Exchange students do work afterall

Its now 1am in Germany and I just came back from school. Not that I've been in school all day but I came back in the afternoon and went out in the evening to prepare for the case study which we have to present with my other group mates. I remember that in NUS, whenever there are exchange students taking a particular module, we'd always be very happy for the reason that they will help to skew the bell curve to our advantage - that's the horrible NUS system. But yet at the same time, we're afraid to be in the same group as them to do group work or assignments, for the same reason that they'd be too slack. I remember telling Ying Tee once that because there are full time students in the group, it won't be nice to sabo them, and she readily remarked the same observation as I had in mind that we'd always siam exchange students for group work back in Singapore.

There are 4 of us, 2 full time students - German guys Tobias and Tim and 2 exchange students -this French gal Claire and myself. Everything has been going smoothly and we get along very well. Tobias and Tim are in their 8th and 7th semester and are therefore very hardworking and enthuiastic. Claire, although being an exchange student like me and always going away on excursions, travelling or partying, does not appear to be totally bo chup at all. And Tim is coming to Singapore next semester for an internship with BASF. I found it quite comical because most people would rather do an internship with BASF in Germany instead of overseas.

Till now I am quite happy with the progress we're doing with our case, although I must say that I feel that marketing is to some extent - bullshiting and smoking your way through with high sounding models like "4 Ps Model"- place, pricing, product, promotion, "3 Cs Model" - customers, company, competition, as well as SWOT (strength, weakness, opportunities, threats) analysis. As an econs major who is so used to seeing everything mathematical and concrete as well as complicated diagrams, this marketing pill is hard to swallow. It was something like during the first semester at NUS when I took soci exposure module. Ok, maybe marketing is not as empty as soci (I know I am gonna be flamed by making such a statement bout soci) but it can get really tok cock. Its the first time I am taking a course in marketing and I am not sure if I will take marketing next sem when I am back at NUS as a breadth module. One thing for sure, marketing courses always have chiobus, wherever the course is conducted, be it in Singapore or in Germany.

Anyway time to sleep as I gotta wake up 5 hours later for first period classes. There should be no travelling till after the 6th May after the presentation as well as the next wave of common tests. Scheiße!