Over the past few days, some pieces are becoming clearer over what has possibly been the most tragic incident to impact NTU in years. First of all, the stabbing was most probably over a scholarship termination, and slipping grades.
Secondly, this was most definitely a suicide, despite NTU's best attempts to make it look like the guy somehow got vertigo from blood loss and conveniently toppled over the railing. The railing is not easy to topple over. It is higher than the height of one's waist, which from the principles of physics would mean it is higher than a normal person's centre of gravity. To topple over, this student would have to apply quite a considerable force to get his centre of gravity over the railing. Basically, he would have to climb a little, pivot his centre of gravity on the railing, and topple over.
In addition, he had cut his wrists, to make sure he would bleed out and not survive the fall. Suicide no? This is an engineering university, NTU. Please don't make a communications student point out faulty physics and logical inconsistencies to you, not while the engineering students are busy stabbing people.
It is amazing how hard NTU's corp comms department will try to cover up something to minimise the damage to the institution's reputation. Why do they even bother, when first of all, it is not their fault, secondly, doing so when the truth is in everyone's faces only makes them look foolish, and thirdly, it does little for their reputation as an institution that produces thinkers. How can an academic institution produce thinkers when the people up there can't think? Really, when something like that happens, tell it like it is. There is no shame in reporting the truth, and people respect you for it.
I do not wish to judge the actions of the victim, because I am in no position to. But when you realise that losing the scholarship would have meant that he would have to pay only SGD$3360 in tuition fees, according to Channel Newsasia, was his life worth that little? Macbook Pros cost more than that. Okay, he lost the scholarship because his grades were dipping. But we all know how difficult it is to maintain a GPA in university. It's like trying to climb a slippery slope. We try so damn hard, but really, sometimes, you just have to admit that you can't beat them all, you can't do good at everything, and most of all, sometimes, it's really just bad luck.
Maybe it was the face factor, but really, it is no great shame to lose a scholarship. People who judge you based on that factor are really people struggling to cope with their own insecurities. You are no more useless because you couldn't make the cut. You only are when you give up on yourself, because before you do, no one else has the right to tell you you aren't worth anything. No one has that on you.
But a little sympathy is perhaps in order. It takes two hands to clap, and obviously, something went on between the victim and his professor. The professor probably didn't deal with the situation well, and it built up over time, until something gave and resulted in this. We will never know for sure, because I'm pretty sure the professor will not comment, and the dead don't speak. This chapter is closed, and in time, it will cease to matter.
All I can say is that this is really tragic for everyone who knew him, and for his parents. The two people who probably gave the best years of their lives to raising him, and moulding him into the person he had become, the very same two people who have to live with the fact their son is gone for the rest of their lives.
We were brought up not knowing how to fail. We were brought up not knowing that it's okay to fail, to make mistakes, because only through mistakes do you learn, and learn well. We learn how to fear failure, so much that we don't see failure is a normal part of life. We fear it so much, we lack the courage to succeed after failing. To get back up on our feet, to admit we've failed, to admit that we are fallible, to admit that we can do better.
We lose the courage to take risks, because we are afraid of failing. We stop ourselves from chasing our dreams, because we fear something that might not be there. We compromise our own lives, because we don't have the courage to live them.
Why, oh why. Why is it that despite our education system being the best in the world, we fail to teach one of the most basic of lessons, so that generations of kids will have to pay for it.