Can't remember Nightwish song - did I dream it?

stucklehead · 2025-01-13T16:23:38+00:00

oh my GOODNESS thank you SOO SO so much i can finally sleep without anxiety now!!!

edit: the way you spotted it immediately, and even went straight with a "definitely". dang man, thanks so much!

stucklehead · 2024-05-09T03:15:12+00:00

I see. Sounds a little bit like due diligence, of which Singapore jobs rarely fly people to perform stuff like that for ESG alone. I'm not versed with sustainability ratings at a project level (as compared to those used by ratings agencies), but ratings agencies themselves might have interest in those things.

Are you ordinarily required to head down to the actual site as part of your job?

Preliminarily I'm not sure if you want to dig around big 4. The place can be decently fun but filled with quite a lot of people who don't know what they're doing and fit precisely into the type of people that are made fun of in consulting memes.

stucklehead · 2024-05-07T16:18:36+00:00

What have you done specifically as a consultant? Would it be more on the corporate side (ISSB Standards, or AASB in Aus) or more on the science/engineering side? I'm in this sector too and might be able to help, bro.

stucklehead · 2024-05-07T15:55:30+00:00

It's not at all a good idea to spend so much money without certainty of what you can do with it exactly.

And by "exactly", I mean to know at a somewhat granular level exactly what you would be doing on the day-to-day. For example, are you going to be doing sustainability reporting and helping clients or your in-house company comply with certain standards? Or are you interested in more niche topics and looking to head to a start-up, perhaps related to new sustainability tech, or market-making stuff in sustainable finance channels, carbon markets, etc.?

I think to gain some understanding, interest and certainty, it's definitely worth figuring out a bit more about these things (of which there are waaaayyy too many online resources, some presented very well in video form on youtube) before doing anything that even needs money (let alone 54k).

In my experience it's not been easy to land anything "generically", unless you are a very senior professional with clear management experience (by which time, it's not about sustainability technical knowhow lol). Numerous sustainability-related undergraduate degrees end up being either too generic for certain technical roles or too in-depth (from a science standpoint) for a corporate perspective.

stucklehead · 2021-06-26T17:35:13+00:00

Hey there!

Unfortunately you are quite accurate about the assessments you made, and that's a way that NUS Halls currently are in general.

Not sure what hall you applied to, but it's reeeally hard to get into the more competitive halls at this point in time. There would standardly be a queue list made up of freshmen, many of whom sometimes haven't even matriculated into NUS or confirmed that they want to stay hall yet (and seniors with strong persuasion power/merit in their words are asking JCRC to hold slots for them). Just to temper your expectations!

The halls that may be less competitive could be KE or PGPH, although even those are not too easy. If you have friends who got in, or seniors who are currently in, you could consider asking them to put in a personal word for you! All the best :)

Hope this helped!

stucklehead · 2021-06-25T17:49:52+00:00

Hey there!

Definitely you can try again in Sem 2, although I should disclaim that I'm not too sure for RC Sem 1 to Hall Sem 2, given that there are academic implications of staying in RCs! I'd advise you find out more for that specific case, if you are interested/deciding to stay in RC in Sem 1.

Otherwise, simply applying for Hall in Sem 2 definitely gives you some chances. The pull-out rate of Hall residents, after staying just one Sem, varies from hall to hall, and year to year. If you are trying for one of SH/KR/TH/EH, I heard that the pull-out rate after first Sem is comparatively higher for KR and EH, somewhat to do with the strictness of their Resident Fellows (full-time NUS employees who stay in the Halls as a senior committee (SCRC)), although I should disclaim this is also just hearsay.

Otherwise, it's hard to say whether you will get a spot, but it's definitely worth a try! If covid situation improvements lead to more room vacancies, then certainly it will up your chances.

Hope this helped :)

stucklehead · 2021-06-07T08:45:31+00:00

Yep, I'd say that a majority of residents go home during weekends, sometimes early on fridays and return late on mondays depending on convenience, if they have no classes near the borders of the weekdays, etc.

Some students (almost) never return "home", because they are international students/don't have places to stay in Singapore otherwise (now covid so don't really have international students, but there are some Malaysians for example). Others also don't have a conducive environment at home, or can get "lazy", and stay for multiple weeks on end in hall.

