The Four-eyed Journal » College life

Back to blogging

jhay — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 22:52:48 +0000

After a week of being forced into a blogging hiatus, yours truly is back to updating this blog with tech geeky-ness and social commentary. Where have I been you ask?

At school, busy with the recently concluded school elections for the University Student Council of DLSUD. I was not a candidate but I’m one of the prime movers in the elections being the head of SENTRO Political party. It’s been a tiring, draining and difficult campaign, but the journey was sure worth it. We’ve had great success at the polls this year compared to the last, I’d say 195% improvement!

So I’d like to thank our party members, supporters, alumni, friends and allies for all the support, assistance and for trusting in us. I’d bet my life on this, if there’s one party that can be called a genuinely progressive student political party in DLSUD, it’s SENTRO Political party. Our gratitude to you all is boundless and we continue the with commitment of giving genuine student service to DLSUD and the Lasallian family.

I’d be talking more about the school elections in the coming posts. Besides that, I’d be publishing more commentary about the coming national 2010 elections which have been stocked up in the drafts folder for so long! Of course, there’s the usual dose of tech-related stuff and I’m back to blogging about my favorite anime series Naruto.

Many thanks as well to those who still follow and visit this blog. I missed talking to you all! Now that I’ve broken the silence and removed the cobwebs around here, I look forward to good times ahead.

DLSUD Enrolment: How to improve the process of checking open or closed subjects

jhay — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:04:35 +0000

It’s enrolment time in DLSU-D and just like in most government offices, the queues at every counter in the Administration/Registrar building is very much the same, long and chaotic.

The enrollment process is quite simple, well on paper at least.

a student goes to his/her respective adviser, he either uses an Pre-registration or advising form and fills it up with the subjects he/she is going to take this coming semester.
Once accomplished and signed by the Adviser/Department Head, he/she proceeds to the CBA building where the Pre-registration or Advising form is encoded into an official Registration Form.
The student then proceeds to the Accounting Office to pay for the tuition, miscellaneous and other fees.
Lastly, he/she proceeds to the Registrar’s office to have his/her enrollment and ID card validated.

This is the process for regular students – those who belong to a section block. But for irregular students is a bit different, albeit much harder.

After consulting with his/her respective adviser/department head on the subjects to be enrolled, he takes one step before going to the CBA building to have his/her advising form encoded and that is a visit to one of the computer kiosks around campus to see whether or not the subject he/she wishes to enroll in still has an open slot.

A problem caused by insensitive and thick-skinned students

And here is where another bottle neck and a source for a lot of stress happens. This step of the enrollment process gets little attention and supervision from the school administration.

Enrollment process bogged down by undisciplined students

Of course students queue up to use the PC kiosks to check whether the subjects they wish to enroll in are still open – still have open slots. Ideally, this would just take roughly ten minutes because it’s expected that any student who will be using the said PC kiosk already have the list of subjects and would just check the schedule and open slots available.

What’s really happening is that most students would spend at least 45 minutes using the PC kiosk because that’s where and when they would think of what subjects to take and which schedules to follow, usually according to their personal preferences.

It’s fine as long as there are only less then 20 students who are in line to use the PC kiosk, it’s a whole new story if there were like 30+ and in extreme cases, almost 100 students who are in line.

Such is the mind-set of the colonial monkey, social-climber and selfish elite.

This problem is made worse by insensitive and seemingly less-educated students who cut ahead of the line simply because the one who’s currently using the PC kiosk is a classmate, friend or even a relative of theirs. Most of the time, these thick-skinned students come in groups. So imagine how it all clogs up and bogs down this step of the enrolment process?

This is extremely unfair to the good students who diligently lined up to use the PC kiosk despite of the hunger, stress and time lost. Adding insult to injury, most of these students who cut ahead in the line are the ones who are lavishly dressed sporting the latest fashion.

