- Topic 16: Stressed for success—students who are intent on achieving success, college entrance exams, etc.
Thereare many different types of students in the classroom. However, there is onecommon obstacle every student faces. That is, stress. What makes the studentsdifferent is how we treat this stress. But firstly, let us define stress forstudents. Stress, would then be defined as that mountainous pile of homework,those countless commitments to non-academic work, and the seeming insufficientamount of time: 24 hours a day is always not enough! However, what makes thestudents different is how they cope with the stress.
Onecommon method is sacrifice. While some sacrifice their academic work, otherssacrifice their other commitments, and this will be the main focus of our topictoday. Yes, the advantages of sacrificing other commitments are obvious andbeneficial, but have you considered the disadvantages?
Thecommon thinking is that other commitments are not as important as youracademics. In fact, it is goes hand in hand with Singaporeans’ “kiasu” mentality. When this choice is made, students, ofcourse will have more time to focus on their studies and ace their subjects.With this, they will rise to the top and supposedly have a “better job prospectand future”.
However,two major flaws in this choice. Firstly, it is selfish thinking, as the studentonly thinks of the benefits of himself while he neglects others. Innon-academic commitments, it most of the times involves many people in a teamor group, like projects or CCAs. By ignoring these, the team members of theteam will be affected because their burdens will be much heavier due to lack ofmanpower and thus you pull those around you down as well. Secondly, lessons donot just happen in the academic world. Non-academic worlds teach you otherimportant things like skills of a particular CCA or values like teamwork,unselfishness, and moral values. These skills are also important in the futureand in the job scope, because the academic skills can only take you so far.Without the right moral values and mentality, you will not go far and yourfuture will be bleak. This is because jobs in the future normally do not askyou for the formula of the area of a sphere, neither do they require theknowledge of the cross-section of a fish, what they do require is the abilityto manage a team of workers, the will and unselfishness to contribute tosociety and the workforce. On separate note, neglecting other areas, especiallyphysical health and fitness, you will suffer when you enter National Service.
Wellthen, now that we are faced with this problem, what do we do? Firstly, I thinkthat the evil cause of this stress is ill discipline. Many students complainedof the lack of time, but what do they spend their time on? Gaming-addiction.Television. These mindless activities are the major time-consumers in our dailylives. To some students, these are more important than their own future and jobprospects. Therefore, the one and most important solution is self-discipline.Students must be able to prioritize their work over play-time, then only comessuccess. This will increase efficiency by a lot and therefore we will have moretime to complete our work. Hence, stress is eradicated!
Personally,I am totally disgusted by the fact that such a choice exists in the minds ofpeople. In my opinion, we should at least think of the consequence of ouractions and be considerate to others in the group or team. Sadly, most of thepeople who made this choice already knew about their actions and yet they stillpersist in their selfish choice. What is worse is that sometimes they areinfluenced by none other than their parents. Hence the only way for them towake up their ideas is by teaching them a lesson the hard way. In truth, thegovernment has also realized the importance of non-academic work, and henceprojects and CCAs now are graded and very important. Hence by not picking themto be your group members, they will have to face the consequences, of their ownselfishness. The bottom-line is that academic level does not define your futurejob, neither is it more important than non-academic subjects or activities.
