2013 ~ P R E S E N T |
S T I L L E V O LV I N G
Tips from Auntie Jowee
Tee Jowee
“Auntie Jowee” (2018). ▶
122
I think the
beauty about
studying in the
School of Arts
and Social
Sciences,
and especially
university
life, was that
the whole
experience
mattered,
not just the
ones spent in
lecture halls.
I’ll be honest. When I was writing this article for the
magazine, I wanted to give details about my studies,
the courses and units I took, chasing down deadlines
and everything to sound like I had a fruitful time, but
all I could remember was how vapid and lovestruck
I was by every bad boy who sported a tattoo, wrote
bad poetry and held a guitar. I still am that person, just
that my metamorphosis came by way of me dating
a white-collared, roll-up-your-sleeves mechanical
engineer, complete with thick glasses, buck-teeth
and curly hair. Because someone has to be the actual
professional around here and earn an actual income.
Meanwhile, I get to do all the “fun stuff” like try to be
a stand-up comic and have erratic sleep schedules
and equally erratic incomes – but that’s another story.
I’m rambling, because I am an Arts student and have
no structure.
Few know this story, but before I was at Monash I
was actually studying Media and Communications at
a competing university. I quickly left that expensive
pretend university after a semester because the
quality of education there was so bad, it felt like I was
regressing back into high school (this coming from
someone who did not even go to high school. I was
homeschooled because my parents were one of those
hippies who did not believe in formal education) It was
Monash and the School of Arts and Social Sciences
that were my saving grace from bad education, and
it should have been my first choice. So in this tenth
anniversary magazine, I celebrate YOU – Monash.
On the first day, at orientation, I remember being
impressed. One by one, the lecturers came up to
introduce themselves. We had a lecturer who was
arrested and put into jail for his activism, we had a
sadistic, prodigious book-devourer, LGBT activists,
feminists, civil rights workers, film connoisseurs,
anthropologists, sociologists etc. I felt like I was home.
This was my place. It was a place where I could enjoy
being intellectual, where I could be inspired and talk
about deeper things without judgement or people
telling me: “… and this is why you’re weird.” It felt like I
could be anything, do anything and achieve anything.
I found parts of who I was – music-lover, writer, artist,
feminist, activist – everything. It was a journey of self-
discovery. In fact, I tried staying in Monash as long
as I could, but had to be a productive and working
member of society somehow, so, off to work I went.
If I have any advice to any students reading this, I
have to say: Enjoy. Your. Time. You won’t get so many
moments like this elsewhere. Your education is a
treasure. Cherish it.
My lecturers always said to never pursue a course
because of the lecturer, but because of a genuine
love of the subject. But for me the lecturers all held a
charisma that drew me to want to learn from them.
There is one lecturer among these that stood out, and
that is Dr Yeoh Seng Guan. To be honest, the courses
he was teaching could have been really boring if a
different lecturer handled it, but because of who he
was, he unwillingly adopted me, and now I have
an academic father. He had a little Plato-Socrates
teaching method going on. He loved pushing buttons,
asking questions, making students sweat and he
loved getting himself in trouble for it. Till this day, when
he asked me when I would submit this article, I broke
into a cold sweat wondering if I will get an “HD” for an
unpaid, voluntary piece.
For some reason, I later went on to pursue an
Honours dissertation after my degree and became a
tutor at Monash – and now the student has become
the teacher (tutor). I tutored a few units, like film