Shipping and Energy Club Activities

Author: Melva Goh, Singapore

A Visit to an Oil Tanker

A group of 14 of us from The NANYANG MBA recently gathered at the Marina South Pier
to begin our expedition to a real life experience of offshore environment. There, we took
our offshore taxis, small tugboats, to our final destination onboard an Oil Tanker which
awaited us three kilometres offshore from the pier.

Climbing up a ladder made of wooden planks from the tug boat up five metres to the
tanker was a first time experience for all of us.

Once onboard, the captain and the owner of the tanker greeted us as if we have paid an
expensive ticket to a luxury cruise. We were brought through an exclusive tour through
several passageways into the wheelhouse, the main deck, the crew cabins, the galley
and the engine room. Cameras were constantly flashing as our MBA “tourists” started
posing as the “Captain” and “Crew”.

The biggest take-away from this visit is how we can closely relate to an offshore
environment as the Captain narrated the life of the crew members and the operation of
the tanker while we were actually physically touching and seeing a real vessel out in the
sea.

Myriad Minds of Energy

The wise minds of various energy sectors, namely, Veolia Water Solutions and
Technologies (Water Management), Schlumberger (Oil & Gas), and Faststream
Recruitment Group (Headhunter for Offshore & Shipping), met at this event to share with
our MBA fellow team-mates great insight into the Energy fields.
Their presence at the event was paramount to gaining a deeper understanding into the
challenges and prospects ahead and the key functional expertise required to uphold the
dynamism of the industry.

Not only did we share the passions of the invited guest speakers during their
presentations, the question and answer session was fully optimized with a host of long
-awaited queries. As such, the event was extended by an hour to allow for more
information sharing, an important objective of the event.


At the end of the event, the guest speakers came to congruence in their career advice to
our fellow MBA team-mates – “Know what you want to do and follow your passion rather
than monetary incentives”.
Wise minds indeed!

The Second Trimester @ The NANYANG MBA

Author: Winston Song, China

 

My first trimester ended with a short but relaxing holiday to Phuket, Thailand. That refreshed me
enough to look forward to the second trimester, where school life is supposed to be more
dynamic, with lots more interactions with my classmates and the courses more functional.

 

True enough, before my classes officially begin on Thursday, I have already received an email
from our Decision Making and Control course professor, telling us to submit presentation slides
for a case study by Tuesday. Yes, we have to submit our homework before the course even
begins!

 

We were already divided into groups and each group is to prepare a 10 page powerpoint
summary of the said case study. As part of easy facilitation, we are instructed to make use of
the Google Wave communication tool, so that both part-time and full-time students would be
able to effortlessly manage a project without being physically together. (How brilliant!)

 

Immediately, things were executed; the work was evenly divided amongst my team members,
and using Google Wave, we were able to effectively communicate and work with available
content and resources, making it a live document up until we were ready to submit it.

 

Just a few hours upon our project submission, our professor replied us with good news! Our
team had been selected to present to the rest of our course mates.

 

The day came for us to present, and it turned out to be a hot debate. All other groups had come
prepared with their own summary of the case, so they were well-equipped with relevant
questions and opinions, and it was a day of bouncing ideas off each other with our professor
mediating and facilitating the session. Through such a session, we were able to clarify concepts
and gained a deep understanding of the case through different views and insights.

 

Already, I’m looking forward to more of trimester 2 and cannot wait for more challenging
assignments in the months to come!