They have the attitudes of b*tch*s and a**holes who think that they have more right in getting ahead because of what they wear or the kind of gadgets they have in hand or the brand of car they have parked outside. Such is the mind-set of the colonial monkey, social-climber and selfish elite. In Filipino we call them, “makakapal ang mga mukha”.

However, there is still hope, there is a solution to this problem. And my proposal are as follows:

The ITC must equip the PC kiosks with an ID scanner that reads the bar codes on every student ID here in DLSUD. Then the ITC must configure the PC or install a program that allows the PC to be used once a student scans his/her ID card. Something similar to what above-average Internet shops use to regulate the use of their PCs for rental.
Each student has a maximum of only 10 minutes to use the PC kiosk. Once the time is up, the PC will lock out the current user and the next student must scan his/her ID and the 10-minute usage clock is reset. With this, every student gets an equal access and fair usage of the PC kiosk because the line keeps moving. If a student wants to use the PC kiosk again, he/she must fall in line again to await his/her second turn.
Only one student can use the PC kiosk at a time. The Student Formatores or security guards must be stationed near the PC kiosk to maintain order.
No student can use someone else’s ID card to use or extend his/her time in using the PC kiosk. Lending your ID or borrowing someone’s ID card is a major offense in the Student Handbook.

This steps are doable and I believe the ITC is more than competent and capable to implement such a setup of the PC kiosks. With this system, every student gets a fair and equal chance to use the same facility we are all paying for. It removes a bottle neck in the enrollment process and makes the whole exercise much easier, more organized and less stressful for all of us students of DLSU-D.

If you have more suggestions or improvements to the process I’ve suggested, then share it please so that we could all make our university life much easier.

Possible A(H1N1) case suspends classes in DLSU-Dasma

jhay — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 02:08:43 +0000

First, I’m thankful our forum on HR 1109 was a huge success! I’ve got lots of videos, stories and photos to share in the coming days so watch out for that. Sorry if we were not able to do a live stream of the event because of some ridiculous IT policies by the University.

Anyways, the title of this post says it all. The administrators of DLSUD led by President Bro Gus Boquer, FSC has announced the suspension of classes for the next three days:

Please be advised that classes are suspended from June 24 to 27, 2009, Wednesday until Saturday, for all year levels in all the undergraduate and graduate programs. All students, teaching and non-teaching personnel, are covered by the suspension.

The academic buildings and student dormitories will undergo disinfection and fumigation in the next four days.

We will also use this time to follow-up on the test results of students with flu-like symptoms. Should we have confirmed cases of Influenza A (H1N1), we will continue the suspension of classes to fulfill the 10-day quarantine. Otherwise, classes will resume on Monday, June 29.

Finally, please remind all students with flu-like symptoms to stay in their respective homes until they are completely symptomatic.

Please be guided accordingly. Thank you.

So, it seems that the A(H1N1) virus has finally struck our campus and Cavite for that matter. Hopefully, whoever that is that had showed symptoms would test negative for the virus and recover real soon.

For those who are having flu-like symptoms, do all of us a favor and follow the advised procedures of going on self-quarantine and seeking medical attention especially those who are afflicted with other diseases. I pray that you’ll recover real soon as well.

Hopefully and with our cooperation and vigilance, things will be alright and be back on track real soon.

Is there an absolute truth?

jhay — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:01:52 +0000

This was the first question we pondered upon today in my Argumentation & Debate class.

The discussion was good though a bit stale, as most ideas put forward were a re-hash of what my other classmate has already said; that truth is not absolute, rather it is relative.

The opposite side was taken up by the first one who braved to answer the question, according to him, and I’m culling all this from my half-life memory,

truth is absolute because it depends on morals and norms of society.

A very good and poignant answer indeed as commented on by our brilliant instructor. However, like the most of my other classmates who reasoned to the contrary, I beg to differ.

