An NTU scholar opening doors for others
Working seven days a week while pursuing a Mechanical Engineering degree at NTU, Ashsufi's determination earned him the NTU Class of 1985 Scholarship. Today, he pays that opportunity forward through BrightGuides, a free mathematics tutoring programme.
Text: Yee Wei Zhen
For many students, university is where possibilities begin. For Ashsufi, a third-year Mechanical Engineering student at NTU, it is about balancing ambition with responsibility.
Just before he entered university, his father, the family's sole breadwinner, passed away. To support himself, Ashsufi worked seven days a week while keeping up with lectures and assignments, leaving little time to pursue opportunities beyond his studies.
He grew up in a three-room HDB flat with his parents and six siblings, and life was not always easy financially for his family. Yet he consistently excelled academically. At NTU, he has maintained a CGPA in the Highest Distinction range and earned a place in the Undergraduate Research Experience on Campus (URECA) programme, where he worked on the Riemann zeta function – one of the seven Millennium Prize Problems, unsolved since it was first posed in 1859.
In recognition of his academic excellence and potential, Ashsufi was awarded the NTU Class of 1985 Scholarship. Beyond easing his financial burden, the scholarship gave him something equally valuable: time.
“Receiving the NTU Class of 1985 Scholarship changed my life. For the first time, someone looked at everything I was carrying and said, ‘You are capable of more’,” he says.
With fewer hours spent working, Ashsufi began thinking about how he could use his own experiences to support students facing similar challenges.
He turned that idea into BrightGuides, a free mathematics tutoring programme for underprivileged students.
What began with just three students and five volunteers has grown, in just a year, into a community of more than 25 students supported by over 40 volunteers. Together, they have developed a structured mathematics curriculum for students from Primary 1 to Secondary 5, giving volunteers a consistent framework to support learners.
“Ever since I started BrightGuides, I felt that my calling in life is to help others grow and to be the helping hand that I once had. Sometimes, we live in this world to put others first. It is no longer about myself,” he explains.
Learn more about NTU’s Scholarships here.
