oral wins

Watch my stride (⁠ ⁠ꈍ⁠ᴗ⁠ꈍ⁠)

I've just finished my second oral exam and it was really good! I even made the examiners laugh. 

The topic was about automated cleaning machines and whether they were useful. Obviously, I said yes, because it lightened the workload of janitors. This was especially true for a city like Singapore which required many man-hours of scrubbing a day to maintain its visual appeal. 

However, such cleaning robots wouldn't be of much use in rural areas due to the lack of exhibition areas or offices to clean. In such cases, machines that are more suited to other forms of manual labour would serve a better purpose. For example, machines that sow seeds could be used in farms and machines that cut wood could be used in logging facilities. This shows that the effectiveness of technology depends on where it is implemented.

Furthermore, the use of cleaning machines as seen in the video will cause janitors to lose their jobs. In order to sustain themselves, they would look for other jobs, thereby intensifying the already fierce competition in the job market. I feel like the government should provide more upskilling opportunities for the people whose jobs have been overtaken by these machines, to allow them to adapt and learn new capabilities, thereby being more employable.

The second question asked me about the effect of using machines on human behavior. Truth be told, I was a little puzzled by the phrase "human behavior". It just seemed too formal to be in an oral question.

My answer included the very glaring fact that machines made humans lazy and that it reduced the number of social interactions we had with strangers. This is because many services that were once provided by people are now offered by machines, such as ordering kiosks at restaurants. However, there is a silver lining: machines give us more time to spend with our loved ones, just less time with strangers. Overall, it sounds like a win, doesn't it?

The last question, the final boss, was about my views on some people preferring handmade objects over mass-produced ones. 

"Um," I started, shrugging my shoulders in casual dismissal. "I see why some people would like homemade, handcrafted objects more than mass produced ones. They may do this because they want the sentimentality of someone having spent a lot of time making the object."

"Of course, this way of producing things is very tedious and a waste of resources." I continued, going on a roll, "Plus, wanting every product you own to be handmade is really idealistic and impractical."

"As such, I can see why some people who prefer handmade objects to those mass-produced in a factory, but I don't support their views." At the end of my monologue, I clasped my hands and stared at the examiner with nervous confidence.

A beat passed before my examiner asked, "Well, would you prefer handmade objects or those mass-produced in a factory?"

"Um," I blinked, caught off guard by the question. "I... well, those beads on DIY bracelets and necklaces, they're all mass-produced in a factory, so I guess those don't count."

My examiner glanced at her partner, and they exchanged a brief chuckle before turning back to face me.

"Uh," I continued, fingers pulling at each other as my mind raced for an example to use. "Aha!" (Yes, I said that out loud.)

"My mother recently bought some handmade bars of soap. I used it and they feel good, but I probably would've felt the same way about a mass-produced bar of soap."

"So... no. I guess I don't prefer handmade objects to mass-produced ones." And that was the end. The real one.

All in all, I felt really good about that oral examination! Since I was the first candidate, I had to be quarantined so that there was no chance of my leaking the oral topic to the candidates who still haven't been squirreled away in their waiting rooms. I took a really good nap, sitting in the plastic, hard-backed chair, my whole body tingling as I drifted and let it go.

W for me (｀∇´)