Allow me to share here, what I did not in class earlier this morning. Taking a closer look at what my classmate has said, there’s an inherent flaw. Norms and morals in a society change over time. Since truth, according to him, is dependent on the two that change over time, then it too must change over time, making it relative and not absolute.

Joey Ayala, in his song “Magkabilaan” puts it succintly;

“Ang katotohanan ay may dalawang mukha.
Ang tama sa iyo ay mali sa tingin ng iba.
….
Magkabilaan ang mundo.
Magkabilaan ang mundo.
Magkabilaan ang mundo.”

Of course, this is my stand. What is yours? Is there really an absolute truth?

Why do Filipino students hate math?

jhay — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 01:58:50 +0000

Yesterday, I expected the first meeting of my statistics class to be the start of a boring and tormented semester of taking another math subject. My hatred or lack of enthusiasm in math as a subject stems back to my high school days spent being humiliated in front of class by a teacher who forced us to do manual calculations in algebra and trigonometry!

“What?! After all of that all we get is zero?”

Plus, the experience of spending hours solving complex math problems only to end up getting zero as the value of x or y, though it was the correct answer, aggravated my frustration.

Things changed a little, for the better yesterday when our instructor in statistics started the semester addressing this proverbial question of why Filipino students hate math?

I forgot to take down notes so everything from here on is culled from my half-life memory, rest assured though that I’ll keep them as truthful as I can remember.

Going back, our instructor, the clever and ‘green’ guy from Mindanao started by quoting his research for his Master’s degree in which he allegedly found out that 70% of Filipino students hate math. Then he gave the following points in his way of answering that question posted earlier.

We separate the subject from everyday use/life/experience

Math, according to him, has been confined to the four corners of the classroom. It was seldom taught as something practical that can be used in daily life. Though I think it is, every time we count the things we want to buy, the money in our wallets, the amount of phone credits we have left etc. we use math. Basic math that is, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

But when talk of the values of x and y, the median of this, the value of pi raised to the second power, everything else seems to go south and these concepts seem so alien, far away and abstract. He countered by giving examples like, say you have whole pizza and there are five of you. Naturally, it would be divided into five slices so that each would have an equal share.

However, one becomes greedy, say you, and wants to have more than one slice of the pizza. So instead of dividing it into five, you cut it up into six. And since you’re the one who did the cutting (actually, ikaw ang may kapal ng mukha), you get the sixth slice in addition to your first one, resulting into two slices for you!

In concluding this point, he told us that Math should be taught in a more practical manner, showing its relation to everyday life, since according to him, the Filipino psyche is quite poor in dealing with abstract concepts, unfortunately, mathematical concepts are just that!

Math teachers often look down upon students with poor performance in their class

This is so true in my elementary school days. All of my math teachers would come to class, waiving their bamboo sticks, screaming at us for being idiots, sons of the devil and Jews (my third grade math teacher seemed to have a beef with them, I really don’t know why), forcing us to memorize the legendary multiplication table to a tune all public school students know of. (one taymis one, one! one taymis two, two!, one taymis three, three! and so on)

Math teachers are so full of themselves, it’s a rarity to find one that admits his own mistakes in class

Now this I first encountered in high school, because if one were to try this during his stay in the elementary grade, it was suicide, especially in the public schools. Raising a point of correction to the math teacher is one of the bravest things one could do in class. And this was so frightening and risky to do, it was reserved to the few bright math wizards in class.

If heaven smiled upon you, the teacher would would acknowledge your correction, smile, crack a joke and blame his/her mistake on the chalk! Of course, praises and sincere thanks are occasionally given only to the class favorites.

Now in college, so far, my algebra and trigonometry professors were human enough to welcome corrections, praise the one who dared to give it and dispense the just points for it. Fortunately, this statistics class is my last one according to my curriculum and the instructor is every bit as human in admitting his mistakes and shortcomings as he is smart and competent to teach the subject.

Still, that nagging question stands, why do Filipino students hate math?