MITIS alumnus rallies fellow students to actively prepare for university life

Currently a scholar at the Singapore Management University, Dong Kyu Hyung (Tommy) of the Class of 2012 prepared an address for the upper grades' morning assembly last December 17, Monday.

However, due to time constraints, Dong was not able to deliver his speech in its entirety. Following is a transcript of his speech.

Hello everyone! It is nice to be back here again. All of you must have probably seen me at least in the posters. So I graduated from MITIS, and I am studying Business Management as a freshman at Singapore Management University.

I want to begin with the question that everyone has been asking me. They ask, "Is college difficult?" To those people whom I've answered so far, I answered them "yes," assuming their question really means,Can you really survive after graduating in MIT?" But no matter what school you are from, or what country you are from, it really depends on how good you are as an individual. So for today, I want to share my thoughts on the importance of training yourself up based on my experience and give some tips to the people planning to go to Singapore.

Honestly, I feel embarrassed to speak to you on this issue because I know and my teachers know that I was definitely not a hard working student. But I want to warn you so that you will not go through the same problems that I went through in the past few months.

Until grade 10 and half of grade 11, I did not study at all. In the midst of grade 11 I began preparing for exams such as TOEFL, SAT, and AP. My effort in preparing for these exams paid off, and I was able to get the scores that I wanted. But although I have my SAT score, TOEFL score, and AP scores, I regret not strengthening my basic knowledge. Now, what I mean by this is that I just prepared for those exams as if I was solving simple arithmetic problems. Like in SAT for example, in the reading part you look for the key words like "however," "but," and all those stuff. I just kept searching for better tricks or shortcuts to get better scores. And I didn't know I was on the wrong track until my first Business Law class where my professor actually asked us to read almost 100 pages in the textbook she wrote and 3 law cases. Because I was not used to reading, I was only used to going for the short cuts: skimming throughout the pages, highlighting the keywords, ignoring the minor information. But it turned out that what the professor wanted from me was not memorizing the facts but developing my own thought and stand on the issue and support with both the details in the article and the basic knowledge I had. And because SMU promoted interactive class environment, I failed to get a good grade in that subject.

This happened to me in most of my subjects, and it is heavily affecting a lot of things in my life. So I want you not to forget that the exams you are preparing for is to test your ability. So if you get a better grade than what you are supposed to get, yes it will get you to a better college with more opportunities. But you will not be ready to absorb all the opportunities that the university is offering. Also, you will be burdened by the expectations. Literally, you are faking that you are good while you are not. So that's one important thing that you want to consider. If you want to be confident about your ability, then I suggest you start preparing now. Read books, magazines, newspapers. Minimize "googling" and "wikipedia-ing" for questions that require your thoughts. Try solving them yourselves because once you get to college, no one will be there to help you out. You think Facebooking your teachers for answers will help? I tried that. Peter did as well. But, I am very certain that it will not help you at all. You've got to know how to solve problems on your own. So start preparing.

And a couple of people in grade 12 I heard are planning to go to Singapore, so I want to ask you. Why do you want to go to Singapore? Is it because the country is developed? Career opportunities? University ranking? Is it the education system? Or is it just because people say Singapore is good? What do you know about Singapore? Also, what do you know about the college you want to apply for? What kind of education do they offer? What opportunities? What do you want to major in? Why? Why choose SIM? Is it because NUS, NTU, and SMU are probably impossible so you go for the easier university because its NUS NTU SMU then SIM? I urge you to be clear about what you want and what you expect because if not, you will be lost and miss a lot of opportunities.

There are so many things I wanted to share with you but a long assembly is always bad so I want to leave you all with this. Everything will depend on what you can do, not what you have done. Read, study, and think on your own. Alrigiht? So if you have any questions you can always talk to me in person or in Facebook. Thank you and good luck grades 11 and 12.