Besides my brother, I didn’t spend very much time with anyone else in the Engineering Science program, except for one other guy. He had actually joined the program late, and wasn’t very social. I had noticed him sitting by himself and invited him to join us, and the three of us ended up spending a lot of time studying together after that. Many of the other students in the program studied in large groups and socialised together in the evenings and on weekends, but we didn’t join them. I actually kept a very active social life outside of Engineering Science, which I will write about in later posts.
Our friend was the most efficient person my brother and I had ever seen. We nicknamed him “the Machine”. He was absolutely methodical in everything he did, and his composure remained completely steady regardless of any deadlines or pressures. He also had one of the highest averages in the program, and his marks in many classes were higher than mine.
This actually worked to my advantage. Prior to this, my mother would continually criticise me for socialising with my classmates and claimed that they were just using me to improve their grades. But she spoke nicely of him, and would even ask after him, which was especially unusual since he wasn’t Chinese, but Indian.
Both from my personal experience and from conversations with my friends, it seems to be quite common for Chinese parents to criticise their children’s classmates who did not do as well in school as they did while praising those who did better. Presumably this is intended to encourage their children to improve their grades, but I think it actually has the opposite effect. I actually had a disincentive against raising my marks any higher, because I did not want my mother to go back to criticising me for associating with people who had lower marks than I did. So this is yet another example of something that authoritarian parents do which is completely counterproductive.
Most students try to maximize their marks, but I had this delicate balancing act. I had been forced into the program and therefore wasn’t particularly interested in most of the classes, and I had a disincentive against getting higher marks as mentioned above. So I didn’t put a lot of effort into my studying or homework. On the other hand, I couldn’t allow my marks to slip too much or I would risk drawing the ire of my parents; that, and my ego, forced me to make at least some amount of effort. But I felt very guilty about getting pretty high marks when some of my classmates who obviously worked a lot harder than I did were barely passing or even dropping out.
– davinci
0 Responses to “The causes of my depression, part 10: “the Machine””