Throwback to when our parents told us: “Study hard, get a degree, then can find a good job and buy condo.” Now? Big fat joke. With the rise of AI, I really want to ask: is a degree even relevant anymore in Singapore, or did we just sign up for a 4-year subscription of pure financial damage?
Look at ChatGPT, Claude, and whatever tech coming out every two weeks. Last time, you pay 40k to NTU/NUS/SMU to learn coding, data analytics, or business writing. Now, a $20 AI subscription can churn out a Python script or a marketing proposal in 5 seconds. What took me three sleepless nights in university to copy-paste-modify, AI does before my Kopi O can even cool down.
And the worst part? Our local syllabus is slower than the MRT track fault delays. By the time the professors get the curriculum approved, the tech is already outdated. We are literally paying thousands of dollars to learn history while the real world is moving at warp speed. Then you graduate, enter the workforce, and the boss expects you to compete with a machine that doesn’t sleep, doesn’t take MC, and doesn’t ask for AWS or 14 days annual leave.
If entry-level cognitive tasks are all getting automated, what is our expensive paper qualification for? HR screening? Most HR portals also use AI to filter resumes now, the irony is damn real. Unless you are studying to be a doctor, lawyer, or civil engineer where you need actual professional licenses, standard corporate degrees feel like a massive scam.
Honestly, we are better off spending that 4 years building actual side projects, learning how to prompt, and mastering soft skills like high-stakes networking or sales—stuff that AI cannot replicate (yet). To all the juniors currently mugging for finals: genuinely ask yourself if you’re studying to be a thinker, or just a slower, more expensive version of an AI bot. Wake up please, the paper chase is dead.