Category Archives: Learning

Chasing storms, bands and friends in the USA

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A furnace. That’s what Singapore feels like after returning from a nearly five-month getaway in cooler countries such as the US and Japan. Although, to be fair, I was only in those countries during late winter, spring and early summer. I heard that summers in the US and Japan could be warmer than it usually is in Singapore.

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The University of Missouri-Columbia

It had always been my dream to visit America some day. This is mainly because it has an individualistic culture that I can relate to better than Asia’s collectivistic culture. Also, it is simply a new place to explore. As I travelled alone, I relied on Google Maps heavily. Even though I’m back in Singapore, I now find myself consulting Google Maps even when travelling to everyday locations.

Sightseeing is typically the focus of a student’s post-exchange travels, but it was different for me. While I still went sightseeing, my post-exchange vacation was more social and musical. I’m an appreciator of heavy metal and its various sub-genres, and I have been writing about metal on and off for five years now.

Many metal bands hail from America, with Metallica being the most famous. (Although I’d argue they are a hard rock band.) And many fellow writers I’ve befriended on the Internet are from the land of the free, Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks coffee, too.  Continue reading →

Getting black and blue from watercolours

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Hello, everyone. It’s been a while! After a whole month of exams and assignments, I’ve spent the past couple of weeks cleaning up my room, after it became a dungeon of paint and paper during the busy end-of-term period.

In my earlier post, I shared with you what I learnt about landscape painting from my watercolour course at ADM, taught by Asst Prof Ng Woon Lam. During the course, I learnt that apart from technical skills, it’s important to know the basics of colour theory. This allows artists to select the best matching colours, hues and tones when painting.

I’m definitely not a “pro” at this, and despite all my ADM profs going through colour theory with me over and over again, I still sometimes give them a blank face. So it’s been a real challenge for me to improve the “colour” aspect of my watercolour paintings, since I’ve worked mostly in black and white with pens and pencils, like this sketch of Jiufen that I did during my recent visit to northern Taiwan.

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For someone more used to sketching, my first few watercolour paintings were an absolute disaster. You won’t see them here as I don’t wish to strain your eyes. Continue reading →

Do it, don’t regret it

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I’m in a reflective mood. As a member of the graduating Class of 2014, seeing a chapter of my life come to a close gives me pause to reflect.

Once you leave the confines of the University, there are no more modules, no more exams, no final grades, just a daily series of life assessments with no end. The day you graduate is the day you’re admitted into the postgraduate course of life, where as a working adult, you’re no longer given as many opportunities to make mistakes.

I believe that the working world is an opportunity to find greater meaning in life though, and I look forward to becoming a freshman in the “institution of life”.

What I want to focus on in this post is: regret. I don’t know why working people reminisce about the beauty of their university education, but I have a feeling it’s because they had more freedom then.

In an article in The Guardian, a palliative nurse describes the five most common regrets people have at the end of their lives. None of them are about worldly achievements:

  1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
  2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
  3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
  4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
  5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

How does all this relate to your four years in university? Continue reading →

Look hues painting

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Hi, everyone! It’s been awhile since I wrote something related to school. In this post, I’ll be touching on something not new to most of us – watercolour painting.

My ADM professor, Asst Prof Ng Woon Lam, is a well-known watercolour painter in Singapore. He recently won his second Bronze medal from the American Watercolour Society.  I’m very inspired by his work.

Chen Yixi (1)

So, what is there to learn from watercolour painting? Quite a lot, as I recently found out from a module I’m taking that teaches watermedia landscape painting.

Continue reading →

Upside of being down under

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During the last week of the summer holidays, I went on a research trip to Perth, Western Australia, under NTU’s University Scholars Programme (USP).

Last year, we went to Taiwan, with “culture” as the research topic. This year, the theme was “sustainability”.

In Perth, we were split into different groups and delved into topics like water sustainability, energy sustainability, sustainable tourism, and sustainable lifestyle practices. This year’s topics were more technical and thus much more challenging. Nevertheless, all of us did our best and put together a great end-product after weeks of research, discussion and editing.

Although it was a research trip, we had our fair share of fun.

As we were a big group of about 80 students and faculty, we arrived at Perth on four different flights. My group was on the third flight, and by the time we had landed and checked-in, all the shops were already closed. Unlike in Singapore, all the shops in Perth close by 5pm. However, that did not stop us from taking pictures of the wonderful city!

We took the free bus into town. The streets don’t look that different from Singapore’s, except that they are more cluttered with random buskers, but they still look beautiful. Or maybe the grass just looks greener on the other side?

