My Way of Learning: Plan and Set Goals But......

"Failing to plan is planning to fail"

We were repeatedly told this phrase since young. We have seen this phrase many times. So what is planning? How to plan so that we can effectively work our way through? Personally, I keep two sets of plans. I call them the big plan and the small plan. I write them in an organiser which is always in my bag.


The Big Plan

The big plan is something more general. I will plan how much time to spend on one activity per week. The image above shows the big plan I made for myself during my final semester in NUS. The stated time was the amount of time I planned to spend on the corresponding activity per week. This plan may not seem like a plan, but it serves as an important guideline for me. In case I feel lost during the week, I refer back to this plan and see what I can/should do.

The Small Plan

Looking at the second image, it shows how I spend each day. Every night, I will write down what I plan to do the next day. I will try my very best to make sure I follow my small plan. As you can see, the way I plan is very simple. I want to finish EE4001 report by the next day. I want to do EE4502 tutorial 2 the next day. As simple as that, no need to be very specific.

Do Not Follow Your Plan Blindly
Plan never really works well, at least not for me. I am not contradicting myself. There are many times which we are "forced" by circumstances to change plan. My rule of thumb:

Failing to change plan is planning to die

Looking at my big plan above, do I really have the textbooks for the modules? Do I have so many questions for practicing? Actually no. In fact I did not purchase any book. In fact, I spent all 5 weekdays (from 830am to 9pm, minus off meal and lecture time) in the lab working on my Final Year Project, so much so that I did not even bother to write it down in my small plan. And I like to shift the things that I want to do from one day to another. As long as I get all my TODO's done by the deadline, I am free to do anything I want to my plan.

Summary
So the main idea here is to plan well, write down what is needed to be worked on, don't do last minute work, spread out the workload so that you won't feel burdened. And of course, celebrate whenever you cross out a task from the task list. Give yourself a break, buy yourself a curry puff (yes, the curry puff from the snack store in NUS Engineering was my reward for myself).

4 Unorthodox Methods For Tackling Examination

Examination at the end of a course tests what we have learned. Although it may not be a true reflection of what we know (a few questions can never truly test our knowledge), we must recognize that examination still plays an important part in education, especially in Singapore.

Examination can be stress for some of us, it can also be relaxing for the rest of us. To me, it's all in the mind, it's all what you think and feel. Ultimately, we control our own feeling.

Here are some unorthodox methods which I use to make myself feel comfortable during and before examination.

Dress Code

I believe we all have our own favourite shirt/dress/pants. When we wear it, we just feel good, feel confident, feel like we are going on a winning streak that day. During my 4.5 years in NUS, I always try to wear my favourite shirt, the Stitch shirt, to the examination hall, at least for the most important paper/day (judge yourself which is the most important) of the semester if I have papers on consecutive days.

For those required to wear uniform, wear your good-luck watch, put your bracelet in your pocket if you can't wear it. As long as the item is not prohibited by the examination rules, just wear it! It will up your confidence level and you will do better!

What To Bring To The Examination Hall

Bring a lot of what is important. I tend to bring at least two of each type of stationery, including calculator. My rationale for doing so is because I am afraid. What if my only eraser goes missing? What if my only pen suddenly goes out of ink or the ink just won't flow? What if my calculator gives up on me in the midst of the exam? So many what-if's. Let's put these what-if's to rest. Bring as many as you like. Put your mind at ease. Tackle the paper without any worries of this sort.

On a side note, bring what you think will bring you good luck (of course nothing illegal such as the whole textbook). I bring calculator to all papers. I remember my JC classmate, Looi Sing, asked me "why the hell do you bring calculator for GP (General Paper)?" I was embarrassed to admit it was for good luck, so my answer was that I needed it to calculate the number of words I wrote for my essay. Sorry Looi Sing for hiding the truth for so long. :D

Do-Not-Bring Items

There are two sides to everything. You bring good luck items, of course you don't bring bad luck items. I remember the first time when I did well for my Physics paper (and of course I still did quite badly for all  my other papers) in secondary 3, I forgot to bring my wallet. Ever since then, I never ever bring my wallet to school during examination period, including O Levels. Yes you are right. Wallet brought me bad luck. Superstitious? Yes. Worked? 90%. What about the 10%? English, but imagine if I brought wallet for the English paper, I might have failed right?

