2 campus & 2 intake dynamics

There have been at least 2 awkward introductions in the past week when I've met someone on the Singapore campus, I've asked them how they liked Singapore over the first 4 months of the program, and they explain that they actually spent those 4 months with me in Fonty. This is bizarre for the Singapore intake to see. They started with 100 in their class and they all know each other by this point. Fonty was different, the environment didn't facilitate interaction like it does in Singapore. For one thing, there are many more people to get to know (300 vs 100). In addition, students disperse themselves over the French countryside as opposed to concentrating themselves in 2 high rise apartment buildings as happens with Dover/Heritage. In fonty, you always saw the exact same crowd out at the social events (maybe 60% of the class). There was another 40% who rarely, if ever, went to the standard events. If you didn't share a section with these people, it was possible that you never properly met them.

There are 3 distinct groups on campus these days. The P4s who started in Fonty, the P4s who started in Singapore, and the P1s who just arrived here. The interaction between the 3 groups isn't as fluid as you might expect. P3's mingle and slowly break down the walls between the campus intakes, but their seems to be very little interaction between the P1s & P3s. It isn't suprising, P3's are still tired from meeting hundreds of new faces over the past months and the P1s have enough name learning to do of the people that are in their own boat. Judging from our first periods in France, the most successful ones to break the P1-P3 divide will be the P3 guys. They seemed to have some sort of power to win the attention of our intake's P1 girls. I guess girls are always impressed by the older, confident guys. Let's see if our P3 guys are able to find the same keys to success.