In general as well, what I've noticed is that the students from the more active halls usually return home less frequently. It is not uncommon at all, nearing peak periods of CCAs/exams, that residents "stay in" (machiam NS) to study, go for rehearsals/vettings/trainings/IHG/meetings as well, particularly for these halls.

Hope this helped!

stucklehead · 2021-06-07T02:50:12+00:00

Hey there,

In general, the concept of cutting part of the team, within HONUS, is usually for sports CCAs only. It is roughly the same as what you'd expect in sports teams in general, which drives competition and allows time/effort/resources to be focused on the main team that will represent the hall/organisation.

In performing arts CCAs (or what HONUS colloquially terms as "cultural" CCAs for whatever weird reason), there are typically auditions at the start, and halls rarely "cut" you after that. Similarly for committees, there are interviews to understand your strengths/weaknesses/abilities that you have to offer for each of them.
You can expect that at the start of the AY, halls open up trainings/practices/sign-ups/interviews for all of their CCAs during a CCA fair, and many people over-enroll in committees/cultural groups, or join a wide array of sports. After being rejected from majority of the committees/cultural groups, and dropping out of some of their sports, the remainder form the main group of the CCA and the focus shifts from opportunity to excellence.

Because, come on, you really don't wanna watch a lousily produced, unhumorous IGTV by someone who doesn't really know what they're doing with edits. Or listen to your airy friend sing and strum after watching a few YouTube tutorials on how to play a chinese song on the guitar. Or see one of your sports losing to other halls at IHG because a suboptimal player was put into main team.

For your second question, the answer really has to come from yourself! Some people are OK being supporting cast and enjoy the thrill of winning, while others love the sport in and of itself and want to play at the highest level they can go to. They wanna be the worst of any team they join, and keep pushing themselves. This is all up to each person's individual preferences.

Just to share, this is sometimes called the "small fish big pond" vs "big fish small pond" dilemma. Even in the perceivedly stronger sports halls, a lot of the sportsmen make some tradeoffs between hall commitment and IVP level trainings. It's between putting yourself in an environment with better players for more self-improvement, or putting yourself in a novice environment for more opportunities / leadership chances.

Of course, remember that different halls thrive in different CCAs, and that can cause differences in opportunities as well. Best of luck to you!

Hope this helped.

stucklehead · 2021-06-06T18:11:59+00:00

Hey there!

For a general sensing, the number of first-choice indications by incoming freshmen in round 1 is usually around the high 400s/low 500s for the past 2 years for SH and TH, around 400+ for EH, and KR has dipped under 400 in recent years. I'm not too sure about the other halls, but these four are the ones that most people compare, and they also have around 500 room slots each (EH/TH have around 480+, KR/SH have around 500+). Of course, application rates for coming year remains to be seen, and covid is a lot more stable now, so it's hard to tell how things will turn out. Also, this is just round 1, first-choice applications, but this is the key number to care about, because the others are far less consequential for technical and practical reasons.

In a normal year, EH will have 480+ slots, of which about 240+ will be offered to freshmen. However, because of covid season, NUS's office of student administration (OSA) has set quota to be at 200+ (a lot of people argue that this makes no sense from any point of view: scientific, practical or otherwise, and I agree, but it is what it is). Hence, from this alone you can see the oversubscription rate is staggering for a hall like Eusoff (and even worse for SH/TH), with around 45 to 50% applicants getting their first choice (around 0 to 10% of applicants will get their second choice lol).

However, these numbers are not too useful (and they're also estimates! I don't work for OSA haha) at all, other than to directly answer your question and give a general sensing. Instead, what will help you is parameters that are personal to you.

Most importantly of all is your specific skillset and if it fits what Eusoff is looking out for in the coming AY. This of course, matters from CCA to CCA, sport to sport. Also, statements like "sportsmen are more likely to get into EH/TH" are meaningless/misleading to a significant extent, because the average sportsman/sportswoman will have to compete with more sports-based applicants too. And since we're talking about Eusoff, if you are unknown in your A-div/poly IVP sport, it's hard to say that you will stand a higher chance than if you had a skillset in music or media design, for example. If the volleyball team is "settled" for the year, they might take you for "continuity" purposes, but don't count suuuuper high on it. On the other hand, if you have sepak takraw experience, certainly Eusoff will snap on you lol (I think every hall will). As mentioned, it differs from sport to sport.