Actions Before Examination

All the previous pointers provide us with a peace of mind unconsciously. Now, we still have to wait outside the examination hall. We still have to keep looking at our watch while carrying our stationery. Relax, make yourself comfortable while waiting. Do things to calm yourself down. I used to visit the toilet 15 minutes (no more no less) before the paper. This makes me "feel empty" and I won't feel like visiting the toilet again for the next three hours. And this ritual makes me feel lucky too!
There are certain things that you don't feel like doing before a paper. For example, I like to be alone, not talk, not mingle, not shake hands and not wishing/receiving good luck. I need time to be alone, to empty my mind so that I can enter the hall with a fresh mind. Because of this, my classmates laughed at me and joked that I didn't want to share my good luck with them. I followed my simple ritual without fail. Those who are afraid that you will be friend no more with your classmates because of "weird" actions, fear not! I am still on good terms with my JC classmates. Thank you guys! :)

Summary
The things that I did and do may seem superstitious, but who cares if it works well? Let's not care about how people may look at you (most likely no one will even care). As long as you are not doing harm to anyone, by all means make yourself feel good and comfortable! Ultimately, you are the one sitting for the examination, which may (or may not) determine your future. Your future is in both your hands, handle it well!

4 Tips For Effective Teaching And Learning

Since my last post, some of you commented to me that I never really describe what is my approach of teaching and learning at the same time. So here you go, below are some of my approaches.

Teach in layman terms

In other words, talk simple. Due to my limited English, and my "ability" to pronounce many technical terms wrongly although I can spell them perfect (I still inter-change between ellipse and eclipse), I tend to use layman terms. And I find that it helps in getting the other party to understand. A blessing in disguise indeed. For example, instead of "ellipse", I use "oval". Instead of using "cobalamin", I will just use "vitamin B-12". Now ask yourself, how many people, yourself included, will more likely remember ellipse or oval? How many of us know eating vitamin B-12 is good for health VS how many of us will think that eating cobalamin will land us in jail, just because it sounds like some restricted drug?
I also tend to use a mixture of Mandarin, English and even Chinese Dialect to discuss with my friends. The most important thing here is to understand the concept, forming it in the brain, and not get hindered by the language.

Use analogy

How many of us find the above diagram familiar? Those of us who took Physics will know that a direct current circuit is always represented first by a water pipe with water (electricity) flowing. This is needed because we can see and feel water flowing through a pipe while we cannot see (although we can feel once in a lifetime) electricity flowing through a piece of wire. Analogy, thus, will make a concept be explained easily. It aids visualisation. Never mind if the analogy is flawed, as long as it brings across the general idea. Anyway, there is no perfect analogy to begin with.

Talk about it in a fun way

"We represent an AND gate". This was the answer I gave when our common friend, Desmond from the US, asked why my roommate, WJ, and I always appear together and he even joked that WJ is my other half. What is an AND gate? It only gives positive if both of us are, meaning we will go out only if we go out together, else we don't. This definitely sounds very geeky. However it has two main advantage. First, you put into use the things you have learned. Second is, of course, you made some people laugh at your "lame" joke while others will boo in a jokingly way. In any case, it definitely livens up the atmosphere. :D

Relate to daily activities

Related to the previous points, let's relate what we have learned into common daily activities. If you wish to remember the difference between frequency and period, think about the brushing of teeth. Brushing at a high frequency seems to shorten the time period we take to brush (dentist may have different opinion here?). Doesn't this give us the inverse relationship between frequency and period?

