When people talk about ITE, short for Institute of Technical Education, they usually associate the students with smoking, gangster, tattoo, rowdy, unruly, uncouth, bad attitude, difficult to get along with, bad grades, no future, etc

I once heard a conversation between two people. “ Huh? You want to go ITE? You go there, it’s the end for you.”

I feel that these people have misconception about ITE students. These people might not even met an ITE student before and they just label them as bad students. Why is this so? Maybe because they are just following the crowd. They are not critical enough and do not have an opinion of their own. They just label them as 烂货 “lousy goods” in English which is quite a cruel thing to say. Maybe these people are the ones that are lousy since they cant think for themselves.

I feel that these students who goes to ITE might not necessarily be bad after all, or in other words there is still hope for them. It takes a lot of courage for them to have the will to carry on studying even when the whole world seems to turn their backs against them. For that we should at least credit them by not stereotyping them. There might be smart and bright people in ITE who are just lazy to study or work hard.

Those students who chose not to study and dropped out of school should deserve the nicknames instead not them. They have worked very hard, hoping that there is still a chance for them to succeed. I admire their hard work and never-say-die attitude and hope that they can do well in life.

Here is a case of an ITE student still being able to succeed in life:

My mother told me that their company has recently hired a graduate from university that was originally from ITE. This guy went into ITE and realized that his life was not what he expected to be. He was actually quite a smart boy, but it so happens that he walked the wrong path of road and thus entered ITE. However, when he entered ITE, he told himself that he did not want to enjoy his carefree life anymore. He did not want to play anymore. It seemed that he has finally come to his sense and has matured to finally see things from a different light. Therefore, he worked very hard and entered Junior college after ITE. He was still not satisfied and did not give up. From there he entered university and became what he is today.

This goes to show that we should not have stereotypes of people and we should experience it ourselves and from there generate your own point of view instead of following others. Before we criticize others, we should try to improve ourselves first.

So what if you are from Hwa Chong Institution? So what if you are the top 3% cohort of Singapore? Does this means that you will definitely succeed in life? The answer is NO. Without working hard it is almost impossible for you to be successful in life.

Sadly to say, the real world is cruel. If you are not competent enough you will easily be “dispose of”. The competitive nature of our society might cause some teenagers to be reluctant to study because even though they tried very hard, they still could not get good grades and be one of the best. Furthermore, some teenagers don’t even know the competitiveness of our society since they have parents who are quite well-off and they live in a carefree and relax life without having any stress or the pushing factor to strive harder in their study since they harbour naïve thoughts that their parents’ wealth will be theirs sooner or later and that they do not really have to work hard at all. However, when they grow up, they will soon realize what the real world is and will feel that the wealth left behind by their parents will run out soon enough and from there will they begin to regret not studying hard in the first place.

These ITE student have to understand the competitiveness of the real world and I still believe that they can do it provided they continue to work hard. They can be successful in the feel of technology as the name of the institution suggest. It is definitely not THE END for them.

Do not say I didn’t warn you guys to stop having these stereotypes of people as you might unknowingly hurt their feelings if they heard you. If you continue to be stubborn and keep ranting that ITE students are bad, maybe these “uncouth, unruly and rowdy students” might just come and get you and beat you to a pulp.

So please watch your mouth AND YOUR BACK !