Further updates on Cap-and-Gown Day- day 1 was a blast, I had a really good work day introducing batch-mates to the Senior Class Gift! And so far the response has been pretty good, hopefully we will be able to give more scholarships to needy students next year. Lion plushies going fast- I got one for my BFFs as well. ^^
So the information I gave yesterday wasn’t complete, my apologies- the FULL procedure would be:
1) Update your new alumni profile at the stations outside the room,
2) Make a contribution to the Senior Class Gift (that’s where I will be stationed!) There’s a hassle-free pledge back option, find out more tomorrow. 🙂 You’ll also receive a form here for collection.
2a) If you have already made a donation, proceed straight to the express station to receive your Gift of Appreciation!
3) Sign up for Alumni Association if you haven’t.
4) Collect Cap and Gown: Hand in the form you received at station 2, and collect your cap and gown. There is usually a queue for this. You can’t try on the spot to prevent congestion, but you can try it at level 6 where there’s free food, drinks and mirrors!
5) Collect your Commencement invites! 2 per person.
6) Collect your degree and transcript if you haven’t.
7) Official photographer– a really good promotion for family and individual portraits by Werkz, our official photographer: I signed up for the package cause they do seem very nice and the $250 promotion they are offering seems like a great deal.
That’s all! I’m really tired from the day so I’m gonna conk out to arrive there at 830am tomorrow. Hope this all helps! Remember the tips:
a) Arrive early!
b) Bring CASH! The vendor only accepts cash. If you wish to also make a contribution to obtain the luggage tag/plushie/powerbank do prepare some cash as well, but we accept debit/credit cards, cheques and pledgebacks (up to $50) as well.
Depending on the queue, you might need to put aside 20-30 minutes to enjoy the whole process. See you all tomorrow!
YESSSSSIIII
The Happy SMUdent 
Hey, I am a new freshmen. I just wanted to ask, why does SMU have such a poor organizational system? They do not send us a complete list of all the student clubs for Vivace. Instead, our emails are getting spammed by the different clubs every few minutes and most of the clubs send them multiple times. It is very time consuming to filter through all those emails and get an exhaustive list of the clubs. The same goes for overseas community projects.
Hahaha, hi Shaun, welcome to SMU. That is one of the “endearing” features of SMU’s email system- all clubs get to send two emails per week for promotional purposes. Naturally, close to Vivace there tends to be a massive amount of spam. As one SMUdent once quipped, “I like to see it as the immense amount of opportunities for Uni students to try out new things”. There’s some sense in that, because all the emails are being sent out by individual club members, who are students trying to do their best for the club. Just get familiar with the “Delete” button. 🙂 Alternatively, you can choose to block all these collaterals by rejecting emails from “@smusa.smu.edu.sg”, but you might miss out relevant emails to you.
There probably is already a consolidated list floating around but drowned in the inbox. If not, you can always go to the official website. You’ll get good at filtering, and the emails will die down after about week 4. All the best. 🙂
Can the psea account and cpf education scheme be used to pay for overseas exchanges and overseas community service projects?
Hi Shaun, sorry for the late reply! PSEA definitely yes, not sure about CPF education scheme. Do check with OGL, C4SR or your OCSP leader.
In any case, for overseas exchange you pay the same school fees to SMU for that semester, not your exchange university. There are loans and scholarships available for living expenses.