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Are you really so different, SMU?
NUS, NTU students dismiss branding slogan. University insists US-style methods work

IF YOU'VE been reading the newspapers in the past three months, chances are you would have seen advertisements showing youths such as 22-year-old Marina Rumi Ibrahim in eye-catching poses.


Bold assertions by SMU, as in this ad, have become something of a talking point, especially among local undergrads.
Splashed across at least one-quarter of a Straits Times page, the bold claims have become something of a talking point, especially among local undergraduates.

The print ads declare SMU students as 'different'. But read the finer print and the suggestion is obvious: Trained to excel in the new economy, the Singapore Management University student is a cut above others.

Boasting about its American-style approach in teaching in small-group seminars, the new kid on the block - set up three years ago - says 'our students don't attend lectures and tutorials'.

The swipe at old-timers National University of Singapore and the Nanyang Technological University is hard to ignore.

Its curriculum, which it calls innovative, was developed with the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, an American Ivy League institute.

The stress on its American make-up in its branding exercise is costing the private university $150,000, as the ads will run until April.

But professors and undergrads of NUS and NTU and parents shrugged off what they see as just a 'puff'.

Said businesswoman Claire Ong, 48, who has a son and daughter in NUS: 'NUS and NTU students should not get so hot and bothered. I think it is clever and fun. And it is just a branding exercise. Companies do it all the time, why not universities?'

But SMU's Provost Tan Chin Tiong insists it is not an empty slogan. The marketing professor who had taught in NUS for 20 years says he notices a discernible difference in the 1,400 students pursuing business and accountancy degrees.

'I think with our American-style university education, we have created a sub-culture. Students show a lot of confidence and are not afraid to speak up.'

While NUS and NTU professors would not be drawn into a debate, one NUS science professor noted: 'Everyone knows that NUS has the best students, at least in terms of A-level results. So let's wait for the employment surveys.'

Students tend to be dismissive, if not disdainful.

'They are like empty vessels making a lot of noise,' said NUS business student Adam Lim, 22.

NTU engineering student, Alfred Ooi, 25, added: 'The proof of the pudding is in the employment surveys.'

SMU's pioneer batch of 300 business students will enter the workforce next year, but the few employers who have hired some as interns sense a difference.

Ms Serena Khoo, a director at accounting firm Ernst & Young, interviewed 10 SMU students for one internship position.

She said quite a few were 'mature in their thinking, confident, articulate and willing to speak up, I think more so than the NUS and NTU students that I'd encountered before'.

Citibank vice-president Stephen Yeung supervised business student Jacqueline Zhuang, 22, whom he said had initiative and good communication skills.

Noting that up to 30 per cent of the marks goes to class participation for some SMU courses, Provost Tan believes it brings out the right qualities.

'If they want to pass, they have to think on their feet, be confident and speak up. If you have to keep doing this over and over again, it becomes second nature.'

After reading it, I can really only shake my head at that particular NUS business student. Afterall, in the end, who is the one who made themselves look silly? While the workforce looks forward to our graduation, people from the other 2 who don't really know much speaks up in national newspaper, being quoted like a fool.

Mind you, I am not being boastful. All I'm saying is, when you don't know much, don't speak.