In a blink of an eye, 2 years have passed since I made the decision to switch out of Economics as a major. Since then, it has been a long path that has seen me unofficially switch majors 7 times, eventually returning to Computer Science, the major I had initially switched to.

On hindsight, it has been a pretty good decision. A recent New York Times article writes about the ugly job market that has left Harvard graduates unemployed. Yet for a Stanford CS major, there is a ridiculous talent crunch that has companies competing for qualified talent. I receive an email every other day or so from a recruiter looking to hire (though this does not matter, due to my Police contract).

The Journey

The benefits have been sweet. Yet the journey has been like shitting a pineapple. I have had long periods of self-doubt, especially in the early transition phase, where my newfound mediocrity in CS was painfully juxtaposed against my previous achievement studying the humanities in Junior College. It was tempting to think it had all been a fluke, and perhaps I wasn’t that clever after all. It only got worse when I saw people who I had done better than in the humanities excel and get nice jobs in consultancy and banking, while I struggled to get to the baseline standard in Computer Science. Did I mess it all up?

My social life and GPA are going to suffer, but I’m damned well going to learn how to program

It has taken 2 years to turn the corner. Through this time I’ve learnt that given >baseline intelligence, excellence is a function of perspiration. The marginal ease of learning a new concept increases with each concept already learnt. Roughly 1,400 hours into Gladwell’s 10,000 hours threshold, I’ve become able to pick up a new languages and frameworks in days, though getting good takes much longer. I am far from the finished product, but it is getting easier.

It has been a test of my willingness to let go of everything that got me here. I have drawn inspiration from Tiger Woods, who at the top of his game overhauled his golf swing, leading to a decline before paying off in 1999. In the process, the Chinese idiom  破釜沉舟 (to give up possibility of retreat) has been true. It was not till switching back became impossible, that I was able to find the determination to hunker down and get good.

The Next Phase

Programming as a profession… can be a good job, but you could make about the same money and be happier running a fast food joint. You’re much better off using code as your secret weapon in another profession.

People who can code in the world of technology companies are a dime a dozen and get no respect. People who can code in biology, medicine, government, sociology, physics, history, and mathematics are respected and can do amazing things to advance those disciplines.

- Advice from an Old Programmer, Zed Shaw

‘Oh, you’re sure to [get somewhere],’ said the Cat, `if you only walk long enough.’

- Alice speaks to Cheshire Cat, Lewis Carroll

The worst thing that could happen now is for me, ironically, is for me to begin to think I am a CS person. I am not. I am a social scientist who now knows algorithms, machine learning, and how to code. I am a government person who now knows a little bit of technology and human factors design, and can work with engineers. And perhaps the most liberating: I am an idea person who is now able to make things happen.

The challenge for me now is to continue to develop my technical competencies, while beginning to apply it to the areas that I actually care about.  Part of it requires me to learn and pick up various aspects of the social sciences on my own. I will be writing my senior honors thesis in Political Science under Stanford’s CDDRL, and it is likely to center around network analysis and the spread of political opinion. It’ll hopefully be the first of many things to come from the new skills I’ve learnt.

How can learning be collaborative, in competitive environments?

I had the chance to meet up with them, and over dinner we thought of ways to enable and encourage people to share/pass on notes, and improve and add on to previous knowledge. We came up with quite a few methods, and we’re going to prototype and iterate each of them to see what works and what doesn’t (a process I learnt from the d.school, that is apparently the current fashion in Singapore).

We’re got a couple of things we’re thinking of trying out. We’ve got some simple site that allows people to download notes under the Open Source License- that allows future generations to download it, and adapt/add on to it (aka “hacking” notes). The hope is that in due time they’ll upload their improved notes as well, and there will be some sort of versioning/branching system (like Sourceforge).

The second is to wiki-fy the notes, allowing anyone to edit and add on to it similar to wikipedia. At the moment we’re likely to build it on Google Docs or Etherpad (as they’re user friendly, unlike Mediawiki), and people will improve the common resource while they’re taking the course. That said, we’re not sure whether people will and I’m very interested to see how it plays out.

It’ll be interesting to see which one works better, or whether the experience with it will allow us to have a better idea of what is needed. We’ve got no idea how it might turn out- it could just become a website with links, or something cool could come out from it. This should be interesting.

Right now we’re doing it only for H3 Economics, and you can see the site h3econ.com. But the plan is to move to other subjects where notes are key to doing well, but there are no textbooks (i.e. History, KI) though we’ll just move in what makes most sense, as the idea develops.

It was interesting to hear the speakers’ thoughts on many issues. Among them, Eddie Teo, the chairman of the PSC (the body that administers and gives out scholarships) spoke to us about the scholarship system and our responsibilities- read it here (or here if you don’t have a ST membership). I had always admired him from afar (after reading his open letter a year ago), and he spoke with the same candor and wisdom from his years of experience.

