The Last Lecture

I'm BACK!!! erm, well, at least for one more post and (hopefully) many pictures of our after exam fun :P

Despite the obiang coloured background, the huge text and the 'not working' screen, the last lecture by Prof Ben was probably the best lecture ever available in NUS. Not that we haven't been learning about it all sem. CS3216 has been stirring up what was dormant (or not so active) in many of us. It has stirred up our passion, our want to dream, our want to try, our want to succeed. And when we were in despair, or felt that we wanted more sleep (and might have given up if this were our own business venture), prof ben offered us grades. hahaha.. so we continued to fight on for our dreams (or grades, for some :P).

I've been blessed with many wonderful profs this sem (i mean, what are the odds of that??), and one of them is prof ben. Unconventional, *cough*evil*cough*, always pushing, always seeking for more. Always trying to bring out that latent potential in all of us. And so, his teaching philosophy stands as trying to provide the best possible environment for us to learn. That, of course, meant pizza/atas chicken rice lunches, tekaning Kok Wee (poor guy!!) and all the other TAs, and making a heck lot of phonecalls and buying more lunches to get people and friends to come down to NUS to talk to small fry like us. So, despite all the evil in prof ben, and despite me always being super vocal and always calling prof ben evil, i'd just like to say a huge "thank you". Thank you, for going the extra mile to earn your pay, for settling for nothing more than our best effort, for all the free food that you've provided, for all the times that you sent me back, for all the time you've taken to talk to each one of us, for all the effort you've taken in trying to reach out to us on a personal level, for recognising all of our (latent) potential and not giving up on us, and for making CS3216 a class that (i believe) will be burned into my mind as one of the best and most torturing classes in my entire NUS life. :P

To my other classmates - wow! We've really come a long way, haven't we? We've all picked up lots of things this sem. (i personally never knew i could do even a spark of graphic design) It's a pity that, because we were in groups, i only got to know a small portion of the class on a more personal level. But to the few of you whom i've gotten to know better, to people who have given me contructive feedback (which i really appreciate!), to the people who have made this class so much more interesting - Thank you. And i will miss you all (even the one who said i got sha qi). And this class has so much potential, i know i'll probably hear about most of you from the papers or from friends in the future, making big money or simply changing the world in your own way. Thank you, for being part of my little life for one semester. It's been great knowing you all, and i hope to keep in touch!!

Two lessons truly struck me:
1. The LOVE OF money is the root of all evil.

It's true when they say that 'money is never enough', because for some, the number of zeros in their bank determines how sucessful they are. (btw my bank has only one zero :P) It's how they quantify their success. But so many things in life can't be bought with money, and you can lose so much more valuable things in your quest for money, it's just not worth it. And while many of the people who came for the talk said that money is their driving force behind their success, must a business only be successful if it earns money? Can't the success of their business be quantified in terms of other factors, like the lives that it touched, the passion that it raised, the spark that created a flaming fire? Because if you were to only quantify a success in terms of money, then what prof ben would be doing is unsuccessful (cos he earns less pay than he could, and loses money when buying us lunches). But, to me, CS3216 is a success. It taught us small fries more than we could have learnt in any other module.

2. PRIDE
People Rest, I Do Extra.
It's true. It really is. Pride in your work - to go the extra mile even if you think that no one's noticing. There might be no rewards, even a crap grade at the end of the day, but deep in you, there's this satisfaction because you know that you've done your best, you've slogged your heart out, and are proud of your work. People say that your best is never enough, but if you don't give your best to begin with, then the battle is already lost.


Another lecturer showed me this video -


Haha, go watch it! :P But i've sure whatever we've learnt here this sem can't be replicated in 5 minutes. To friends who want to join CS3216 in the future, I'd tell them that "it's all about fluff". But to actually know what CS3216 teaches - you've got to experience it for yourself, because each person's experience was different. And how much you get out of this kind of class is how much YOU want to put into it. Many of us kinda sold our souls for this class this sem, spent long days in COM1 or engin cramming out code (poor khoa has been coding till his fingers have almost dropped off), and i've learnt stuff that i'd always wanted to do, but never got around to doing (like talking to sponsors, doing lots of PR, creating lots of fluff that has substance haha).

So to people who are reading this blog wondering if they should take up this module, i say GO FOR IT!! You'll have the experience of a lifetime (and crappy grades for the rest of your modules :P)!

~Peaceout!