Summary

Let's overcome our high coefficient of static friction. Start moving, try these methods now. Once you get started, the coefficient of dynamic friction will be less (although this may not be true with new findings) and you'll move with less force, more fluidly.

p.s. you can contact me anytime if you need flawed analogies... :p

My Way of Learning: Share The Knowledge

"Givers get. The more you give, the more you get"

This bookmark was given to me by my JC Physics teacher, Mr Sng Peng Poo, just before A Levels. Receiving this gift, I actually stared at the quote for some time. How can it be true? If I give, I lose something, or at the most I stay status quo while the other party gains. When will I ever gain? I took one step back and thought about it, thinking through the "hidden meaning" and the following is what I feel.

I was lucky to score well enough in secondary 3 to have my classmates ask me for my notes and asked me to go through concepts and questions with them. I wrote a notebook of Geography note in secondary 4 and when one of my best friends, AS, asked for it, I lent it to him on one condition, and that was to take good care of it and return to me when he is done.

At that time, I did not think much. To me, I was just sharing with my best friend what I had. Unexpectedly, he came to me almost daily, asking me "why this why that", and even pointed out that I wrote wrongly. He corrected my mistakes! Imagine if I was selfish and hid from him, I would have studied the wrong things and scored badly. Furthermore, I would not have reinforced what I've learned by answering his questions. This was the best example of "Givers Get" that I thought of that time.

Back to JC, I was asked to be a peer tutor, initially for Further Mathematics, later Physics. As a side note, I feel that this is an awesome on-going programme in Anderson JC, for the better students to share the knowledge and help others, instead of keeping to self and appearing like a snob. I was glad that I took up the offer. Aside from the CIP hours (yes we did receive it and I still don't understand why), I feel that I learned a lot from teaching. What??? I learned? By teaching?

The best way to learn is to teach. By communicating what I have learned, I am actually putting it into use. If the other person understands what I am saying and most importantly, understand the concept, I guess I am already 99% sure that I have the concept at my fingertips. In the midst of teaching, I assure you that your peers will ask you questions you never thought of, and most likely these questions will throw you off track. These are the questions that may prove to be the difference between an A and a B student.

If you are not the score-well kind, teach too! Who says only someone who scored well can teach? Remember that I failed many of my subjects? How did I improve? I forced some of my friends and my cousins, notably Sis HC and Bro YD, to listen to me teach them. (Theoretically I was not teaching, just getting them to listen to what I thought I knew, but who cares?)
The trick here is to be thick-skin! Come on, when we are already doing badly, who cares about face? I'm sure that your (true) friends won't snub you. If you really want to save face, teach yourself. Talk to yourself. I will talk to myself at home when trying to learn something which I have a hard time. My sister will totally agree as she is always disturbed by my loud teaching, although I always assure her that she grows smarter each day by my "lessons".

Having said so much, I must emphasize that when you are giving, never ever think of getting. It will only hold you back from giving more and make you feel miserable. In the end, you will only stop giving and become paranoid about giving. So, just give! You may not gain tangible rewards. You may not gain instant rewards. But ask yourself this question, when you teach and your friends understand and thank you with a big smile, what is your feeling? Don't you feel happy that you have just done something good? Don't you feel grateful that you've just made somebody's day?

So...

Share The Knowledge!

My Way of Learning: Stay Humble, Stay Hungry

It is easy to be the top, but never easy to stay up there.

I have been living by this quote for many years. I have never seen anyone who can stay top for long, not to say forever. In sports, we have Barcelona which used to be unbeatable in the football world just a few years back. In business, we have Apple which stocks only rose, also just some time back. In studies, do we always see the same name occupying the top of the level position? I doubt so.

