I was recently given a project to work on for my Financial Accounting class. It's got something to do with how Malaysian banks are helping people to grow financially, and the report has to be at least 75 pages long. It's almost like I'm already in the final year of my degree, when I'm supposed to carry out some kind of research paper.
It's this kind of thing that discourages me from becoming an academic. I mean, to become an actuary I don't need a Master's or a doctorate. Heck, I don't even need a Bachelor's degree - all I need to do is pass the professional papers. Easier said than done, naturally, but right about now it seems preferable to writing a thesis.
In any case, the fact remains that I am currently doing my Bachelor's degree, and I do have to carry out this project if I want to get a good grade for this subject (which I obviously do). At least it's a group project, so that means I won't have to shoulder all the burden. My partner/classmate seems to have improved herself as a student (read: she's more mature towards work now) since our last semester, too, so that's encouraging.
Anyway, soon after I was given that hefty-looking task, another one came my way: I was elected as interim president of the MIU Business Students' Society. Or at least that's what I would have called it, if the rest of the committee hadn't voted in favor of the name 'Business Edge'.
Well, the club hasn't technically been formed yet. It was supposed to have been a long time ago, but for some reason the people put in charge of preparing the documents required for its formation never got round to preparing them, so now a new committee's been set up to finally get the job done.
So we had a meeting to select this committee, which would also double as the temporary committee for the club itself. Long story made short: I was more or less unanimously picked as president. My classmate, by the way, was made secretary, which would make our current task of preparing all the documents necessary for the official formation of Business Edge a whole lot easier to manage.
Besides that, I also have a video to shoot for my group presentation for my Ethnic Relations class. It's a good thing my groupmates are fairly competent and cooperative, so teamwork shouldn't be too much of a problem. What is a problem, though, is the fact that it has to be in full Malay, which isn't a language any of my other groupmates speak regularly or with much eloquence, and also that our presentation topic needs to be based on something from the subject syllabus, which mainly consists of topics similar to those you'd find in SPM-level History textbooks. History was my third-least favorite subject back in my SPM days, after Bahasa Melayu and Islamic Studies, so I'm obviously less than thrilled about that.
Still, at least I'll be able to create a video - it would be my second time doing this while in Manipal - which is something I genuinely enjoy doing. Obstacles are nothing but challenges, and all that.
It's shaping up to be an interesting semester, especially if you consider the variety (rather than just the sheer volume) of tasks that I'll have to undertake. Sure, it's going to be a long, hard slog, and sure, there will be much frustration. However, I believe that this will be good for me, as I'll have learned plenty by the time it's all over. This is why people go to university: to get a good, all-round education. If I'd simply gone ahead and done the professional papers without getting a formal university education, I would have been deprived of all this.
I love it here. I really do.
