As a young adult, while I heard of the phrase “life is a game”, I never really know what it meant. But everything clicked when I was an Engineering Year 1 undergraduate.
Going back to studies after 2.5 yrs of National Service was tough:
- I had to relearn “how to study” (whatever that worked for A-levels were irrelevant)
- Many of the subjects were new
- We were expected to manage our studies independently (we are after all undergraduates!).
The big question that stressed me: what does it take to do well? To be successful?
The game of varsity education
So, I had to experiment. I built my own study strategy and system to study, prepare, and deal with the exams, and more importantly, figured out what professors wanted in project work and exams.
Surprise, surprise, my system worked; I did well for my projects and exams.
I have decoded the game of varsity education that worked for me.
I discovered my input levers - what I need to do, how to do, how much to do, when to do - to hit my academic targets.
Discovering my input levers was a major mental unlock. I know which levers to pull and push to get the outcome I wanted.
Clarity of goals and tradeoffs
The discovery gave me the confidence to set my sight on a goal that I knew I could achieve: to graduate with 2nd Upper class honors, which placed me in the top 25-30% of my cohort.
And I knew that to achieve my goal:
- Stay on top with regular assignments (last-minute cramming does not work for me).
- The number of study hours I need to put in every week.
- The runway I need to plan and set aside for projects and exams.
Graduating with first class honors (top 5%) was not on my radar. Why?
The grind some classmates put in was insane. They lived in the library. Their meals companions were the same people that they spent the whole day in lectures and tutorials with. They had no life!
I was not prepared for the tradeoff.
I was clear I wanted a full undergraduate experience. That meant playing games (literally!), being involved in the Varsity Christian Fellowship (VCF) and expanding my social circle beyond the 90% male engineering cohort.
I had clarity of my definition of “success”, of “doing well” and I was happy with it.
Winning the game
This proved to be a strategic decision:
- Met my wife: I found love with a fellow VCF member from the Accountancy department, who became my wife. And we are now the proud parents of 2 adult children.
- Learnt to Lead: VCF leadership roles honed my ability to lead and especially how to influence without authority. The experience was invaluable and gave me confidence to lead projects, meetings, discussions when I started work as a fresh graduate.
- Forged Lasting Friendships: Social activities solidified friendships with fellow undergraduates from other faculties. This is priceless because some of my closest friendships today were forged in university when we had to organize and run workshops and camps.
I didn’t fully grasp the significance of this lesson then.
But in hindsight, the most valuable takeaway from my 4 years of varsity education was that I learnt to play the Game of Varsity Education!
The prize of winning was not my 2nd class honors degree (none of my employers had ever asked me my 2nd Upper or why I didn’t get 1st class). It was finding a life-long partner, forging lasting friendships, and discovering that I was able to lead without influence.