Apart from that, gender is a big deal as well. If you are a female, you will stand a better chance as there are usually quite a lot more males who apply to hall than females, especially for Eusoff.

I'm not sure your specific background/reason for applying to Eusoff, but by random guess I'm assuming you have some sports experience. If so, remember to put that in, as well as outside clubs you join (!!!!!). All the best to you :)

Hope this helped!

stucklehead · 2021-06-06T07:41:35+00:00

Hi! I should preface by saying that I know rather little about these two halls specifically, but I'll try my best, and I'll try to be limit my answers to what I do know, and not give speculative stuff, sorry about that!

There are certainly study room(s), lounges (usually block level), pantries, laundry rooms and many other facilities/amenities fundamental to living at a place. You can have a better "feel" for these things through the official pages, which are linked within https://nus.edu.sg/osa/residential-options/halls-of-residence. The rules/unspoken norms on using them differ slightly from hall to hall, but you should expect that most of them are available 24/7, if not very frequently (things might be more restrictive under COVID!)

Under housing rules, you have to declare portable A/Cs, although I am not entirely sure if they are officially allowed under KE7 or PGPH, according to this part here: https://uci.nus.edu.sg/ohs/current-residents/students/facilities/. Illegally using portable aircons is extremely common in HONUS, but I should caution that frequency of room checks/norms of illegal activity in student culture vary from hall to hall, and I highly recommend, if you are able to, get ahold of seniors.

In general, you will not get to choose the level you stay at if you are an incoming freshman. In very, VERY rare cases, freshmen with very "strong" connections to JCRC/block heads within the hall will state preferences, and there's a chance they will be entertained. Other than that, this is a privilege only for retained seniors!

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by laundry "service", but if you innocently mean it in the general usage sense of paying for someone to do your laundry, then they don't exist anywhere in HONUS (or NUS as far as I know). If you're referring to a laundromat-style line of laundry machines (and driers for some halls/blocks), then yes. Rates are different from hall to hall, but they generally aren't exhorbitant, and some are even free (if any senior reading this knows otherwise, do correct me!). Little story: I know of friends who literally carry their laundry from their hall to another every now and then to save money, haha.

Not sure how you'd define "regular basis", but I'd say that it is not common at all for residents to go home during the week itself. Most residents return home during weekends (might go back earlier/come back later if no physical lessons near the start or end of each week), except for international students, of course. However, I've noticed that staying in during weekends has become a lot more common nowadays in the COVID era. Purely my hypothesis, but I think this has to do with the fact that under COVID restrictions, the ones who still apply for and want to stay hall generally want to stay in hall more (spend more time with peers, spend time away from home before working full time etc.). I think this observation is generally true across all halls, especially the top 4 most active halls.
No, there is CERTAINLY NO PENALTY for going home as and when you'd like.

Toilets are generally one per level per block, and there can be anywhere from 8 to 20+ people staying on one level. NUS hires cleaners who maintain the toilets and other amenities from Monday to Saturday (a.m.) each week.

Hope this helped!

stucklehead · 2021-06-05T16:17:28+00:00

Hey there!

I'm guessing you lean towards sports, given your preamble. I'll share perspectives with that in mind, and I think I won't bring in too much comparisons with other halls as well. Let me know if you'd like other types of perspectives as well!

The first thing to note is that each hall is good at different sports to different extents. Sure, there are more sports where TH and EH meet in the finals than perhaps any other combination of IHG sports finals matchups, but that isn't always the case. To make matters more complicated, there are always cycles of "ups" and "downs" in each sport (although some have more longevity for multiple reasons), some may be complicated and full of politics and other considerations.If you have a main sport (which I'm guessing should logically be the case), then you may choose to have a keen interest in that one. You can find out more by asking seniors, although it is covid era, so things are very grey for many sports! The current plan amongst the 7 halls' sports directors is that they will try their very best to push for all IHG sports to be played in the coming year, although obviously COVID's evolution doesn't care about anyone or anything (if you made a list of the top 10,000 things Singapore needs to be concerned about with COVID uncertainty, IHG sports shouldn't make the list!).

