The Scribblings On The Wall...

As much as I love studying in my uni, sometimes the way they do things make me go, "Huh?"

One of the things that really pisses me off is the CGPA system that they've implemented to be more "on par" with the Malaysian system since some of us Malaysians still need to have our CGPA when we apply for jobs.

Speaking of which, I also have a bone to pick with the Malaysian Higher Education Board.

Who was the smart person who decided that it would be good to implement a CGPA system? Getting A's and B's not good enough is it, huh???

*Takes a deep breath*

So anyways, back to the point.

As if it's not bad enough that us Monash students have to struggle day and night to keep up with assignments and exams, some people from the IPTAs think that we have it easy cause apparently we're paying a king's ransom to get a degree.

Reality check: It's not easy being in private colleges and unis.

To put it into perspective, dear haters, we actually pay to have people torture us with assignments and exams, and we pay for practically everything that we use with our semester fees. Oh, we also have to pay parking fees everyday. And we pay to eat sucky, expensive food. And if a book costs RM50, it's practically a bargain cause the book shop suka mencekik darah.

A good life, no?

So please, just because I get my grades in a different system than your beloved CGPA, DO NOT think my results are inferior, and do not think I got my degree just because I had money.

In fact, we local Monashians are worse off than public uni graduates because even though we get good grades, at the end of the day, most employers will only want to look at our CGPA. And the way Monash calculates the CGPA makes me so bloody pissed off.

According to the Monash way,

Table 1: GPA grade conversion unit scores

So when I calculate my CGPA, I only get a CGPA of 3.06.

I have spent more time studying in the past 2 bloody years than in my entire school life, and so far my CGPA is only 3.06?????? (By the way, if you wanna see my results, here's a link to it. Yes, my results. For the world to see.)

By the way, sorry if the table's a bit small, but I had to fit it into the page.

Not that I am ungrateful or anything (I'm thankful right now that I've not failed and I've passed practically everything with flying colours), but it's like, WHAT THE HELL?

(Frankly speaking, I highly doubt there is anybody who can score a 4-pointer every semester, so it's highly unlikely that you will find a 4-pointer student from Monash. Do you know how hard it is to get a HD in Monash? If there are people who has scored all HDs, please take me to them!)

So I searched for another way of calculating my CGPA, and I found this table from the Curtin website:

I actually sat in front of the computer and made this file where the only thing you need to do is put in your marks, and then Excel will calculate your CGPA for you. So I did that for both the Monash system and Curtin system.

I'll take 3.2 anytime of the day, thank you very much.

Plus, it's a fairer system cause it takes the person's marks into consideration. I mean, if you think about it, if person A gets 70 and person B gets 78, under the Monash calculation system, they have the same CGPA, but under the Curtin system they have different CGPAs.

It's fair, right? If you get more marks, then by right you should get a higher CGPA la kan?

So right now, my friends and I are going to do more research on this and hope that we're going to be able to send a proposal for Monash to review their CGPA system because I refuse to believe that if I maintain a 70% average for my third year units, I will get out with only a 3.04 CGPA.

I'm in bloody 3rd year, for God's sake. It's not going to be as easy as the 1st and 2nd years!

But funny thing is right, apparently it took Monash 7 years to implement this system.

Huh.

And here I thought we were one of the best when it comes to research.

So, to those who still stereotype us, please understand that just because we're paying more, it doesn't mean we work less. When we get our degree, it's because we deserved to get it, not because we paid for it.