Jointly reported by:
Tan Qing Lin Sr3ScA
Ng Choon Hau Sr3A
“Application deadlines fall around January, so once SUEC results came out, we took our documents we prepared way in advance and rushed to apply.”
“To be honest we didn’t know what was going on either; we just followed instructions in the email the government sent us.”
These were what alumni of Kuen Cheng High School from Sr3ScA of 2019, Chow Yong Lam and Yeong Yoong Sze, experienced while applying to study abroad at Singaporean universities. Their stories reached Kuen Cheng students during the fifth and final alumni sharing session of the week, held on Friday, 21st May 2021.
The two spared no details in their journey to their universities, drawing up a timeline beginning with their hasty application process in December 2019 and receiving their acceptance letter in January 2020, and ending with orientation in July and classes starting in August.
You may wonder, “why’s there a six-month long wait till orientation?” The answer: paperwork. They had much to apply for in their registration as a foreign student, including an Overseas Travel Declaration, the Qualifying English Test (that they got to skip due to having taken IELTS), the Singaporean Student Pass, and most importantly: grants and scholarships.
Yoong Sze had much to say concerning financial aid. “The Tuition Fee Grant is your base bursary provided by the government, but scholarships are available for additional aid. There are prestigious ones like the ASEAN Undergraduate Scholarship, but plenty of outsourced ones are available too. They’re less desirable though, like how the Evolve Warrior Scholarship only awards you a one-time S$10,000 sum, which isn’t really helpful long term.”
With all that hubbub out of the way, the two alumni finally make it abroad.
Chow Yong Lam originally planned to head to Japan or Hong Kong, but due to geographical and cultural proximity, as well as the pandemic delaying Japan’s offers, he eventually ended up at National University of Singapore (NUS).
“NUS has many subjects high in the QS World University Rankings, and the course I’m taking, Mathematics, places 9th,” Yong Lam said.
Mode of classes between the first and second semesters varied greatly for him. The first semester involved online classes only, so he was mostly stuck in his room dealing with schoolwork, though he did benefit through more flexible scheduling. Luckily, he got to go out and about during the second semester, where classes have been split into equal halves of online and physical.
Yong Lam has taken a liking to the school’s high regard towards students’ future career developments. “They hold career prep modules and workshops, update available internships weekly, and provide opportunities for exchange programs and further studies at NUS Overseas College,” he said, “I think they’re very useful for students wanting to compete in this increasingly competitive job field”.
The freedom in mixing and matching subjects at the university is another aspect that Yong Lam is fond of. Even though he is a math major, he took some psychology courses out of interest. He says that double majors and double degrees are allowed here, and that more options would be available with the establishment of the College of Humanities and Sciences.
University life isn’t all just about studying for Yong Lam. He makes sure to keep himself involved in co-curricular activities like the AMCISA (where Independent Chinese High School alumni congregate), Korean Cultural Interest Group & Dance Team, and the NUS Mathematics Club. His involvement in the second club was especially stepping out of his comfort zone.
However, university life isn’t all that smooth sailing. Money has especially been an issue for Yong Lam given the exchange rates between Malaysian and Singaporean currencies. “Whenever I see a price, I instantly multiply it by 3 in my head, and it becomes horrifying!” He emphasizes the importance of smart budget to survive the high living costs in the microstate.
Furthermore, in a high-stress, high-competition, high-expectation environment like NUS, Yong Lam makes sure to manage his time wisely to deal with schoolwork, and train his resilience to survive his solo fight through university. “Luckily, Kuen Cheng did prepare me for this” said Yong Lam as he was grateful that high intensities of work load during senior years in high school trained him to be able to adapt to the competitive life in NUS.
“NTU is no less competitive than NUS as the world ranking for NTU is just falling back 2 places behind NTU.” siad Yoong Sze who is currently studying her Environmental Engineering degree at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Singapore.
Her initial journey to NTU transpired via three factors: the availability of her desired course, her financial situation, and her mobility under the pandemic.
For Yoong Sze, the mode of classes has been the same since the beginning of first semester. Classes are balanced between tutorial and lectures, and most have been taught virtually except for classes with small groups of people. Even though NTU is packed with top students and talented people, Yoong Sze mentioned she isn’t feeling a lot of stress compared to her senior years in high school. “At least I could get around 7 hours of sleep these days rather than just 5 hours of sleep when I was in Kuen Cheng,” she jokingly said.
Apart from studying, extracurricular activities have taken a big part of her University life. Besides taking part in AMCISA activities, she also took part in Earthlink Beach Club from CCA Hall. She advised us this: “You should not just stick to the same group of people all the time, especially in universities where building a large social network is important for future work life”.
For people who are interested in studying abroad in Singapore, the first question one might ask is “how many A’s should I get in my SUEC examination”. Unfortunately, Yoong Sze said there is no right answer for this due to the fact that qualifications for different courses have drastic differences. Therefore, the best we could do is to work hard during our present times to be the lead in front of other competitors.
Similarly, to Yong Lam, Yoong Sze has had to deal with high currency exchange rates, with her monthly expenditure capped at $673. It hasn’t been hard for her in that regard, though; due to the large variety of jobs available at the university, of which she has taken up two part-time ones.
What Yoong Sze prioritised more on was time management, as she “didn’t want to disappoint her parents by wasting this rare chance to study abroad”.
At the very end of the presentation, both alumni shared a quote “You will never know if you didn’t push yourself harder” to motivate Kuen Cheng students to work harder in order to achieve their goals in life. They subsequently held a short Q & A session before ending it.
