In collaboration with Checkpoint Theatre, USP Career Services invited USP alum Lucas Ho (English Literature + USP, Class of 2009) to speak to USP students, and share about his life journey from civil servant to professional playwright and theatre-maker. He will also share about the lessons he has picked up along the way from working in the arts, and how they apply outside of the theatre. This session will be useful not only for aspiring writers looking to continue their craft after graduation, but for anyone considering less conventional career paths. Checkpoint Theatre is a theatre company set up by Huzir Sulaiman (USP adjunct faculty) and Claire Wong to develop local writing and theatre. You may read more about USP alums in the Singapore theatre scene in this USP Highlights story.

Join this conversation with USP faculty Dr Leung Wing Sze and two invited speakers – Mr John Gee (Transient Workers Count Too) and Mr Zakir Hossain Khokon (a construction supervisor and freelance journalist) – as they look at various issues of migrant labour in Singapore. Mr Zakir, also the winner of the 2014 and 2015 Migrant Worker Poetry Contest in Singapore, will read some of his poems during the session. All USP community are invited to attend.

Master’s Commons, USP Master’s Commons, USPMa Dou Dou is a recent graduate of the NUS-Waseda Double Degree Programme (DDP) who currently works at NSAID New Australian Institute of Social Development. Since completing the DDP, he has spent much of his time on qualitative research projects with non-profit organisations in Yunnan, and his work questions whether modernisation truly brings social development to rural villages in China. In this talk, Dou will share and discuss some of his experiences during his research in Yunnan, and will also touch on research opportunities for USP students. Dou will be joined by Li Aiyu, an experienced social worker, and USP alum Zhang Xintian (History + USP, Class of 2015) whose work at the DBS Foundation sheds some light on the application of innovative solutions to facilitate social development in China.

All students are welcome to join Miriam in the series of poetry workshop to explore: • What is the “responsibility of the poet”? • How do poetry and the arts fit into a social justice framework? • What are the ways fieldwork can inform and enrich creative writing and academic scholarship? • What less tangible “ways of knowing “ can poetry offer that other fields do not?