Please share with us your professional life’s journey and at which point in your career did you aspire to pursue this FlexiMasters?

With the pandemic highlighting the urgent need to scale up investment in lifelong learning, I thought what better way to embrace lifelong learning than through NTU FlexiMasters in Instructional Design (E-Learning). Since my internship and final year project during my studies at NTU School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering were related to creating educational packages in the form of videos and games for technical engineers and students respectively, my interest in instructional design grew. When I found out that PaCE@NTU was offering a huge range of course subjects, I explored different fields but ultimately, instructional design was the one that benefitted me the most in both my interest and skillset to explain and translate technical concepts to audience with no technical background.

Has this FlexiMasters benefitted you in your career development?

This FlexiMasters benefitted me in allowing me to identify performance gaps among my colleagues or even customers and coming out with a prepared instructional outline to propose solutions to resolve their issues or any disputes they have. From the customers' perspectives, I believe that I can also value-add by providing engaging resources for them to understand any technical jargons as well as instructional resources to effectively use our products and solutions.

What were the challenges you faced when trying to complete this FlexiMasters?

The struggle to manage both work and study is real. My first semester was a challenge, having to manage work tasks and the course assignments from the two courses I took, resulting in many sleepless nights. But I was heartened to have an amazing colleague who frequently drove me to campus after work since his house was near NTU. My supervisors were also very understanding and allowed me to leave office earlier on days I had lessons.

Describe the factors that led you to choose PaCE@NTU.

As an NTU student then, I always appreciated the fact that NTU gave us opportunities to broaden our learning experiences through electives and minors we could take in the different specialisations. Despite being a EEE student then, I took up two minors out of my discipline - Communication Studies and Entrepreneurship. These courses exposed me to knowledge in different specialisations, and also developed me to become a lifelong learner, which I'm exhibiting now, taking on the FlexiMasters in another specialisation. PaCE@NTU, as the centre for continuing education for NTU, made it possible for me, and I am more than happy to take up the FlexiMasters through them.

Will you recommend PaCE@NTU’s programmes to your friends and family?

Definitely. I have shared how I have benefitted from this FlexiMasters with my friends and family. Not many of my peers know about the $1,600 alumni course credits given by NTU for the alumni. Upon knowing this, many of them actually signed up for relevant courses that they felt will benefit them in their careers. It's definitely heartening to see how everyone in Singapore is slowly engaging in lifelong learning.

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