Network, Grades and Meritocracy

As someone taking CS3103 this sem, which is the nightmare known as networks II. I actually understood quite a bit of the stuff that zit seng was talking about..

Understood, yes.. But how to apply? No idea..

Sigh... Like Prof say, what he's doing is an art, quite hard to learn over 2 hours.

The second part of the lecture is much much more interesting. dealing with meritocracy, one of the 5 cornerstone concepts our wonderful country was built upon.

I don't know why but I felt there was a little contradiction in prof's arguments.

1) He has reached the apex of the academic system through his mad studying abilities

2) He believes grades don't matter, except for the first job.

3) He hires people based on grades first, ability second.

So can we conclude that

1) Regardless how good one is in his respective field, we still need decent grades? Like how our athletes need certain grades to enter a SPORTS school.

2) Our first job will determine our second job, our third job, up till the point you decide that being hired isn't worth the time and make your own living. So then your grades will affect your first job, which then cascades down. Eg. If I have straight Bs and end up in a semi-decent job in a semi-decent company, as opposed to getting straight As and ending up in the same job in an excellent company, then the difference in prospects is still huge regardless of personal abilities.

What I feel is that, although our system is still meritocratic somewhat, it is only based on the academic skill, someone NOT a government scholar will never rise up to ministerial level.