With the hoohah about NTU planning to convert some double rooms to triple rooms, one thing is pretty obvious. The move is very unpopular, with some people even starting a group on Facebook to oppose the move. I found that pretty ridiculous though.
Let me tell a story. There was once a cow. The cow saw a horse. It went "Moo!" The horse looked at the cow, and continued eating grass. This is called "cow head don't go with horse leg", crudely translated from chinese. But you get the point.
The last place I'd expect a bunch of old fogeys to consider whether or not to go ahead with the move would be Facebook. No offence intended, but Facebook? Can they even use NTU mail?
Now what's the problem with hall rooms becoming triple rooms? A lack of space? Oh not at all. If you read opinion pieces in Chronicle, since 10 Vietnamese students can squeeze into a room double the size of hall 4's, 3 pple can squeeze into one hall 4 room. I don't doubt that. Have you seen those tunnels in Vietnam? You could probably squeeze 10 Vietnamese into a sardine can, and have enough space leftover to squeeze a PRC in too.
I have a suggestion for the NTU admin. Why not cordon off one hall, and squeeze like 10 Vietnamese to a room. I'm pretty sure you can fit their whole population in NTU into one block. Or 10 sardine cans. Whichever is bigger.
Why should I accept poorer living conditions if I am paying good money to live "comfortably"? Comfortably meaning that it is still acceptable, but nowhere near fantastic. Is it really that difficult to build new halls? Squeezing people so that you can make more money out of less space isn't the solution.
Note to admin: Please demolish hall 5. It's really a disgrace that no one can tell it's a hall unless they are NTU students.
I wonder if NTU is really interested in solving the student hall allocation problem, or making more money at our expense. Because if they were really interested, they'd have built more halls. This isn't a new problem. It happens every year, and it has been pretty clear that there have been insufficient hall rooms for quite some time now.
The way the article makes it sound, it's almost as though NTU halls are heavenly. Oh please. Rather than compare our halls to those in XXX university from some rundown industrial estate, shouldn't we be comparing our halls to those of similarly ranked universities, since after all we are endeavoring to become a better university, rather than worse.
I have no doubt that Ha Noi Medical University is one of the most prestigious in Vietnam. However, NTU is ranked at 69th in the list of top universities in the world. Ha Noi Medical University is not even in the top 500. Should our halls really be compared? I'd be really worried if our halls shared the same conditions as those of Ha Noi Medical University's.
If that was the case, how are we ever going to attract the brightest to study here? Aren't the relatively spacious halls supposed to be one of the perks of studying in NTU? NTU is really misleading itself if it thinks that its branding is so excellent that even with shitty halls, students will come.
Hey come study in NTU! We'll stuff you into sardine cans! Oval or square, it doesn't really matter, you don't have to pay for them. We get them free from Canteen A everyday!
I'm pretty sure that if that happens, we won't be anywhere in the top 500 next year.