Tourists at Harvard Yard touching “the piss foot”…

I wrote about my thoughts on my scholarship a year ago, but had put it off this year as I had a mini-crisis at that time. Sitting in SingSem made me reflect once again on how I thought one year ago, and how it has changed. The little experience I’ve had has allowed me to better understand the opportunities my role gives me, as well as the limitations and responsibilities being in the Civil Service entails. A youthful “change-the-world” idealism is increasingly tempered with a pragmatic understanding of how systems work, and how to work in them.

The Civil Service isn’t Silicon Valley, and my experience in Stanford has arguably given me an unrealistic yardstick to measure it. Where Silicon Valley prizes dynamism, and encourages you to move quickly on your own agenda, working in the government (or any large organization) trains you to work as part of a larger team. A friend who works in Google tells me that the organization is become more and more bureaucratic as  it grows bigger. Perhaps what is needed is the art of intrapreneurship, where one applies the same dynamism and ideas while working within the rules and limits of the system. I have much to learn about that.

Much has been happening in Singapore, politically and socially. Certain trends scare me, but that is perhaps a topic for another time (and, perhaps, not on this blog). I won’t be writing much over the next few weeks as Computer Science has been tough. I am working hard to reinvent my comparative advantage, and acquire a new skill set to bring back to my job in the future.

The Thirty.sg Site

It is an website that, for 30 days before National Day, allows anyone to submit concrete and executable ideas that can make Singapore a better place. So far ideas have ranged from small suggestions (more study tables in libraries) to the big stuff (education). More importantly, we are building a community around those ideas- where people discuss, debate and refine each idea. We then bring the best ideas to the people who can make them happen.

It has been interesting seeing the community grow and develop. We started out barely 2 weeks ago with a free website from Ideascale, and as of 2 minutes ago have almost 60 ideas, 505 votes, and 143 comments. Many of the ideas are really good. The team behind it is the reason for this rapid growth- I have learnt a lot from working with some of the most talented people around. Working with them has only increased my belief in the collective power of a small group of people to make something happen.

Check it out- I promise you’ll find the site interesting. I’m pretty sure at some point in our lives we’ve thought of something that Singapore could do, or should have. This is a pretty good way to get it out there- so put your idea up there!

PS: If you could help us evangelize the site, it would be a great help. At the moment we’ve been doing it solely through word of mouth, and anybody you tell about this site helps our efforts a lot.

There’s been a fascinating conference that I’ve been following for the past couple of days- the Gov 2.0 Expo in Washington D.C. It’s a really interesting topic- especially for those in the government. Singapore’s civil service is pretty efficient (compared to what I’ve seen overseas), but there is always immense potential for improvement- particularly when it comes to the adoption of technology.

I’ve been on-off interested in this subject for quite a bit of time- great blogs that covers this topic is GovFresh, and Gov 2.0 Radio. There’s been a flurry of recent activity on the topic as well, with Obama’s OpenGov initiative sparking a lot of applications built on government data. Conferences such as Gov 2.0 LA (for Los Angeles), and the Gov 2.0 Expo have brought a lot of renewed interest to the subject. I’ll blog about some key ideas from these conferences after my exams, which end next week.

iLink@Aljunied: Feedback

I wrote earlier on open helpdesks and idea aggregators and how they could help the government. This is already starting to happen in Singapore- iLink@Aljunied (what a name!?) is somewhat of a open helpdesk, for Aljunied GRC, and you can find a really good review of it at e27. It should be interesting times- I’m working on something in this field, and will write about it soon.

I can’t help but feel that the “no-eating-or-drinking-is-allowed” law is being taken a bit too far here- fining a lady $30 seems really extreme- and if I may say- completely ridiculous.

I don’t blame the station manager, who is only doing his job. It, however, is a manifestation of an greater underlying philosophy in Singapore- the “slippery slope”. It is succinctly put in the video: “[if we allow you to eat a sweet], then everyone will also start doing that, then where are you going to [draw the line]?” The fear of the slippery slope has often resulted in policymakers going for the most extreme rule possible.

Is going for the extreme rule a sign of prudence, safeguarding society from its ills? Or is it just lazy policymaking, an excuse to not put in the hard work to find out where the metaphorical “slope” has its “plateaus”- middle grounds where rules can give people more breathing space, yet still safeguard society. I’m not sure, and I’d like to find out someday.

PS: You can also read about this incident here and here.

Dear Singapore Citizens,

Bukit Batok Grassroots Organisation (GRO) is organising a Water Festival specially to welcome the New Year in Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos.

The funds used to host the event are likely to come from the mega $10-million dollar Community Integration Fund unveiled by the Ministry of Community, Youth and Sports (MCYS) last year to make the foreigners feel accepted and happy in Singapore.

I hope that those who are not supportive of the government wasting taxpayers’ money on foreigners to turn up in BLACK on that day.

I must admit that xenophobia (anti-foreignism) is possibly one of the easiest impulses to give in to. When I was back in Singapore during the summer, it was difficult not to feel that way, trying to squeeze onto an MRT train after work. Yet as a foreigner in America I can see why, to an extent, foreigners are necessary. The riches of Silicon Valley were as much built by Americans as by the scores of immigrants.

