“$50,000 is both a fantastic opportunity and responsibility, and we intend to channel the funds towards three key initiatives that we are expanding in 2021 and beyond. These are, namely, the Advisory Educators Roundtable which we’re putting together with the NUS Centre for Future-ready Graduates, an online Guidance platform where students can get ad hoc industry consultations with working professionals, as well as the Advisory Schools Programme in partnership with the Ministry of Education.

As a whole, it’s been such an incredible learning journey for us. For example, it has given us a huge glimpse into the policy process that we otherwise wouldn’t have had. By speaking to the MOE [Ministry of Education] and WSG [Workforce Singapore] staff members at different levels, we got a better sense of the kinds of policies that have been put in place, the landscape that exists, and it really allowed us to take a deeper dive into the way that career guidance works in Singapore. All the 12 finalist teams coming out of this are supported with at least the $30,000 grant, which means that no matter what prizes people walk away with, we all have some form of support to take these wonderful ideas forward and to hopefully make some small difference in our society.

Personally, it has been a valuable opportunity interacting with the various professionals, attending the developmental workshops, and learning from the 56 other teams in the YAC. In particular, I was very encouraged by the impact that youths can make, when our passion and youthful idealism are supported by the various opportunities that individuals and organisations provide. 

My past two years in USP have been formatively instrumental to the person I am today. I recall having been pleasantly surprised, when I first started my USP journey, by the multitude of opportunities available — and in particular, the autonomy that students like myself had in initiating ground-up activities to benefit the community. These include the opportunities such as planning the Pan-Asian Student Forum 2018 with NUS as the host university; the flexibility that my Princeton Diplomatic Invitational team had in training the next batch of student delegate;  as well as the encouragement that USP has provided in all our student life activities, such as the dinner conversations which we hold with invited guests. Beyond these, the House System and the USP Ambassadors programme were also platforms for us to hone our spirit of service and leadership in camaraderie with others. These fuelled my desire to step out of my comfort zone and do more; and in Year 2, I decided to step up as an Executive team member in Advisory, leveraging on my USP experiences to seek to lead programmes to benefit more youths. I’m also thankful to USP for their encouragement all this while — especially to Mr Alfred Lim, USP Career Services officer, and A/P Loy Hui Chieh, for their support towards Advisory’s work.