TASUNI STAMPS

Sri Lanka Thailand Australia Maldives & Malaysia Philippines Singapore

One night recently, a group of Tas Uni alumnus could not sleep in Thailand and decided to call another in Singapore.  The subject was to ask him to donate to the Uni Appeal. It "troubled" him enough to call me the next day to verify this and thus started a donation drive with Lal & Indra (in Canberra) appointed the banker!

Pikul first suggested the following for STAMPS - "S=Singapore  T=Thailand, A=Australia where we are bound together, M=Malaysia and Maldives, P=Philippines, S=Srilanka"  I reversed the order as the sunset hence the above.  So we will call ourselves TASUNI STAMPS.

Yum

Engineering Impressions Left by Tas Uni

A group of us got on to discussing how we can donate to the Tas Uni Appeal and this triggered thoughts of how my years in Tas Uni had left lasting impressions of what makes an engineer.  In my work, I have tried to instill the same in the engineers who worked with me and also the many job applicants I interviewed.

"Engineers do not make mistakes because mistakes cause lives."

this was from our engineering survey lecture - whose name slipped me but Wong TC told me it was Dr Raphael Rish.  This is rule No 1 in my work and I impressed this upon the engineers who worked with over the years.  They also must not expect that someone will check their work and find the mistakes before implementations!

"The bachelor degree is just a basic education, it is nothing. It provides the FOUNDATION for you to do other things. Which is why we don't train engineers here, instead we provide you with an education." 

from Dr Jose Montes, who I spent many an occasions discussing subjects that at the time don't seems related to the course - one example being my article in Togatus about nuclear power.  I recognised today that they had helped broadened my outlook.

"We don't train engineers here. We provide you with an education." Dr Van De Woude & late Prof Charles Miller (then Dean of Engineering)

"...understand from first principles..." late PROF AR Oliver (this is about the importance of understanding the "why" instead of just focusing on the results.)

"..hard to follow.." Dr Malcolm S Gregory (MSG) (about the importance of communications).  He gave me a 3/10 for my first lab report so I went to see him.  He told me that 4/10 is good so I should be happy but reminded me that it is important that engineers must be able to communicate, especially with the public.

 So what impressions had Tas Uni left on you?

YUM

Degree Mill

I noticed that quite a few Australian unis are offering rather short duration degrees to polytechnic students from Singapore, especially in the Computer Science area.

For example, the Ngee Ann-Adelaide degree programme will allow someone with a poly diploma in computer studies to complete a degree in 1.5 years full time.  Lectures per subject are done over a weekend - typically Friday nights then whole day on Sat & Sun.  Assignments are on projects that require coding are submitted online. 

In comparison, NUS and NTU require the student to start from Year 1 - no exemptions.  At both NUS & NTU, honours class requires a 4th year.

I see similar trends for engineering students pursuing a Bachelor of Engineering in Queensland Uni.  2.5 years instead of 3 years with an engineering diploma.

Leaves me to wonder how high is the uni standard in Australia these days?  "Meeting a demand" is really about making money only.