NTU pitched already, now what about NUS?
I was having problems in logging into Friendster lately, to the extent of being ‘locked out’ for almost the entire week. And I guessed the cause of the problem correctly. It seems that it’s not a good idea blogging on FriendsterBlogs using both Opera and IE together. Why such redundancy? See, IE automatically displays my blog in RichText, while Opera displays it in HTML. So, when I need to manipulate and to add extra tags into my HTML code, I need Opera. IE’s for instant preview and text editing. The arrangement is quite stupid, I’d admit that, but it’s much easier reloading one browser while editing the other one. You would have noticed nothing unusual about my blog post layout, because it has been painstakingly modified to looking ‘normal’. =)
Anyway, I had my NTU ASEAN Undergraduate Scholarship interview today. The interview was scheduled to be 20 minutes long, just like the Oxbridge interviews. And as interviews go, it overshot (I can’t give an exact estimate, but it was between 30-40mins). Turns out that aside from wanting to know how your mind ticks, they were actually trying to advertise NTU! Yeah, how bland. I won’t go into the specifics of the interview, but the advertising. Ok, so you have simulators, going to build a hangar, nice partnerships with those big corporations, and even building your own satellite in addition to another already in orbit! I got a place in their hotly contested Aerospace Engineering course, and that’s from an institution that received 10,000 foreign student applications annually. And to top it all off, you pay only about $12,000 annually in total expenses and only have to work with a Singapore registered company for 3 years. Plus, one out of 2 graduates gets hired before graduating!
Sounds nice?
Now, we’ve heard about the things that are said, now what about the unsaid parts? Time to apply a little bit of TKS. You’ll have to get pushy to squeeze the details out (I went too far off and into sensitive issues I guess, because I was politely told off by the Dean) but this is what I think is the flip side of the story. Part of the reason why my questions are a bit off the mark is because they ran out of the brochure specific to my first choice as a priview, so that’s partly their fault. As such, I can only draw on my knowledge of the industry in general (and I stopped getting to read Flight International for a few years now, so any technical knowledge I do know is outdated, forgotten or not detailed enough).
First things first, NTU is quite a decent institution in the SEA region, although I think NUS still reigns at the top. And yes, NUS does not have their own full fledged aero course yet, just a minor specialisation module in their Mechanical Engineering course. Aside from that, working in S’pore and the tuition costs and all are quite ok, and the quality that you’ll get out of there is much better then almost anywhere else in SEA. Note my emphasis on the SEA region. As for the 10,000 figure, I would like to know how many made NTU their first choice, country of origin and number of students actually entering after being offered a place. The 1 out of 2? That isn’t unusual, especially in fast growing sectors. Plus, I’ve heard of much better statistics.
On to their facilities and achievements. To study aerospace, we’ll definitely need simulators and computer models (no sane professor would ever let his students build an untested model and then fly it!). Plus, you can always buy Microsoft’s Flight Simulator and install it on your home PC!
Partnerships with big corporations? I noticed that companies like Boeing & Lockheed Martin (US), BAe & Airbus (Europe), MiG & Ilyushin (Russia) and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries missing from the list. NASA, ESA, Rosaviakosmos? Dream on.
The hangar? I think most aerospace students go to the airport, but at NTU, you can go to the one they’re going to build soon. Before you go ‘Ooo, airport in a campus!’, I have to warn you of this : Runway not included. All I’ll say is that without a runway, wouldn’t that take the space out of the aerospace engineering? Wanna go for test flight? Go to the airport.
What about that satellite? As I’ve already suspected from the start, it’s not a full fledged satellite, and as I’m told, not fully-home-grown. Our Measat definitely won in terms of size, but lost in terms of amount of parts ‘Made at Home’. The one satellite is called a minisatellite here, same as the other one currently in construction. Our microsatellite TiungSat was also partly home-grown too. I’m no expert and lacking time to fully analyse the differences here to provide a clear cut breakdown. Basically, it’s definitely a laudable attempt at building a home-grown satellite. Note this : ‘The X-Sat spacecraft design and development is being provided by the DSO National Laboratories.’ Cheating! DSO National Laboratories is military! Plus, most of the satellite is to be constructed by those electrical and mechanical engineers. What about aerospace engineers? My guess is they build the thrusters and engine that powers the satellite in orbit. That’s all.
You’d ask, do you get to launch it? Design the rocket, launch it and put it in orbit? That’s aerospace engineering too right? Hahahahaha. Dream on!
They expect us to be smart enough for scholarship consideration, yet dumb enough to swallow their advertising blindly? Oh come on, you’d gotta do better than that! Well, that might be a sign of how desperate Singapore is to grab people. We shall see how it all turns out.