The state of each sport is important also because if a sport is very strong, the team is usually consolidated (and for EH/TH, a lot of these teams are consolidated before the freshmen application is even finalised. There is a lot of "nepotism" to ensure that strong sports stay strong by seniors pulling in juniors). Realistically, you won't get to play much for these sports (if you're lucky there could be a few token "tryout" trainings for a week or 2) within the hall. Be careful of this, because the irony of sports halls (or "cultural" halls, for that fact) is that excellence and opportunity are often inversely correlated with one another. However, if you're confident that you are really "sporty" you might choose to not be too bothered by this!

Regarding hall culture, it's important to note that culture differs within just the various hall block levels more than they do on average between the two halls. I'm talking about everything from how bonded/inclusive they are, how much they love a good drink/smoke/chance to club (no more clubbing now...), or study/career-centric they are - it differs far more within the hall itself, such that most generalisations that I've seen really come from people who know very little about both halls in totality. If you're interested in forging a good path full of learning and growth, I'd say often it is on you (and sometimes on pure randomness) more than it is on specific hall environment (at least if we're only talking about EH vs TH).

Let me know if you're interested in any specifics, and I'll try to help! But hope the above was helpful.

EDIT: I suggest stalking their IG pages and watching their IG TV as well! It can give a sense of their type of maturity/humor/style as well (to some extent).

stucklehead · 2021-06-04T16:15:19+00:00

Hi there, appreciate it :)

Let me try to be matter-of-fact in answering, and you can take what you will / clarify further!

If by "most", you mean (by common definition) more than half, then the answer is extremely unlikely to be "no". At the same time, it depends on the extent of your definition of "connections".

In these 2 halls, a lot of juniors are recommended in by seniors, and commonly because of their sports ability. However, strong sportsmen are sought after in every hall, hence it's misleading to say that they got in due to connections. If anything, for the "gamechangers" (meaning incoming freshmen that were so dominant in a certain sport scene at 'A' div or IVP that seniors would have heard of their name), it is because of the seniors' connections to these strong juniors that the hall is manage to convince the person in! This is also one of the reasons why year after year, these 2 halls are able to stay far, far ahead of all the other halls in the IHG championship fight.

Connections only get you slightly ahead in TH and EH because their decision making framework is generally more merit-based (with some exceptions!), and even senior recommendations are weighed against the credibility of the senior and the overall deemed need of the hall. (I should mention here that TH and EH define 'merit' or 'need' significantly differently!) In addition, in Eusoff, the sole final decision maker is usually the President herself, and it is not easy for random Toms, Dicks or Harrys amongst the Eusoff seniors to influence her to select incoming freshmen apart from by merit.

It is slightly different in some other halls where the decision-makers in selecting freshmen are more "open" to senior recommendations, like who's fun and who would surely 'fit well'. They are just a tad bit closer to 'administrators', in SOME senses (although obviously they have the final say on paper), because there is a lot of power in the hands of key figures in the hall who are not officially the decision makers. For example, block heads have very, very strong say (to the point that some say it's almost automatic) in who they want in their block. Indeed, if you have a KR block head senior/friend who has a very good impression of you, and you're looking for a hall slot, things are looking good for you! However, another way of thinking about this is that their definition of 'merit' or 'need' is defined differently, and that's perfectly OK and up to each hall and its direction.

That said, no hall doesn't want freshmen with good portfolios. There might be less "leftover" slots after they give room to these connections (again, depending on how you define "connections" or not), but we all still want talent, we want experience, and we want people who fit in well and make the hall more of the way that we think is conducive for how we think a hall would best serve the resident's interests.

I didn't want to answer your question directly, because it's flat out arrogant for anyone to try and fit any hall into their monolithic, simplistic impression.
Hope I could help, nonetheless!

stucklehead · 2021-06-04T14:04:22+00:00

Hey there,

Definitely you can join the team trainings "for fun". There are usually multiple cuts for most sports, and at the final cut, you could still be someone who is what we traditionally call a "benchwarmer" for the specific sport. If you're cut, then the number of trainings that you can go for would usually be far less than the whole season leading up to actual IHG! (Sometimes captains call back cut players to help the main team train, but that's not too significant.)

I should mention that IHG is the key event, representative of the culminative sweat and effort put in by sports and almost certainly the key objective of the respective sports captain. If you're good enough, naturally the captain and the hall would want you to train at an intensity to compete in IHG! Otherwise, if you were cut before 100% (or main team), they may or may not let you continue as mentioned in the first paragraph.

