SMU

Was given a campus tour of SMU and this place is really something. Collectively five buildings in the heart of the city, the schools are linked underground by a long corridor which is said to be a kilometre long. The underground walkway is actually opened to public and has banks, eateries and shops.

This is the pretty view from the top of the Li Ka Shing Library, so named after the school received $19 million in donations.

An event held in the underground activity area during which the students undergo a challenge of endurance of standing on one leg for the longest period. A game only youth possesses the folly and physicality to participate. The last record is over 5 hours, this one is anticipated to be 10 hours. Who knows?

Our student tour guide raved about their gym which is said to cost half a million dollars.

Their lecture theatres may not be large but are the state of the art and the best ones are equipped with 8 movable white boards, two projection screens side by side, two large LCD panels for video conferencing, two smaller LCD panels for displaying projected material so that lecturer doesn't need to repeatedly turn his neck back to see the projection screens behind him. All these controlled from a small touchscreen LCD panel. They just haven't made the whiteboards capable of erasing automatically that's all.
The projectors can be controlled to show a freezed frame of the previous slide on one screen and present the new slide on the other. The well-wired room also allows the lecturer to choose to project what is on a student's computer onto the projector screen for discussion, displaying it next to the image of his computer screen.

Things have come a long way. In my time, my lecturers were still using transparencies, if at all.