Referencing Lab Report - Wrong Attitude to Learning

Tu di told me that she received a lot of peer pressure coz many of her friends have senior's lab report to refer to. This has been a problem in NUS Chemistry (or NUS in general) for as long as I remember. That is up to individual actually, I guess there is no right or wrong from a human perspective. However, from the academic perspective, it's a grave mistake. There is no such reason as "since everyone is doing it, then I might as well do it". Remember, the blind leads the blind in most cases.

I always remembered the sweetness of receiving back my lab report when I do the report myself. It may be a B+ but it still represents my ultimate effort. The module that I remembered the most was CM3292 Advanced Experiments in Analytical and Physical Chemistry. I didn't take any year III modules in those areas and thus the lab reports were tough to write. Together with Yiming, we have to read up on the materials and then struggled with the report. It's a tough process but we enjoyed the learning experience. At least, our reports are original. The mistakes are original and genuine. We can jolly well borrow reports from seniors and then save 80% of the time reading up on unecessary stuff (that bores me :p). We didn't fare fantastic for the reports, mostly B+ and A- but at the end of the day, we can satisfactions. At least, we can lift our head high and be proud of our grades because we deserve them. It may be silly, but it's worth it as the satisfaction gotten is priceless and definitely sweeter than an A+.

Nothing interesting happens for the past 3 days. Took lab safety test at SEPO on Tue and then did the online TA training assessment on Wed (before attending the course on Thu and reading the online materials!!!) The crappy thing is, I passed the online assessment. Haha. Maybe I have the instinct of a teacher and that's why I can answer those Q without taking the TA course.

Yah, went for the TA course today. The instructor is humorous and able to teach well. The course itself is however, a little boring for me as it basically teaches us how to teach, something which I already knew :p. Gotta know an international friend from Sri Lanka and went out with him for dinner and to Tsim Sha Tsui to admire the skyline of Asia's World City.