The inept me

Yours truly is planning to apply for graduate studies in financial engineering (fall '06 admission). Been looking at tons of websites of graduate programs/schools. The outcome of the exercise was simply this: My credentials are simply not enough to get me an admit in any of the places that I want to go.

Some of universities have gone so far as to state that people of my qualification can't even apply. Case in point: UC Berkeley(Yeah, I dream BIG!!). They don't even accept applications of graduates from British styled university with any less than second upper degree classification. The shameless me went as far as mailing the ad comm people asking if they will look beyond this requirement if the applicant already has a Masters degree. But even they were to say yes, it'll simply be a waste of $175 application fee.

I thought I got away with all nonsense - bunking lectures, sitting in canteen A all day, doing just enough to pass the course, when I got my job. I couldn't have been more wrong.

Finally, I've decided to just apply to NTU only. NTU has a good enough program which includes a 8 week stint at Carnegie Mellon. I should have a decent shot at this if I manage to get a good GMAT score.

I wanted to piggyback on graduate studies as an opportunity to live and consequently work in a new country but looks like it's still going to be Singapore for a long time to come. Honestly, am already quite bored of Singapore. I want out.