The invisible weight and the bursary that lifted it
His parents tried to shield him from their financial worries, but undergraduate Jun Hong felt the weight all the same. An NTU bursary gave him the peace of mind to pursue his ambitions, mentor others, and aspire to one day pay that generosity forward.
Text: Yee Wei Zhen
Growing up, third-year Accountancy student Tan Jun Hong's parents never wanted him to worry about money.
His father was retrenched during the pandemic, after 15 years with a manufacturing company. Rising costs later forced his mother to close the school canteen stall she had run for years. Through it all, they shielded him from their financial struggles and urged him to focus on his studies.
But Jun Hong could see that things had changed.
While he was studying at a polytechnic, his family's regular income came to an end. They lived off their savings as his parents took on ad-hoc jobs whenever they could, while Jun Hong worked part-time in the F&B industry to help ease the burden. As their savings dwindled, he began to wonder if he could afford a university education.
"My parents never talked about money in front of me. But I could tell the numbers weren't adding up. That worry sat with me for a long time," he says.
When he entered NTU, Jun Hong continued to contribute to his family's finances by tutoring younger students from his church. Balancing his studies, tutoring, and campus and church commitments was demanding.
"24 hours in a day is not enough," he says. "It just felt like I was going through the motions, just surviving each day."
A turning point came when he was awarded the Dr Ho Ngiap Kum Bursary.
"It felt like an immediate weight was lifted off my shoulders. The bursary has helped me in more ways than I can imagine," he shares.
With some of the financial pressure eased, Jun Hong was able to devote more time and energy to his studies and the people around him. As Vice President of the Nanyang Business School (NBS) Accounting & Assurance Team, he found purpose in mentoring his juniors, helping them build a strong foundation as they embarked on their own university journeys.
"Somebody decided to invest in the future of a student they had never met. It's something I think about very often today," he says.
Jun Hong hopes to become an audit partner one day and provide for his parents, just as they provided for him.
"I hope to be someone who can extend generosity to other students in the future, too."
Learn more about NTU’s bursaries.
