USP Student Wins Awards at Virtual Competitions
USP student Ng Alison (Law + USP, Class of 2023) formed a team with her NUS friends to compete in two virtual competitions. Alison and her team made an impressive performance – and clinched the Most Business Savvy Team award at the inaugural Singapore Corporate Counsel Association (SCCA) Legal Eagle Challenge in August 2020 and was conferred the Champions Team for the Singapore Business Case Competition in October 2020.
The SCCA Legal Eagle Challenge saw the participants taking on the role of an in-house counsel of a hypothetical charity advising its board of directors on issues that has arisen due to COVID-19. Besides formulating accurate legal advice pertaining to affected lease agreements and event contracts, Alison and her team also addressed the commercial concerns of the board by proposing actionable business ideas (substantiated with a cost-benefit analysis) that could mitigate the charity’s cashflow issues. The team comprises Alison, Johanna Lim Ziyun (Law ’23), Lai Sin Yee (Law ’23), and Nichelle Chee Sijie (Law ’23).
Alison shared with us, “The unique case scenario makes it the ideal opportunity to have a glimpse into the qualities required to be a successful in-house counsel, a career path I was curious to learn more about. Not only were we able to receive invaluable feedback from the esteemed judges, the winning teams were also invited to extremely insightful networking sessions with other experts in the field. Furthermore, this was a meaningful event as it raised funds for Child at Street 11, an independent charity that runs highly subsidised early years education programmes for children.”
“My biggest takeaway is the importance of being versatile thinkers as well as doers. While it was thrilling to be able to adapt the theories we learnt in the classroom into more complex practical scenarios, this competition also pushed us to demonstrate qualities beyond the typical legal skillsets, to analyse problems from the lens of a particular organisation, and adapt the way we communicate innovative solutions to stakeholders with different interests and levels of legal knowledge.”
Inspired and intrigued, Alison and her friends decided to challenge themselves and participated in another competition that was outside of their Law major. Alison, Sin Yee and Nichelle teamed up with Jin Wenqi (Business ’23) to join the Singapore Business Case Competition, organised by NTU Business School. Despite the strong competition of more than 140 submissions from both polytechnic and university students, they emerged the champion and received a prize of $1,200 as well as certificates for the achievement.
Alison and her team had to analyse the key issues BreadTalk Group (the case company for the competition) is experiencing and proposed new methods that can be implemented to help the franchise stay relevant amongst rising competition and shifting demographics, in both local and regional situations. She shares with us her experience participating in virtual competitions for the first time and how being in USP has helped her excel in these competitions.
“My experience with SCCA Legal Eagle Challenge catapulted my interested to learn about realistic business challenges companies face today, and this competition in particular was appealing because it was pre-faced with a comprehensive Virtual Case Workshop, which I thought was the perfect opportunity to equip myself with basic business-specific analytical skills. This spirit of intellectual curiosity, real-world engagement, and the desire to make interdisciplinary connections are all qualities largely cultivated in me by USP, and values that have guided me every step of the way. More importantly, as a group of individuals from different faculties, we learnt to see problems from different points of view, tap on our individual strengths, and complement each other well (another practice often encouraged in USP).”
Alison is grateful for and humbled by these tremendously rewarding learning experiences at USP, and she aspires to continue pursuing and sharing meaningful collaborative efforts in all areas of her diverse academic interests. We can find inspiration in her, in pursuing our interests with courage and determination. Heartiest congrats Alison! We are proud of you.