The decision to upgrade started with some apprehension and this began when I was contemplating to further my education on Masters in Architecture in year 2013. I joined Singapore Polytechnic as a teacher in the Diploma in Architecture course in beginning of 2012 and as I teach more, I felt the need to learn more. As I became more of an academic, I felt the intensity in my intrinsic motivation to acquire more and new knowledge.
Unaware of the parallels
The apprehension I had at that time was juggling between working full time and managing part time studies. Teaching profession to the contrary of many is actually a very demanding job. Nevertheless, this did not deter me and with my wife's encouragement, I decided to take up the challenge. So I proposed to my superiors on furthering and it was counter proposed that I should consider short courses such as Building Information Modelling [BIM] courses. Unaware at that time, BIM is becoming a trend in Singapore and it was becoming a trend because of Building Construction Authority [BCA] mandatory implementation of BIM adoption in 2010. I did my research and as I read more, I got more intrigued. My conclusion on BIM, it was a 'Dropbox' or 'Google Drive' for Built Environment professionals, where all stakeholders could collaborate and coordinate in real time. This was just right up my alley as this is what was so lacking when I was working as a Project Manager in my last job. The miscommunications between stakeholders was due to agenda's differences and in most cases design intent is compromised because it was the cheapest and most convenient building methodology to adopt.
And thus the upgrade
Call it serendipity if you will, I had had the fortune to go back to school again, it is all that matters, or so I thought. I tried enrolling in 2013 with BCA Specialist Diploma in BIM, but I was told to wait for my turn and enroll in the next intake. I was really pumped to start learning again, but it would seems the upgrading process already started to create bumps even before I start upgrading. [I will share more hurdles in my later blogs; this is just the beginning of roadblocks, after roadblocks, after road blocks.] Finally, in July 2014, I managed to enroll in the Specialist Diploma in BIM and started as the ninth batch of students.
On the first day of class, we were to submit our qualifications for validation. After which we were given our time-table for the night classes. It had all the module codes and all, I was slightly overwhelmed by the codes, trying hard to figure out what all the numbers meant. Then when I saw the days we had night classes, it illustrated Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Monday, Wednesday..., you get the idea, out pops in some Thursday for certain weeks and from slight overwhelming it became overload. I took it in stride nevertheless, until the course chair mentioned weekends are expected amongst us when we do our group project. I suppose, sacrifices are necessary when upgrading, date nights with the wife will have to put on hold for 5 months.
to be continued in part 2...
Comments