The same is beginning to be so for Singapore- when I visited the incubators in NUS last year, I found that more than 2/3 of the entrepreneurs were foreigners. Arguably, they will be the key creators on jobs in the future, as Singapore moves toward a start-up/innovation driven economy. Of course, the crucial question is always how much (and what type of) immigration is the right amount of immigration (has there been too much?)- and the debate should rightly focus on that.

Yet this event scares me. In their effort to make their point to policymakers (which is not wrong), they choose a method of doing so (gatecrashing the event) that might unknowingly/knowingly seek to intimidate foreigners. Worse, the only ones who would care about such a message are ironically the ones Singapore needs the most (the highly skilled entrepreneurs with lots of other options), even though we hate to admit it. The lower-skilled ones with few other options will not care at all whether or not you like them- and will come anyway.

Let’s not do things that way. I’m in no position to say this- I am a 20 year old who took a government scholarship 2 years ago. I have never lost out on a job to a foreigner, nor been retrenched because of one. Yet the little learning I’ve done has taught me to look a bit further into the future than the mere present, and think about the issues beyond the emotion. And I’ll put this out there, just in case my voice makes a little bit of difference.

PS: Had this idea while I was typing- that everyone on that day wear black (organizers, foreigners included)… see how that works?

Update: There’s now a counter-gatecrash group, which you can find here. Not sure whether its legitimate, though… (the founder only has 5 friends…?)

Via the Straits Times Forum, comes an interesting suggestion: to free up golf courses Cheap Cialis for other uses. An excerpt:

Yet, in contrast, to date we have built 22 golf courses, most of which are 18-holed oases to cater to a sport whose following is a mere 2 per cent of all regular sports participants, according to the Singapore Sports Council’s National Sports Participation Survey in 2005.

An interesting suggestion, though I wonder why there are so many in the first place. Perhaps they are “filler uses” for newly reclaimed land, which might not be able to handle high stress loads. They probably also play a huge role in the business community, which probably doesn’t fall under the “2 per cent of all regular sports participants”.

Nevertheless there’s definitely some merit in the question “are there too many?” in a small island state- and a water scarce one at that, especially when golf courses are known as notorious water-hoggers (something I gleaned from my Earth Systems class).

It is interesting being an Asian in Poland- my group of friends and I are almost like a tourist attraction. Everywhere we walked, people would turn and look at us. My travel mates recounted to me of how in Romania (where they were before I joined them) a little boy had come to poke them to see whether they were real. Little children here are quite fascinated with us- or scared, as a little ~5 year old kid was when I smiled at him. Apparently, there are not (or have not been) a lot of Asians in Poland.

Race and ethnicity is an important question that I have had to try to understand, especially after coming to the US to study. For the first time, I understood what it was like to be a minority- and on top of that a foreigner. To be fair, Stanford isn’t racist at all- in fact, it is (by far) one of the most open and welcoming places. Rather, it was about getting used to the subtle slights and insensitivities, and more importantly winning my own war within my head- building my own confidence to not be affected by all of it, but rather reach out to society than expect society to reach out to me.

Yet Poland is perhaps the first place in the world where white people have paid me so much attention. Granted, it is more of curiosity than anything else, but it was definitely weird for me. Even weirder was my experience talking to a young Polish man on the train who struggled to speak English to me, and apologized if I didn’t understand him. It did, however, make me realise that a large part of “inferiority” that arises now is that of economic background, and English accent- and perhaps less of race.

PS: My time as a minority in the US has made me often wonder what it is like to be a minority in Singapore. A friend of mine who is Malay once remarked that my experience abroad, reflected his own back home- an interesting thought to keep in mind.

Landed in Poland today in the morning, after a sleepless night on the chairs of Heathrow Airport. Amazingly, my British Airways flight wasn’t cancelled, and made the 2 hour trip to Warsaw.

The first impressions of Poland are that of its buildings and design. The buildings here are very rectangular, with few frills, and usually in drab pastel colors- a relic of the communist era. They very much resemble the Singapore’s early-era HDB flats (public-built housing apartments) that one can see in Delta Crescent and Old Airport Road. One of my travelling partners, upon seeing the block numbers at the side of the apartments (similar to Singapore’s) exclaimed “HDB!”- very much to my amusement.

High rise apartments in Poland

Thinking about the HDB, there is perhaps that defines Singaporean architecture than the HDB flats. It is perhaps an authentic Singaporean construct, with its bamboo poles, potted plants, void decks (open space on the ground floor), and corridors that run along the outside of the building (not a common site outside Singapore). These were the villages for my generation, and I wonder how much it has defined out collective psyche- or how much it describes it.

I attended a talk a while ago that touched on how the design of buildings/workspaces could either build community, or destroy it- and it would be interesting to research which of these roles the HDB has fulfilled. In other news, recent debates about access have raised interesting questions about the HDB’s future, and it will be interesting to see how things pan out.