Lessons to adopt from Universities at Singapore

Experiences /

This Feb, Sharon and I visited universities in Singapore. Both of us wish to pursue higher studies from a reputed, world-class institution and thought it was only legit to go see these places we one day aspire to study at.

From understanding how these universities are, realising how cool it would be to study in an international school to really believing that we can also get there, it is just a matter of time and effort — I must say, this trip was totally worth it.

Here’s what we did — we shortlisted 5 universities in Singapore that we wished to visit. We included not just the ones we were super enthusiastic about, but also the ones like SUTD or LKY to understand more about their courses. Once we got to Singapore, we spent first half of the trip at NTU (Nanyang Technological University) and got a really good grip of what the culture and campus is like. In the second half, we visited other universities to understand more about them.

I’ve gone on to pen down elements from each of these universities that really struck me. This could be something that I found amusing personally, key things our Indian Universities can adopt from Universities in SG or just stuff that amplifies your self-belief and makes you feel you can also study in one of these universities.

If you want a quick summary of my experience, here you go:

  1. Ithoke ithraye ullu. I used to place these universities on a pedestal and think that you got to be super super brilliant to get admitted. But I ended up realising it is much more accessible for people like us.
  2. Two key pillars that make world-class universities, truly world-class are their career services and alumni relations. All these universities have super super strong alumni network. Once a student at the university, always a part of the collective is how they operate. Career services and guidance begin from your day 1 at college and will continue till graduation and beyond. In short, if you enrol with them, they truly care about you and will try their best to get you to your career goals.

Linking links to all university specific blogs below.

  1. What I loved about NTU

2. What I loved about NUS

3. What I loved about INSEAD