Author: Chrystal Chan

These communication undergrads took part in a global competition as a class project in integrated platform advertising and ended the term as world champions, with US$1,000 and US$500 in prize money.

For the six students, Nurfatin Rahim, Janessa Tan, Tiffany Chee, Abner Chong, Charmaine Goh and Sejal Bagaria, the odds were stacked against them as they were taking part in a United States-based competition dominated by American varsity teams.

However, the NTU students, who formed two teams of three students each, took home the first and second prize at the Digital Marketing Competition organised by weight loss company Wondr Health in December last year.

“We had little understanding of the consumer markets outside Singapore, but we used Reddit and Twitter to gather opinions and attitudes of American consumers on various weight loss programmes,” reveals Janessa, who is from the champion team. Her team also took home the Data-Driven Award as the judges recognised the value of their well-researched pitch.

The win wouldn’t have been possible, say the undergrads, without the perks of an NTU education.

“Our class lecturer, Ms Wong Pei Wen, invited numerous top-level executives from Google and TikTok to show us the inner workings of their business, including how advertising buys actually work. In addition to these guest lecturers, we were also directly mentored by an associate director at a media buying agency,” recalls Charmaine.

“Nothing beats learning from the industry giants themselves. I can confidently say I picked up programmatic advertising from Google – and this is going to make my CV stand out,” adds Sejal.

The in-depth insights and direct mentorship made a huge difference to the way both teams crafted their campaign strategy for the competition, they reveal.

“We sent our ideas and presentations to the industry experts for their feedback, and I remember learning a lot from their comments and criticisms. Education doesn’t get more ‘real’ than that!” laughs Nurfatin.

Sejal agrees: “Our group sent them a long list of questions, which they so patiently answered in detail.”

More than just award-winning advice from top executives, the students also got an authentic look at advertising as a career, both the positives and downsides, says Abner.

“We had mentors from customer engagement firms, advertising research agencies, media buying companies and big tech. This breadth of knowledge gained may not even be possible with internships,” says Janessa.

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This story was published in the Mar-May 2022 issue of HEY!. To read it and other stories from this issue in print, click here.

Medical student Parthasarathy Sreemathy is about to graduate after five years in NTU, and one of the many things the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine undergrad looks back fondly on is her first year as a medical student.

“We spent one week each in a polyclinic and the hospital, shadowing patients and healthcare professionals. This ‘hospital week’ was meant to help us know what the healthcare profession is like as a whole and understand what patients have to go through,” she says.

“One of the things I had to experience was the insertion of a nasogastric tube through the nose and into the stomach. The discomfort of being on the receiving end of this helped me to develop empathy, something good doctors must have.”

Time has not diluted this concept for Sreemathy, who has spent the past two years of her education shuttling between her clinical postings in Tan Tock Seng Hospital and lessons at NTU’s Clinical Sciences Building, positioned centrally in the heart of HealthCity Novena right next to the hospital.

“The time spent interacting with patients taught me so much. Apart from having experienced doctors as our teachers, I’ve found myself learning from the patients themselves. We may not always know everything, and I am thankful that the patients have not dismissed us for that. Instead, they are willing to teach us when we examine them. It is heartening to know that they recognise us as future doctors and trust us enough to confide in us,” she says.

This interactivity continues in the classroom. Sreemathy enjoys the team-based learning pedagogy unique to Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine students.

“We don’t have to sit in lecture halls. Instead, we sit in groups and learn from one another and our individual iPads depending on the topic our professor assigns us. Then, our professor will listen to us present our findings and correct us where necessary. I really like this style of learning as it is so much easier to retain information.”

In 2019, she travelled to Imperial College London where she spent a week interacting with Imperial’s medical students and sitting in on their seminars and classes. She also shared her experience of performing physical examinations on patients to the first-year students there.

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This story was published in the Mar-May 2022 issue of HEY!. To read it and other stories from this issue in print, click here.

A quick and accurate COVID-19 test is what the world needs in the battle against the global coronavirus pandemic.

As an undergraduate in the CN Yang Scholars Programme, Leong Shi Xuan never dreamt that she would one day, as a PhD student, help invent a technology platform for quick detection of individuals infected with the virulent pathogen.

Together with her senior, Dr Phan Quang Gia Chuong, she is part of a 20-member team that in 2020 developed a COVID-19 breathalyser, which has been tested in Changi Airport and used at Parliament House by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and other ministers.

The disposable breathalyser can accurately tell, literally with a single breath, if a person is infected with COVID-19, and in under two minutes.

Shi Xuan admits it takes special effort to breathe life into what might have started out as a pipe dream, as is often the case in research.

“When I’m buried deep under mountains of lab work, you’ll hear me complaining about how challenging research is. But once I finish it, I feel this rush of adrenaline and immense sense of satisfaction and I can’t wait to do it all over again,” she says.

In between regular classes as a chemistry undergrad and time spent in the laboratory, she also led an active campus life participating in contemporary dance practice and performances.

“Working on the breathalyser was a once-in-a-lifetime type of experience. You typically don’t get to work on research of this scale unless you are already part of the industry. I learnt a great deal about how research outcomes can be pushed for commercialisation.”

Like Shi Xuan, Dr Phan is a fellow dance enthusiast, whose love for research was further piqued when he won a scientific writing competition as a PhD student in NTU.

“One of my goals in life is to solve real-life problems using new technology. To do that, I have to start from scratch, beginning with research and ending with bringing the product to market. I want to break my own boundaries and do better each time,” says the multi-talented GC, as he’s better known in the world of breaking, who also dabbles in virtual reality art.

Shi Xuan echoes GC’s sentiments: “I hope my research and the knowledge I uncover will spark future innovations and help society progress. That would be a dream come true!”

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This story was published in the Mar-May 2022 issue of HEY!. To read it and other stories from this issue in print, click here.

Internships allow students to test the waters in different industries so they can discover their calling.

After five internships at two consulting firms, two MNCs and a food delivery start-up, business undergrad Yeo Ray Gin knows what he wants to do in life.

“In school, I’ve always enjoyed modules where I can strategise and solve real-world problems, but I wasn’t sure if I would enjoy doing this as a full-time job. Now, I am sure,” he says.

The final-year Nanyang Business School student even took a six-month break from school just so he could spend more time at his last internship. The reward? Not only did it affirm his decision to go into management consulting, he also learnt a valuable lesson no textbook can teach.

He recalls an occasion where he had to handle a particularly tricky client meeting at McKinsey & Company, a management consulting firm: “I didn’t know how to get to the root of the client’s problem, and neither did the client. We went back and forth on one point for hours as I tried to understand the needs.”

“Later, I realised that I should have probed more effectively by leading the discussion using industry examples and best practices to add clarity to the thought process. That’s a soft skill I’ll always take with me,” he adds.

This can-do attitude surely helped him score the Intern Impact Award during his two-month stint last year at Deloitte Singapore, where his job was to analyse potential business risks for IT systems.

“If you have a question for your boss, don’t sit around and wait for answers. Instead, take the initiative to share an educated guess to your own question. This demonstrates a good work ethic,” he offers as a tip.

Beyond learning how to be an exemplary employee, Ray Gin says he was able to connect with numerous experts in several industries, which could be the springboard to bigger and better things.

“I value the flexibility and opportunities I get at NTU to go on multiple internships. I’ve met many great mentors and colleagues over these two years that I feel quite ready for my job hunt.”

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This story was published in the Mar-May 2022 issue of HEY!. To read it and other stories from this issue in print, click here.