No branded items? No partners in class

Article

Be rich, or at least appear to be, if you want to be popular in school. 

That seems to be the message in a recent topic on local forum Hardware Zone.The forum posts insinuate that if university students do not own at least one branded item, they will not be able to find project groups to work with and are ostracised.

A forum user on the Hardware Zone started the thread by saying: 'I heard that if you study in SMU and you don't have a car, or wear branded clothes, and don't have an iPhone or an iPad, socialising and making friends will be a huge problem.'

That comment riled up others in the forum, with quite a number replying in agreement. Another Hardware Zone forum user, 'SpinFire,' commented, 'Ladies there carry at least a Coach handbag, guys must have at least an iPhone 4 with Gucci or LV wallet.

'If not, no one will want to do project work with you. Sports or recreation clubs (also) won't take you in as a member..'

One forum user who claimed to be studying in SMU, posted a reply in the forum, saying that students had better ask their parents for a car before they start school.

Otherwise, they will 'never get a girlfriend here,' said the user, 'zeroboi'. 

He also said that the students here 'are rich, like really rich.'

Another forum user also commented that SMU seems to have become an elite university.

My Views

Well, that's the sad state of our affairs, our society is getting more and more materialistic, isn't it? Students do not own at least one branded item will not be able to find project group to work with, how sad it is. In university but behaving like a kid. Like if you dont have any branded items, they will not befriend with you. But the thing is, having branded item does not necessary make the owner of it any smarter. In short, we must not let materialism dominate our lives.

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