It didn't hit me that the new academic year is about to start the week after next week till I logged onto the university's Integrated Virtual Learning Environment (IVLE) earlier tonight. I saw that the modules I have successfully been allocated so far (4 of them) were reflected and took some time looking through the module page for each of them. And it hit me. That I was no longer in Year 1 or Year 2. I'm about to start my 3rd year in university, a year that had seemed so distant when I first enrolled in 2006.

I never thought that thinking about what classes to take in my 3rd year would be so difficult, but when the university plans what your first 2 years would be like, that sudden release and freedom to take what you want is daunting. Do I take it because I find it interesting even though I may not be very good at it? Do I take it because it opens up a lot of options even though I hate it? What do I take when there are so many to choose from? Yet somehow, I've stumbled through the selection of most of my classes for the upcoming semester. Now I'm scared that I might not do very well in them.

In a year, some of my friends will be graduating from university, I'm likely to go down the slightly longer path and spend an extra year completing my honours year project. This day felt so long ago when I was in secondary school, back then, my life revolved thinking about what I wanted to do after I left secondary school. And now, we lie on the cusp on adulthood, one year shy of complete freedom, one year shy of possibly entering the workforce.

Just today, the news reported that 50% of Singaporeans regret their course of study when they attended polytechnic/university. Will you/I be one of them? Will we wish we had made the choice to do something radically different?