By Cassandra Chew

I ONCE thought I was being subversive by choosing a polytechnic over a junior college.

After all, I had attended a so-called elite secondary school where students aim for top junior colleges, go on to ace their A levels, land prestigious scholarships, an Ivy League education and soar through corporate ranks at lightning speed.

It is a stereotype, sure, but I think the person who came up with the phrase 'there is no smoke without fire' made a lot of sense.

In some ways, this was the elite path my school was setting us all up for.

Only, I didn't feel very elite at all.

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In my first semester of Secondary 1, I held the record for the lowest Higher Chinese Common Test score across the entire level.

The incident was emblematic of my four years there - scraping through to the next level by the skin of my teeth, and I believe, the grace of a very good God.

As you can imagine, my time there did little for my fragile teenage self-esteem and I was miserable.

I decided to put an end to all of this by opting for what I thought was a very different route - a polytechnic diploma in design.

I took pride when my friends gasped in awe and respect because they thought I was being so brave, and I even dissed my friends in junior college for not yet knowing what they wanted to do with their lives.

But what I did not quite realise until recently was how I never quite broke away from the culture of elitism I tried to run away from.

I did go to polytechnic, but I was enrolled in one of Singapore's most prestigious design schools there.

I then went on to snag a full undergraduate scholarship to study film in New York, and later attained a master's degree in international law in Washington DC.

Subversive?

Turns out I was anything but.

But I'm glad at least I did it on my terms, my own way, because my life would have turned out so differently if I had chosen the other path.

Fact is, achievement matters in Singapore and we must 'get there' eventually.

But I've found there's some wiggle room in how we arrive - 'elite' isn't the only way to go.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.