Yesterday I attended a seminar with my brother at Goodwood Park Hotel on Concord College. Not sure if many people heard of this college, I for one certainly have not heard of it until last night. But apparantly it is quite a prestigious college in the UK for students who want to take their A levels or O levels to carry on to study in Prestigious Universities in UK. It's quite interesting really except that the way they marketed their college was that they completely just dissed the A level system in Singapore which of course being an A level student, I felt strongly about. But on the other hand, I thought I studied in the most ulu place that could ever exist, I was wrong. This Concord College is located in Shrewsbury ( say whaaa?) in the UK, which is well a countryside in goodness knows where, 1 hr drive from Birmingham and a 2 hr drive from London. Well which is equivalent to you know, Ipswich which is nearly 1 hr drive from Brisbane and 2 hr drive from Gold Coast. But suddenly, after that talk, I found out that Ipswich was not all that ulu after all.

This is the campus of Concord College (which I must admit is beautiful).








Looks like a rich man's house right?



And by the way this is the show that the campus is in the middle of no where.

Their facilities around campus:

Dining place

Auditorium

Library

Urm their discotechque (sp?)

Swimming Complex

Tennis Court

A map to show where Concord College is located. Far Far Far

But anyways, it is I must admit it's a beautiful place with a really condusive environment as it only has a small cohort of 340 out of which 120 students who take their A levels, 20 of them made it to medical school. Which is about 1/6th of the cohort which is quite an impressive statistic I must say. But I just didn't like the way they put the JC system in Singapore down. Even though yes its probably more stressful in Singapore but it does not mean that students in Singapore do not do well to enter universities in the UK. Because different countries have their different ways of handling things, and probably it is felt that this system is good for Singaporeans? Many would beg to differ but sometimes I guess reality is like that. You live with whatever you have. Not everyone has the opportunity to study overseas at such a young age because of the exhorbitant fees for international students. So what then happens to people who cannot afford it? Yes students make it Oxford and Cambridge, UOL, London School of Economics, etc but not everyone in Singapore can afford an education like that. What then happens? Do we just say, you know what too bad, because you don't have the money to have that sort of education. It does not mean that people who do not have the education of top universities, they are in any way not as good as those who have.

But of course, I'll be labelled as a jealous Singaporean

I guess all I wanted to say was, be happy with what is provided for you and don't complain. If you're able to get an overseas education, good on ya. If not, a local university education is equally as good because its the student that make their grades, not their schools that make their grades.

This is my old campus in Ipswich, admist all those trees. But really definately more populated and less ulu than Shrewsbury.

A note: this is purely based on my personal views even though I am educated overseas.

Stay Happy!

=D