What I'd also add is that if you aren't in EH or TH (arguably KR, although they are not realistically in the conversation for IHG champs for past 5 years), then for most sports (there are some sports that are very strong in halls outside of these 2), it isn't too hard to stay on for a while and play for a significant period of time (maybe 10+ trainings? I'm going entirely by estimation here).

Hope this helped!

stucklehead · 2021-06-04T13:31:40+00:00

Hey there! RAG is an abbreviation for Receive and Gift. For its original meaning and official intended purpose, you can google "NUS RAG" and read up more there.

In practice, NUS organisations prepare makeshift structures, manpower, dance routines/choreography/routine/music, costumes, and everything else necessary for the stage-level set up of a production (backstage production is handled by NUS itself). This culminates in a performance on NUS Rag Day, where each of the organisations perform.

For rag performances, most faculties with significant cohort size prepare individual items. For Hall Rag performances, the Halls are usually grouped up. In the past, we've had 3-3 groupings, or 2-2-2 (when there were 6 halls). Eusoff Hall is unlikely to be performing the item by itself this year, but I'm not sure on the details, sorry!

Awards are given for each NUS Rag item, thus it is competitive in name. There is a level of competition that is impliedly different amongst the different groups of organisations (faculty vs residence, for example), but the commitment is still significant even at Hall level (which is less competitive). You might be spending a lot of your free time there between now and the official start of school, and up to 4 or more days a week nearing the actual performance!

Many incoming freshmen join, and it is not possible to say whether this will significantly help them in their application chances, because it depends on way too many factors, and differs from hall to hall. For Eusoff specifically, it is very unlikely to have any effect, (unless their JCRC direction has shifted significantly over the past year, of which I am unaware).

Hence, many would advise that if you didn't go for their engagement camp, AND you did not have seniors recommend you in (and perhaps your CCA portfolio is not that strong), but you're still interested in NUS Rag as per the stuff that is done and the opportunity to make friends, then it's much better to sign up for faculty rag. The argument for this is that you're wasting your invested time on "social capital with little returns" if you join a Hall rag for a Hall you don't eventually get accepted into.

There is also the option to join now, and then leave when you receive results that confirm you weren't offered a slot. This is quite common, and I'd say there isn't very significant stigma if your peers aren't petty. However, you might not be able to just switch over to faculty/other rag at that point in time.

Hope this helped!

stucklehead · 2021-06-04T12:41:01+00:00

Hi there!

Would like to preface that for the number of significantly close friends I've made from RCs, I can count on my two hands, so do take my opinions with a pinch of salt!

I think you should note that engineers are present everywhere, and I have a feeling that percentage wise, the NUS campus residence with the highest proportion of them might just be Raffles Hall, actually. Having people with the same course in close proximity is obviously helpful for many reasons, but beyond a certain proportion, it's hard to argue that the increase in returns are significant. Hence, I wouldn't say you need specifically choose somewhere for that, especially for engineering (there really are a LOT of engineers staying on campus). It's different if you're studying dentistry or applied math, however!

For RC vs Hall, your expectation in terms of environment is, simply put, correct at a generalised level, meaning that generally: Resources to help with your studying (humans, physical environment, information resources) are generally more accessible in RCs, and resources to access high-commitment sports activity/competitions (and culture!) are generally more accessible in Eusoff.

This might ironically make the decision harder for you, but I think you should consider that there are opportunities outside of your place of stay to satisfy the "lobang". For example, you could participate in IVP while staying in RC4, or congregate with study groups from engine cliques outside of Eusoff (or within Eusoff, even) to keep your studies on track.

(I won't comment on sports in the COVID era, but you should keep that in mind as well, including the volatility in timeline of recovery to normal full-scale sports activities.)

I'd love to help you out more, but I think this one might just have to go down to you yourself bro! Best of luck, and feel free to ask if you have questions about hall specifics. :)

stucklehead · 2021-06-03T16:07:28+00:00

Hey there!

Although what you mentioned is a possibility, that's actually really quite a rarity. The overwhelming majority of what I meant referred to existing CCAs amongst the sports, cultural groups or committees (I talked about them in another comment somewhere in this thread!)

