the academic tracks are running hot. NTU is left with less than 2 weeks to exams while NUS has about a month left. The fact that there are still many quizes, tests and report deadlines to go certainly does not help. "No time to settle down for studying" is pretty often the case, isnt it?

I have always been telling my juniors (oh nagging to juniors) that one of the most effective way to study well is to study in groups. It is only through discussions and sharings with friends that we can find out what are the stuffs we thought we already know but we actually duno, and also the stuffs which we dun even know we duno.

Has it ever occurred to you that its only in the midst of taking the paper, you found out something that you shld have gone find out before the exams, but its already too late? Or is it only during the post-exam discussions with friends that you realise most of your friends 'know about this and that' but you didnt know...

Instead of repeating the same old naggings again, I would like to share over here some of the invaluable advices I have gotten over the past yrs, by some of my BS snrs and friends.

Just like any other typical undergrads, I was often stressed up with poor results, rushing of deadlines and endless of work to clear. I once complained to Ruiting and she advised me with something like this: "There may be a lot of work to do, but still, you have to do them eventually. So Just do It!!! One at a time." I thought this advice came in handy as instead of wasting time troubled with the undone stuffs, i geared myself up to pin down the obstacles one by one.

Another time was with ruiting again, discussing with Ven Pema on our heavy sch load. He said something like this: Sch life may be hectic, but you can still find peace in the midst of your busy schedule. His adivce helped in a way that when I was struggling to understand my lecture notes, I told myself to fully concentrate and focus on what i was doing then, instead of worrying about whats next and whats still left undone.

Another very irritating and disturbing fact that I couldnt accept was my inability to score well in my exams. I complained to my senior that a large part of my failure was due to my careless and bad luck, eg. 1)Missed out the entire question undone (1 out of 6 qn), 2)Calculation errors causing the entire qn to be marked wrong, and 3)Studying things that did not come out in the exams while things that I din study came out instead.

A senior Rongfa gave the following advice: What ever hard work you put in now may not be rewarded immediately. Whatever you have studied hard for this module may not be put in use during the coming exams, but they may serve as platforms and build up your foundation in tackling future modules and exams. His words did not provide me much comfort then, but it was after going through many semesters myself tat I find his words v true. A lot of things may not seem applicable now, but they will be of use eventually in some other areas.

Gd Luck Everyone!