Not so selective

Now that Summative is over, let me indulge in a little rant. In semester 4 we're supposed to take part in Selectives, which are basically a bit of extra-curricular lessons to fill our time, I guess. The options were Community Medicine, Human Biology, Literature and Behavourial Sciences.

There's one thing about IMU students' perceptions towards subjects like Comm Med and BS - they're not very highly regarded. It's like the unwanted stepchild of all the subjects in our syllabus, because it's one of those 'unneccessary common sense things'. I'll admit I've skipped my fair share of BS and Comm Med lectures - but I'd like to believe it was weakness and succumbing to peer pressure on my part, to believing and following the herd mentality.

But despite that I've always had a liking for psychology as a topic. I am quite intruiged by the way the mind thinks and how it affects our social interaction with other people. Unfortunately learning it as an examinable subject is far less enjoyable, which is a rather large factor in my not taking a Psychology course. I find most BS lectures interesting, even though not all BS lecturers are reputable for being the most engaging.

I chose BS as my first choice for Selectives. The decision was met with many raised eyebrows and 'Har? Why you choose BS?' responses from batchmates, as though I'd done something amusingly unorthodox. I only shrugged and said 'I'm interested in it'. Which I'd like to believe is more than I can say for the factors that influenced a lot of decisions regarding Selective choices.

When we received the forms explaining our choices, the most-floated question was 'What are you choosing?' Everyone just wanted to do what their friends were doing. Also the assessment factor was played in. Selectives are assessed, some by written exams, some by reports, etc. Everyone just wanted to do the option with the easiest assessment format. Few people seemed to want to do a module because they were genuinely interested in it.

So naturally BS was not a popular option for first choice. In fact I don't know anyone else who put it as their first choice. The people who got it simply handed their forms in late, hence losing out spaces on their first choices (it's on a first come first serve basis). I get the feeling a lot of my classmates will be rather unwilling candidates.

Then as if that wasn't bad enough, the timetables were another blow. Somehow, the BS module was slotted into the shittiest time slot ever, the afternoon-evening slot. My batch is already timetable-sensitive owing to our missing of the 10.30am lecture spot in Semester 3, so having BS lectures at 2pm or 4pm did not go down well at all.

So I'm a bit WTF at all this. On one hand I would like to enjoy learning about aspects of behaviour, but on the other hand, THEY ARE MAKING IT SO HARD FOR ME TO DO SO. Lack of respect, potentially subpar lectures, feet-dragging classmates, horrible timing? I can already hear the jeers, Haha who ask you so moralfag elitist want to choose 'what you like'. See la now. Serve you right.'

In a way the voices in my head are right. I could have taken the easy way out and chosen something like Comm Med or even Lit, and enjoy 9am lectures and pats on the back instead of subtle dismissal. I would like to say I'd enjoy my Selectives no matter what, but that may not happen. Ah well. This is another one of those 'shit may happen because my life is so FMLworthy' things.

I'll just have to make the best out of it.