A little Hegelian dialectic: AcidFlask VS Mr Philip Yeo Reloaded

An unprecedented event took place in the blogosphere some time back. It's almost like the reloading of a movie that has been played a long time back. For readers who are still in the dark, the movie plot begins with the posting of information by AcidFlask AKA Chen Jiahao on his blog that has been found to be defamatory of A*STAR, a Singapore government stat board. Mr Philip Yeo, the chairman of A*STAR took issue with the comments posted on the blog, and the matter was taken up with the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (where Chen Jiahao is currently a Ph.D. candidate) and the respective legal representatives.

AcidFlask subsequently retracted his comments and posted an initial apology to Mr Philip Yeo and A*STAR containing a quote by Wendell Phillips,"Eternal vigilance is the Price of liberty". The initial apology wasn't up to A*STAR's satisfaction and a second subsequent apology was made at AcidFlask's now defunct blog site at his university's server. The subsequent apology was made to A*STAR's satisfaction and still stands in the university's website. AcidFlask assumed a new moniker, Elia Diodati, and completed his reincarnation in a new blog. Where is the unprecedented part? It is Mr Philip Yeo's engagement with Chen Jiahao as a commentator in his new blog. It marked the first time a high ranking government official has directly engaged bloggers on their own turf. This event sparked off commentaries on other blog sites.

Why my sudden interest in such an event? I have always been an ardent reader of AcidFlask's blog since its halcyon days, and he brought up valid points in critique of A*STAR's fixation over the pre-set GPA requirements of 3.8. I engaged Mr Philip Yeo in Chen Jiahao's blog under the moniker, Dr Dee AKA Dr Destiny AKA John Dee, a DC comics villain that cartoon network fans might be familiar with.

I pointed out to Mr Philip Yeo why sometimes, it's not useful to apply the 3.8 GPA across the board. It's simple really. In some American institutions where grade inflation is rife, a 3.8 GPA will not necessarily put a student in the top 5% of his faculty. In a number of universities, a student has at least to be in the top 5% of his faculty in order to qualify for the highest latin honors of summa cum laude. The GPA for my degree requirements was a little over 3.6, and my academic program was by no means an easy one due to my enrolment into a tough liberal arts and science program that requires a rigorous course work and the successful completion of undergraduate research as graded courses. I went to a graduate school in arts during my undergraduate days despite being a biomedical science major and graduated with more modular credits beyond my degree requirements. Nonetheless, my little over 3.6 GPA for my degree requirements put me at the top 5% in my faculty. A 3.6 GPA in institutions like Georgia Institute of Technology will net a student the highest honor. Extent of GPAs are outcomes of grading policies in the institutions. It doesn't come as a surprise that in applications for entry into some graduate schools, academic advisors are told to indicate the percentile performance of their charges.

Of course, there are other variables that determines a candidate's suitability for graduate school. Participation in undergraduate research, Letters of recommendation (the first thing that admission committees read), publication records are equally important. Even showing graduate school admission committees a high GPA is not enough. They take into account the quality of the undergraduate curriculum.

Readers might be wondering now, where is the part on the Hegelian dialetic. The Hegelian dialectic is the brain child of German philosopher, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Basically, the dialectic undergoes three stages of development - a thesis giving rise to a reaction, the antithesis, which contradicts the thesis, resulting in a tension between the thesis and antithesis, followed by a resolution between the two different camps in the form of a synthesis.

Essentially, Mr Philip Yeo and A*STAR's thesis is that a student bound for graduate school must score a high overall GPA (3.8 and above). This gave rise to an antithesis, that a high overall GPA is not a must. Elia Diodati AKA AcidFlask AKA Chen Jiahao and I plus a few other like-minded fellows make up the anti-thesis camp. We believe that a decent overall GPA (around 3.5), plus a record of undergraduate research, publication records and Letters of recommendation are equally important variables. The development of tension between personalities of both camps culminating in the AcidFlask VS Mr Philip Yeo conflict is regrettable. Thus, where is the synthesis? The importance of stressing on good grades cannot be ignored as they indicate the candidate's desire to uphold his academic work in good stead. The outcome of a synthesis is as follows - a high GPA for the science and mathematics component of the undergraduate course work, whilst de-emphasizing on a high overall GPA. Graduate school admission committees place a high premium on a good mathematics and science GPA, as do medical school admission committees that recalculates GPAs based on the grades obtained for science and mathematics courses. This synthetic solution will also include other important variables like letters of recommendation, previous publication records and successful completion of undergraduate research. The synthesis combines the virtues of upholding a good academic record espoused by Mr Philip Yeo and A*STAR, albeit for relevant undergraduate courses from the Math and Science disciplines, and the other important variables suggested by the anti-thesis camp in getting the student admitted into the graduate school.

From personal experience, I find that the Hegelian dialectic is useful in having fruitful exchanges with seniors. Even my dad who is a little younger than Mr Philip Yeo espouses the value of having a good academic record. I have my fair share of interaction with seniors from my dad's generation and beyond, and one pitfall that I have learnt to avoid is to dismiss the values they preach even if I held opposite viewpoints. The reason why seniors espoused the values that they hold dear is due to the fact that they are direct beneficiaries of these values. Dismiss them and be prepared to be chided. That is why a synthesis is the best solution, combining the strengths of traditional values and the freshness of new ideas. It does not come as a surprise that the Hegelian dialectic that is developed more than 150 years ago is still relevant and adopted in the Delphi Method widely applied in government and cooperate sectors (Linstone and Turoff, 2002).

Hopefully, we have reached the synthesis phase of the Hegelian dialectic.

Citations
HAROLD A. LINSTONE and MURRAY TUROFF. The Delphi Method: Techniques and applications

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hegel