The MAJOR Decision

The MAJOR Decision

• 03 November 2013

26th October 2013, Last Friday
11.30pm

Officially DECLARED Major; Strategic Management

When I clicked on the Declare button, I felt as if I accomplished something in SMU

About two months ago, I wrote a post about my thoughts being a SMUGGER and tonight here I am, feeling very happy because I fulfilled what I had set out to do.

Bidding for the next semester officially begins today at 10am. I've placed my bids and praying hard that I get them because then, I can finally have my perfect timetable. Basically I'm the kind that cancelled out all Mon and Fri lessons, all 8.15am lessons. So yes there you go!

 Time flies. We're officially stepping into the next stage of our university life whereby some of us have chosen to declare our major. If you would like to put it this way, it's basically like choosing which jobs you wanna venture into essentially, assuming you do what you major in. Yet, the problem is, when I asked around, a lot of people don't know what they want to do in life... why they chose to study Business in the first place, let alone what to major in. I guess that's why students chose Business because it's the most general degree amongst others (don't say not true), which sadly I believe is the most non-useful degree because we do not specialise in any specific set of skills unlike law, medicine, economics or even accounting. Well, everything is relatively speaking, isn't it?

In this aspect of my life, I remember giving many talks to potential secondary school students back then. I presented on the topic of my choice in choosing Temasek Poly and how much opportunities the school had offered me. Because I knew what I wanted to achieve in learning, thus, I chose the business route despite my family and friends telling me to enrol into Mass Comm or Law.

One of the reasons choosing TP Business was also because of the course itself! It allowed me to choose from 2 majors (great selling point), and I chose to major in Tourism and Corporate Communications with dual-dip in Psychology. Isn't it the best of all worlds in the sense that I get a taste of everything I (thought) I would like. Absolutely no regrets because I enjoyed myself despite all the not-so-great times I had to bear with especially when we had to ton overnight 24hrs for a project, rush to print it the next morning 8.30am, running up the stairs (because lift too crowded) to lecturers office just in the nick of time 1min before submission, oh and sometimes even begging our lecturers to accept our project submission because we are 5secs late. Those were the days. I remember us picnic-ed #likeaboss with my friends in lectures, sometimes even skipped lectures, but still maintained good grades and I have no idea how I did it back then. Really.

Well, so for me, similarly I set my eyes on SMU (or even coming to university) with one reason being this school offered Strategic Management as a business major. Whereas, the other local universities only offered typical standard majors like Finance, Marketing, Human Resources... which I wasn't interested in. Thus, I knew right from the start what I was here for. Even up to now, I still think Year 1 & 2 mods are very ridiculous, we should just focus on our majors and I really can't wait to start on them! To get down to doing some REAL, real life case based learning!

Well, many people would say that taking Strategy is a route less taken...

But that's good, isn't it?

Choosing the least popular choice doesn't mean I'm making the wrong choice. It's just my choice and God's plan for me. I don't see why we should conform to societal or peer pressure of taking the other standard majors. Also, out of the 7 majors, minus the math-related ones, I'm not left with much choices. I'm not saying that the other business majors are not good. In fact, I think they are very useful. Point here is, please choose something that you are interested in, not just something that you think you would like and end up realising you don't, or just because you want to bid for same modules with your friends.

And, yes I'm only going to take 1 major!

I would think that almost every SMU student graduates with double major. Logic being you pay the same school fees, and just by doing extra 2 more mods, you can graduate with double! wow sounds like a good deal right? Honestly, when my seniors told me that, I was very very tempted to do that too, but I asked myself, sam, what for? Do you really need to take those extra major mods, go through all the unnecessary 'sufferings' of exams and lesson time, to run the business or work for a company? If you're really interested in that particular industry, go out there and work part-time, you will learn more on the job and when you start working, you will realised whatever you have learnt from class is not that relevant after all.

Honestly also, I can't find another major to take!

Probably Corporate Communications. But, I majored in that prior already (and many people ask me why I don't continue then?) and I can tell you, it's not as glamorous as what people think it is. In fact, I really felt I got cheated when I started doing those modules. I thought it was all about meeting people and talking to them. But that's not all! No doubt, I really learnt a lot of practical things, but I hated the backend nature of the job itself - The job of crafting media advisories, media kits, literally "sucking up to people to PR via words (which can be really insincere)". So much writing to do! Things about writing a media news, well, it's something my lecturer concluded... "It's something I can't teach, it's either you can see the media angle or not. If you can, you will be successful (and that's why not a lot are successful ones)", so well oh well. It's like blogging. You've got to create controversy! I guess long term plan I may still consider PR as a job option but it all depends on God's plan for me and what sort of PR work I'm doing.

Why Strategy?

Good things are meant to be shared!

Because I really enjoyed LTB mod! #truestory #itsnotfluffyatall #needtothinkproperlyokay!, but also because Strategy's the core of all business!

It's not all fluff! I like to think of it as being essential to any companies be in a MNC or a SME. If you think of it, all business functions really depend on Strategic Management. The planning process, the execution and all the practical real-life case studies that we get to work with. More importantly, it's good for budding entrepreneurs or potential consultants because you get to work with real external clients (yay!) and of course, other opportunities that you'll miss out if you don't come on board (; Well, having said that, it's best to have a certain level of interest in this major before deciding to take it. Or else, you're better off with a more solid major like Finance or Operations.

Oh, and if you are not convinced yet, you should choose Strategic Management (SM) because I've chosen it!
(SM) - Sam & Min Yee *our little inside joke*
And, I'm so so blessed to have my Twinny with me in this too!

*stares* looks like I'm stuck with YOU for my entire SMU journey, hahaha! ^^
Truth is, both of us came to SMU partially for this major as well. From Day 0 (even before enrolling to SMU) we already eyed on this track! babe, remember to fulfill our dream of lazing on green pastures with castle-like schools on exchange k! Actually, we don't know why y'all should take this major and we don't know what it's going to be like. All we know is, we're taking it because both of us love entrepreneurship and business-related activities! Our great plans to set up a business we like together, hopefully it'll come true, but like what we believe, it's always God's plan and we'll do it for God if he opens doors for us.

Having said that, I'm feeling really blessed! Not everyone has someone to go through their entire university course together, to go through all the ups and downs ranting to each other because only we understand certain things and seeing situations in the same way, so I can't help but emphasize how thankful I am that we have the same interest and we will be in this till graduation. It's amazing because we were not from the same poly (our university mutual friends all think we know each other from way way back) but no! We met at minister dialogue sessions that our respective schools sent us for as student representatives. We met at the taxistand and when we wanted to check where's the exact venue, we took our our then-handphone, realising we were using whiteberry + rabbit ears cover. How concidental! And, so yes, that's how we met, connected well and the rest is history...

Fate, God's work at play, I would say! #throwback

our entrepreneurship stint, indeed

"For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also" - Luke 12:34

To round this post off, whatever major you eventually choose, it doesn't matter. You must enjoy it, make the best out of it and at the end of the day,

SAY I 'M PROUD TO BE A GRADUATE FROM SINGAPORE MANAGEMENT UNIVERSITY

* If anyone's interested in taking this major, let us know, cause we are recruiting groupmates! hehehe!

Looking forward to next sem & beyond!