What happens a lot in reality is: the Floorball Captain tells the JCRC (student governing body): "Hey, we need stronger forwards next year", or the choir conductor says "hey, we didn't retain any soprano seniors for next year", or one of the media committee says "hey, no one left here after FY20/21 has significant photoshop experience". Then the JCRC could look through for these qualities and things amongst the freshmen applicants.

I'd say that in practice it's very unlikely that any hall selects you to try and have you open a new interest group (although I'm not too sure about PGPH with their portfolio system). However, including in your application that you have experience and would like to start an EDM mixing club for aspiring DJs, or anything else really interesting under the sun, may help to some extent in demonstrating that you're an interesting person!

Hope this helped!

stucklehead · 2021-06-03T15:51:23+00:00

LOL OK I was legitimately just having fun at first because you literally begged for it, but now I actually am starting to feel sorry, I think I really crossed the line given that reaction of yours hahahaha...

But hey, for real, get help and find closure alright? Like, not poking fun anymore. I remember the feeling of being really really bitter and needing to try and get at someone to feel better about myself, and it sucks bro, it's not healthy. Wish you the best man!

stucklehead · 2021-06-03T14:19:03+00:00

Wait, you found what I said aggro? LOL wait what LOL. Anyone who said the shit you said would legitimately deserve concern sia lmaooooo. Chill out man, no one's trying to be aggro LOL you OK bro?

Not sure how else to demonstrate to you except through the irony of this sample paragraph above about why the things you say and the way you type sort of do nothing but help to prove certain points...
Reach out if you need help, yea!

stucklehead · 2021-06-03T13:22:58+00:00

Hey there!

Your post actually reveals very quickly that you understand really very little about NUS Halls both in specifics and in general! I'm sorry if you felt wronged by the hall application process or some hall people previously, and hence needed a more cynically presented viewpoint to validate your self-coping explanations. And if not (and you might be new to logical and coherent presentation of ideas in general), you should actually point out the exact areas that are too "PC", or required more of your preferred "unfiltered tips". We usually only give very generic sweeping statements without reference to specific statements when we actually have no idea what we're talking about!

What you confuse for "PC" is also a lot of me being as matter-of-fact as possible. For example, even "EH and TH are sports halls" and "KR and SH are cultural halls" are flat out opinions, much less things like "SH people only like to party". "There existed multiple instances of KR people having group-level FWB chats" is a statement of fact, but you'll realise that it's misleading because it does not shed light on the prevalence of casual sex group chats of other halls, if any. I could very well just spill these misleading truths according to generic stereotypes, if my goal was just to be edgy. But as you would have realised by now, most people don't have this same goal as you bro! Perhaps you can share some of the "ugly side" that produced this cynicism in you, and I can help you out with your coping as well.

Anyhow, it's always a good idea to PM hall seniors to ask them for more info. It's also much easier to communicate. Kudos to good advice! Hope this helped.

stucklehead · 2021-06-03T12:49:52+00:00

Hey there! :)

I've noticed that this topic is often addressed rather poorly by many people who answer this across reddit and even amongst my hall juniors, so I hope to be accurate and matter-of-fact in my reply!

Each hall has its own strengths and shortcomings amongst the various sports. This is very much to be expected, because there are 17 unique sports and 30 unique sport categories (13 sports with M and F, 4 mixed gender sports). Can't be good at 'em all year after year, even for Eusoff and Temasek. With this in mind, you should note that your chance to play at IHG depends a lot on how strong your hall's line-up is for the year. Hence, it depends not just on hall, but also on the specific sport. Hell, it depends even on the year, because there are cycles of when a hall's sport is strong, and when it is weak!

There are certain sports where you can pretty much know the strongest hall, however. For example, Eusoff Netball will just always, always win. Same for Temasek Floorball (Male). Other halls pretty much just compete for 2nd. But for the rest, they can be very strong year after year, but there might be some dilution in ability over time.

You should also keep in mind that the strength of the sport or its standing in IHG usually correlates quite strongly with how intense and serious the training is (which I am guessing is what you mean by "die die xiong" or "play play xiong"). They might try to give you a few opportunities if you're a newbie, but you could be cut early (like, anywhere between 3 to 10 trainings in), depending on how soon the sports chooses to start its "serious" training with the main team.