Humility has long been a virtue, a trait that we should have. To me, this is a very important must-have in learning. Without humility, we will only go downhill. When we are near the top, we continue to work hard to climb up higher. When we are at the top, all the more we must work harder to stay there. Shame on me, I was complacent at the start of secondary 4. Being the level top for Physics in secondary 3, I thought it was needless for me to study so much for it. I paid for it. On the same day I received a book prize for my achievement in secondary 3, I received my common test result for Physics and guess what, I merely passed it. I did worse for Additional Mathematics, from A1 to fail. All because I was complacent and thought it was easy. Looking back, I've failed at least once in most of the subjects I took in school.

I always bear this in mind: We can always learn from one another. I have heard of the saying "only make friends with people smarter than you". I humbly disagree. No one is better than anyone else. Even if you are the top student and you have a friend who is the last, I am sure he knows something which you don't. I am sure that through a conversation with him, you will learn something new, something you have never even thought of before. Personally I have "stunned" people who scored better than me with my questions, teachers included. I was "stunned" many times by people who scored lower than me, and there were times which they scored higher than me. So, who is better? Who is smarter? No one.

Steve Blank once said during a lesson in Stanford, 2009, quoting Steve Jobs, "Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish". I totally agree. Let us be hungry for new knowledge. Let us be hungry to improve our existing knowledge. Looking back in my own life, I have been asking many questions since young. I remember that I kept asking a staff at a chinese medical hall how to use the weighing scale, till the point that I was sure of its operation. I even tried to take it over from her to try it. I was about 8 years old then and of course, I was stopped by my parents, who asked me not disturb the auntie's work.

Summary
No matter what we have achieved so far, we achieved them yesterday, the past, and they are history. We have to look at the present and to the future. Getting arrogant because of past achievement will only send us on the way down. Staying status quo is equivalent to going downhill too. This should be enough for us to stay hungry for knowledge. Only when we are humble do we seek to improve ourselves. So, stay humble, stay hungry. Be confident, not arrogant.

Build On Your Strengths, Not Forgetting Your Weaknesses

"Not bad, but Samuel needs to improve on his English."

"Samuel should spend more time on reading English books."

"Samuel did very well, but he needs to brush up on his English."

These were what my parents used to hear from my teachers 9 out of 10 time whenever there was a Parent-Teacher-Meeting. The 10th time, my parents would say first before the teacher can open his/her mouth, because they were used to it.

"Samuel, what happened? Do you know that if you continue to fail your English, you will be retained next year?"

This was what my Secondary School vice principal, Mr. Fauzi, said to me during secondary 2.

"Samuel, come see me for one-to-one remedial lesson this Thursday."

Out of pure concern that I couldn't enter a university after A Levels, my General Paper (GP) tutor, Ms Ang, offered to give me remedial lessons about 4 months before A Levels, at least once or twice per week. (Strangely enough, I was my class GP representative for 2 years.)

Some of my better GP results. Yes, these are my higher scores.
My record (low) was a single digit our of 50 for
both Paper 1 and Paper 2.

I'm sure that from my first two posts, you would have seen that my command of English is not good. But the above shows how bad it is. I was nearly retained in secondary 2. I needed to appeal at the end of JC1 in order to continue my 4 A Levels subjects and to take up Special Papers, all because of my GP grades.

Everyone has his own strengths and weaknesses, you and me included. My weakness in school was of course English, writing, speaking and comprehending. I have always been told to spend more time on English, which of course fell on deaf ears. I spent my studying time on Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Geography, History, everything else except English/GP. When it was time away from these subjects, I would sleep. Who cares about the boring English/GP? At least this was what I thought.

Over the years, after so many times of nearly falling into the trap of passing every subjects (except English/GP) and yet got retained/rejected, I learned something very important. That is, of course, to continue to build on my strengths (the other subjects). This is purely because these are my interests and reading on these make me happy and passionate about school. However, what's more important is that while pursuing "happiness", I did not forget my weaknesses (English/GP) through constant reminders from the teachers. In the end, I'm lucky that although I did not get good grades for them, I made it! Thanks to the teachers.

