'Crazy' Sarrie

Our victim this week is Sarah Tan, a third year Communications and Media (CM) and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) Concurrent Degree Programme student and former Vice-President (Finance and External Relations) of the Computing Club Management Committee. We couldn't convince her to let us Photoshop fangs and horns onto her photo for Halloween, but she shared a ‘zombified’ photo of her hand, so we've somewhat forgiven her. She’s also been providing excellent, much appreciated feedback on Project SoC Bytes, so if we start doing some dodgy stuff, it was probably her idea. :) Probably. 

According to Sarah, “most people, when asked to use only one adjective to describe me, would say ‘crazy’.” She generously offered visual proof of this craziness - the winning picture of the Best Photo-bomb Contest on the SoC Facebook page, of which she was the star. 

Briefly describe your experience as an SoC student.

[The thing I enjoy the most is] the awesome friends I have here! Because of them I'm actually more attached to SoC than to my hall :O

[I find] coding and linear algebra [most challenging], which unfortunately are the 2 most important things to know for a CM student. I suck at them ):

Almost everything that is being taught here [is interesting/useful] actually! Computing is like the most practical and useful degree ever and I really enjoy learning in SoC, even if I may not be good at it. 

[Ed: Working here has made me wish I had had the foresight to do a computing degree...]

Honestly, most of the faculty/staff members I know are like friends to me; I really enjoy talking to them and I even have quite a number on Facebook (profs tend to post really hilarious stuff :P). If I were to pick one person who has made the deepest impression on me, I think I'd probably choose Dr. Colin Tan. He's one of the Comp Club advisors so I had the opportunity to work with him last year. He's really nice, funny, crazy and spams my newsfeed everyday with pictures of Nala cat (which is a good thing)!

I would love to change the attitudes of the students here. Most of them are apathetic the stuff that's going on around them, unless it affects their grades. It's really quite sad and worrying to see how so many of our students have poor interpersonal skills and prefer facing a computer instead of humans. That's one of the reasons why we (Comp Club) try to organise so many events for the students, but the take up rate usually isn't very high unless its academic related.

[The one thing I wouldn’t change about SoC would be] the awesome faculty/staff members! I think we have the nicest people in SoC as compared to all the other faculties; my non SoC friends are always jealous of us because of that. While I do think some of the profs aren't really that good at teaching, they're all really nice people to talk to. I also know for a fact that how our school treats Comp Club is the best among all the other faculty clubs too! (:

Anything else about your student experience that you would like to share?

Orientation is awesome and should be compulsory in my opinion. Too bad Comp Club doesn't have enough resources for that ): Many of my friends were made during orientation camps as a freshie and as a senior, and they are the reason why I love SoC this much. You also get to make friends with seniors, who I feel are sometimes more important than profs in terms of the advice they give. So if any prospective student is reading this, JOIN ORIENTATION.

What do you enjoy doing when you are not studying?

Painting nails! My nail polish collection is hitting 100 bottles very soon :D I'm currently sporting a really cool blood splatter Halloween design! To see how I achieved that look (and the actual design when I finally upload it), check out my new blog.

Sarrie's Zombie Hand

What are your future plans?

I don't really have any long term plans other than the fact I want to work in Singapore, not US. For my short term plan, pull up my CAP to at least 4 so I can continue on to CMU to get my Masters in Entertainment Technology.

What is something most people would be surprised to learn about you?

I actually cry quite easily haha.

Quick-fire round! Pet peeve?

People who can't speak/write in proper English. Not that my English is fantastic; it just irks me.

Guilty pleasure?

Eating salty food! Salt is possibly the best food discovery EVER.

Worst fashion trend?

Slippers with jeans haha.

[Ed: Agreed!! You can easily spot all the South East Asians overseas with this Slippers + Jeans disease!!!]

Got questions you want answered? People you want to hear from? Don't be shy. Sarah wasn't shy. Email tien@nus.edu.sg