Pre-trip by Seah Cheng

The learning trip is a great platform for several learning opportunities to emerge. Thrusting a group of USP scholars, who’ve already been anchored with a key sense of what a multidisciplinary education is like from Semester 1’s mods, puts everyone in a great position to interact and bounce off ideas from one another.

Going to Chiang Mai and being given the chance to perform first hand research and fieldwork documentation, I foresee, is going to be a very interesting experience. For most of our young adult life we have been used to doing desk research, mostly exploring the world behind the works of a screen. Now however we are given the chance to perform first hand research and hone our skills as a sort of scientist in our own way.

I foresee that this trip will help me develop as an NTU USP scholar because of the people, and the opportunities the trip would offer. The past semester has allowed me to interact with undergraduates coming from different courses and degree specializations. Ranging from business to communications and psychology, most of my friends often offer interesting perspectives in simple conversations. I guess this is because being put into different learning fields hones different priorities that people look out for when approaching the same issue. Business students might be concerned about the feasibility or profit of an idea, but psychology students might focus on the ethics involved or how it affects a person or the masses. These different perspectives are very intriguing and are bound to be emphasized greatly on the trip. It might lead to disputes or learning opportunities, all of which I think will help enhance a multidisciplinary and humbling learning experience.

My course is Environmental Earth Systems Science. Being in this course requires me to approach everything from the “scientist’s” perspective; the why behind the what; observing the unknown and studying it. This intercultural exchange is almost perfect in enhancing my college education because it gives me direct access to fieldwork and documentation experience which I will need later on in my course. In fact, my course also has a field trip to Bali, but more focused on Ecology and Human Behavior, much like anthropology. I am hoping that both trips will equip me with the necessary skills I need for my field of work and my college education.

At a personal level as of now, I wish to achieve two things. Firstly, I wish to achieve a greater sense of what a multidisciplinary education would feel like. Having gone through Semester 1, Writing and Reasoning, and Quantitative Reasoning has really made me really interested in being a sort of Jack of all Trades sort of person. Knowing many things across different disciplines, apart from its practical usefulness, honestly sounds like a pretty powerful skill to have as a person. Secondly, I wish to get to know my USP friends better! Semester 1 has been extremely interesting mingling around with them. I’ve learnt a lot about myself as well as other people, and how different and similar everyone is. I am hoping that the trip will not only give me a chance to meet more great people, but to also give me the chance to know the current friends I have even better.