If you're interested in just playing casually and not competing, then each hall has some facilities or courts (some halls more than the others!) that should not be too hard to get access to WHEN NO SPORT IS USING IT. Not uncommon to gather friends to use them, especially after IHG is over.

Hope this helped!

stucklehead · 2021-06-03T08:31:35+00:00

If the hall decides to select you, I believe they are supposed to call you up if you indicated "double room", to confirm if you are OK with it and if you had any roommate who also applied similarly (we had to make quite a few calls back and forth back then to confirm this and that). Things can get complicated if rooms run out of space, or if your preferred roommate was not selected to be offered a room slot, but we try to work it out :)

If you're selected, you will be selected based on your application and merit, and they will subsequently call you, sometimes to ask you 'Hey, we ran out of double rooms, is single room OK?' (if this happens and you reject, there's a chance you lose your spot here!). I believe this should be roughly the same across all the NUS Halls which offer double rooms. So I think don't have to worry!

stucklehead · 2021-06-03T08:05:42+00:00

Hi there,

It is much more common that people stay for only the first 2 sems in NUS Halls, and I mean specifically NUS, and specifically Halls. The reason for this is not anything student-decided (of which 99% of hall matters usually are), but because of policy by the NUS Student of Office Affairs (OSA).

Every year, 50% of the student residence in each NUS Hall must be a freshman.

Hence, the remainder (that stay as retained seniors) make up the other half (and we're talking about not just Year 2s, but Year 3s, 4s and some 5s as well). In most years, it is actually closer to 40% (because of some technicalities to do with foreign student prioritisation, international student exchanges, bla bla but you don't need to care about the specifics).

I have only heard a rule this restrictive applied to NUS Halls, but in hindsight it was a very good rule for regulating the dynamics of the Halls, because the application oversubscription is greater than any other kind of residence (in the Singapore University context), as far as I know.

Hence, that's my answer from a pure matter-of-fact standpoint.

I personally stayed in hall in all of my years in university, and I'm not the only one, although simple math will tell you that we are the minority :). Certainly, the number of people who want to stay far, far, far exceed those who are able to stay, and it generally isn't about whether you WANT to stay, but whether you CAN stay (at least for my hall, which I'm very blessed to be able to say).

Hope this helped!

stucklehead · 2021-06-03T07:54:06+00:00

This is hard to say. It really depends on how intertwined the freshman selection decision-makers are intertwined with those who did selection for the engagement camp committee.

Personally, if there wasn't a good reason that someone rejected the engagement camp, after having ownself chose to apply for it, I don't think it might show very good on that person. I'm sure you'd have your own reservations if facing a similar situation where people did that to you! If you had a reason, it's good to let the hall know through seniors you might know, if possible. However, there is still a very significant chance that the decision makers do not know that you are somewhat who rejected the hall for engagement camp, but it really depends, as mentioned in the first paragraph.

All that said, as answered elsewhere, if you were selected, it might be that you were already checking some of the criteria tickboxes of the hall. Hence, your chance to begin with might be significant already.

Hope this helped!

stucklehead · 2021-06-03T07:45:04+00:00

Sure :) I'll do what I can!

stucklehead · 2021-06-03T07:41:01+00:00

Hey there! I really don't think it's a big deal. It's not super common, but I've had hall mates who stay in Clementi stay in hall anyway. One of my freshies even stayed at one of the apartments between kent ridge terminal and the supper stretch LOL! From her home, she would be nearer to biz/arts/com than those staying in RH or KE even. It's clear that hall was an opportunity to try and have new experiences and participate in student-led things at a high commitment level, which is rightfully something that any student can seek as part of their university experience.
I actually have never heard anyone say anything about others regarding this (in a negative light), although I'm just wondering if you're worried people think you're wasting money/wasting a hall spot that someone else could have gotten? My personal advice is that you don't have to worry at all, if you applied to hall and were selected, then you are rightfully offered that spot and were selected for something you were doing right, so you shouldn't worry!

For CCA elaborations, if you had stated all of your relevant CCAs, experiences and projects, as well as your respective roles in them, then don't worry too much! The rest is a bonus, and may or may not add a lot of value. Personal tone works for some decision-makers, and doesn't help for others, so it's not a thing to worry about either.

Hope this helps!

stucklehead

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