Being more abstract on the title of this post, in the working world, this is no different. Our strength is the core skill that we use in our everyday work. Our weaknesses are, I would say, skills not needed in daily work but may be useful, either for work or for conversation with peers. My greatest technical strength at this moment is web development. I am much weaker in other areas, even in areas I have passion in, such as semi-conductor. However, I make it a point to at least know a bit of many things (yes, not everything but many things, else I will be stressed out). This is important because we don't know what skill or knowledge is needed in the next project, or even in the next hour.
Taking a recent example, although my core programming language is Ruby, my boss suddenly threw me a PHP question (and it was quite urgent), asking me to get a small feature out. If not for my little prior knowledge in PHP, I would have taken forever to do it.

In summary, do focus and continue building on your strengths, as these are the elements which make you effective at work, and many times, you will feel happy when you feel effective. While at this, spend a little time, even if it is just 30 minutes per day (this was roughly the amount of time I spent for English/GP), reading up on other things. It can be on any topic or topics which are important but you are bad at. The end result will be different, so do try it!

Before I end this post, I must really thank all my teachers who never give up on me, especially Ms Ang from AJC. I also want to thank Mr Fauzi, then vice-principal of AISS. Without him, I would have really forgotten my weaknesses and things would have been different, doesn't matter for good or for bad because I love where and what I am now.

Guide to Learning 1: Focus

I'm sure all of us know that focus is the key element to complete any task effectively and efficiently. But why is it that we know but we never really practise it? There are many reasons and personally I feel that the main reason is noise.

Focus in achieving an objective

Noise, or the alternative voice in our lives, is the culprit of pulling us back from advancing towards our goals. One example would be me writing the blog. As mentioned in the introduction to this series, Guide to Learning, I started this blog in 2007. However, I did not follow through my dream. This was due to the noise inside me. The "devil" in me told me that this is redundant, this is a waste of my time, etc etc... I procrastinated and although I kept looking back into this blog, I was just lazy to pick it up and do what I wanted.

So, I would urge everyone who has an objective to just work towards it. To quote the famous Nike slogan, "Just Do It!". What can be the worst outcome? Fail? People laughing at your failure? At least you have tried and have no regret. Imagine you looking back in life when you are old and realise that you have not tried to work towards one of your little dreams. If the reason for not trying was because of the noise inside you, I'm sure you would have regretted big time.

In my case, I would have failed if no one reads my blog, but if at least one other person reads it, I see myself as a success. And now you are reading this post, thank you so much! :)

Focus in achieving a small task

Another reason why we fail to focus would be our physical surrounding. We may be distracted by people walking past, by the (real) noise from footsteps and conversations nearby, and even by the hot weather, especially in Singapore.

My friends always comment that I look very scary when I am doing my work, especially when I am thinking. They don't dare to interrupt me, even if they just wanted to ask me for lunch, because I look like I can devour anyone anytime. Now, how do I overcome these real noises?

My only reply, even if you ask me now, is to train in harsh conditions. There is no air-con at home. I stay less than 10 metres from the ground floor. I stay at a busy location where there are thousands of people walking past each day. I stay near the train station. There used to have a garbage collection point just outside the window in my room.  I'm sure you would have guessed what is it like to do work in my room. Noise, smell, non-stop moving elements. To round it off, I love doing work in my room, facing the moving train.

This "training" has made me used to the harsh conditions which we could face anywhere, anytime. When my house was under renovation with all the drillings and hammering, I was inside my room, with door opened, continuing to do my work as if it was just another normal day.

For students, if you are able to focus in harsh conditions, I'm sure that you will have no problem during examination, in a quiet environment. If this is not enough, one more plus point is that it will definitely serve you well if by any chance, your examination hall is not as quiet as it should be. This happened to me a few times before and I'm sure you have experienced it.

To end off, I feel that everyone is equal and no one is smarter than another. It's the ability to focus that makes the difference, that determines how much time is needed to understand a concept, that makes a person "seemingly smarter" than another.