G4_1 Continue reading →

A summer to remember

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Looking back at my holidays, I had a truly enjoyable summer exchange at the University of Technology of Troyes in France.

Together with the other NTU students, I took two modules, Project Management and European Culture. These classes were conducted with American exchange students from Michigan, Buffalo and Binghamton. Every weekend, the university would also bring us to different places in France to experience the “French” way of living.

Paris

Our first weekend was in Paris. We did everything a tourist could possibly do, such as climbing the famous Eiffel Tower. Our experience would have been more enjoyable if the winds weren’t so strong, though!

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gf2 Continue reading →

A (freshman) year to remember

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I’ve always wanted to become a war journalist, so the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication & Information (WKWSCI) was my dream school.

Now that I’m here, I aim to make my journey a fulfilling one. In my first semester last year, I took seven modules, even though most of my peers took 5 to 6 modules per semester. I particularly enjoyed the News Reporting and Writing module – it taught me how to write headline-worthy and breaking news, a skill that will be essential if I ever become a war correspondent!

I also signed up to be on the main committee of WKWSCI’s Freshman Orientation Camp (FOC). My seniors and peers made me feel very welcome during my camp, and I wanted to pass on this good experience to my juniors. School truly feels like home when the cohort size is 180 and everyone knows almost everyone else.

Another good thing about WKWSCI: They know how to have fun!

The school shakes things up for us by organising fun, morale-boosting events nearly every week. For example, there was a Theme Week where we had to dress up according to a specific theme each day.

dan1Once, we attended class in our old school uniforms. (See if you can spot me: I’m the only guy in the first row.)

Photos Credited to 20th CI Club

Continue reading →

5 best memories…

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As the curtain falls on my time at NTU, I can’t help thinking about the past three years of my short yet eventful undergrad life at the Nanyang Business School that was filled with joy, laughter and challenges…

1) Case competitions

Designing a cool online marketing communication campaign for CP Foods? Trying to sell their frozen food products on a rainy afternoon? Yes, my team of three did them all and bagged the second prize to boot.

Winning the prize money, however, was not the best part, as such success and happiness is short-lived. It’s the memory of celebrating with fellow NTU participants, and the strong friendships we’ve forged, that will stick with me for life.

n1Three of the five finalist teams at the CP Marketing Challenge 2012 came from NTU. Hip, hip, hooray!

Continue reading →

Eye to eye with CEOs…

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Despite juggling many academic activities in my final year at the Nanyang Business School, I couldn’t resist taking part in the Undergraduate Research Experience on CAmpus (URECA) programme, a vigorous by-invitation-only elective that aims to bring out the researcher in us.

I chose to work with Asst Prof Kim Young Han on a finance and psychology project that involved analysing interviews given by CEOs to the financial media.

As an undergraduate majoring in tourism and marketing, I jumped at the chance to delve into a complementary field of expertise that I wouldn’t normally be exposed to.

Our aim was to find a way to detect the subtle clues CEOs inadvertently reveal in public media through their non-verbal behaviour. This purpose may seem trivial, but the results could help investors make more well-informed decisions on where to put their money – we’re talking about billions of dollars!

Continue reading →

It’s the journey that matters

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As the academic year draws to a close, I’m reminded of the courses I took this semester. There’s one that I believe will always be fondly remembered by all REP students – the Build and Test Project. This module set our creative juices flowing and motivated us to push beyond our self-imposed limitations.

This course lasted two semesters, and in the second semester, we had to design a remote-controlled toy car that could run on a self-made zinc-copper chemical battery. It turned out to be quite a challenge. We were competing on speed, distance and innovation, and the teams were clearly trying to outdo one another. We could hear cries of frustration, anxiety and plain old anger in the lab, when despite all attempts to get the cars to move, they refused to. Corrosion of cells, sputtering and dying motors, and inexplicable fumes from the motherboard (yet another short circuit?) – the list of glitches seemed never-ending.

But desperation is the mother of invention. As we neared the end of the 12-week long assignment, I was both surprised and impressed by the discipline, commitment and creativity demonstrated by my fellow classmates. People worked overnight on their designs, burning the midnight oil over solders, screwdrivers and hand drills. On the final test day, we saw some amazing ideas in action – dry batteries, 3D printed chasses, self-developed apps for control and, of course, cars that ran up a 7-metre slope in 7 seconds.

s11Exciting car-nival: our roadsters getting ready to race.

Continue reading →