Graduate Students Club

President: Yuqian Cai

Hi all, I am Yuqian and a second-year PhD student in PPGA. Although living off-campus, hopefully, I will be able to play a liaison and consultant role for SSS students as well as to offer an "outsider" perspective for the GSC on organizational questions like how to increase the participation of off-campus students in on-campus activities, how to facilitate and create opportunities for graduate students to attend events beyond NTU, and how to integrate external resources with internal ones.

Some of my relevant experience includes working full-time at the University of Hong Kong, where my duties involved event planning for alumni club, museum exhibition, and department anniversary; earlier, at Dartmouth College, I was TA, peer tutor, program assistant, and language instructor, for most of which I served as the first point of contact for students with all kinds of concerns, including personal ones like college life, psychological well-being, and discrimination and harassment issues.

Having obtained two master's degrees from Dartmouth and Yale, I am very much aware of the vital importance for graduate students to enjoy a rich social life, which is necessary for many to cope with academic and non-academic pressures alike. As Social Convener & Welfare Representative for the School of Social Sciences, I will try to help build a better environment and structure for SSS students to interact across departments and schools and possibly with other universities and organizations.

Role description: Leads the planning and execution of the club's events.

Vice President: Wang Shuqi

My name is Wang Shuqi, and I am a third-year full-time PhD student of PPGA. The Honorary General Secretary for me refers to someone who handles much of the administrative matters at SSS-GSC to ensure proper record-keeping and operation. The main goal of this position should be to engage in communication with other members of the club to improve the quality of events offered by SSS-GSC. In the academic year of 2020-2021, I was lucky to be elected as the Honorary General Secretary and worked with my fellow members together for several events such as club bonding, club meetings, Brownbag seminars and other activities. I tried my best to play a helpful and coordinating role within the committee. Before joining SSS-GSC, I had taken a similar role during my school days as well as in my previous work experience. I used to be the secretary of an association during my undergraduate years. Aside from assisting in annual events, I was responsible for organizing regular meetings and managing minutes to be distributed to members as well. After that, I was elected as the coordinator of the CAMPUS Asia program at PKU. I was tasked with collecting information, assisting in visa, health insurance, residence card issues and maintaining contact between students and staff in charge of administrative as well as professors within the program. During one year of living abroad, I have organized at least three gatherings among students from China, Japan and South Korea to enrich their experience overseas. When I worked at the Foundation as a project officer after my master's program, my main job was to organize business trips overseas and to contact institutions, experts and keep company with groups during my visits. So I'm familiar with the role of secretary. In addition to that, I've completed all course requirements and will focus on the dissertation next academic year. This means that I have more freedom to devote my time and work to serving the community, not only for the duties of this position but also for other helpful tasks. I hope our joint efforts can help the club better serve everyone at SSS.

Role description: Responsible for convening club and related meetings and keeping the minutes of the meetings.

Honorary General Secretary : Hicret Atilgan

Hi all, I am Hicret and I am a fourth-year PhD student from the Division of Psychology. I got my bachelor's degree on Biological Sciences and Bioengineering at the International University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Then I did my masters on Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Trento, Italy, where I also worked as a research assistant after completing my masters. I started my PhD, Psychology at January 2019 intake at NTU under Prof. Ryo Kitada's touch lab. I am working on projects that involve conducting TMS and fMRI on multisensory processing in the lateral occipito-temporal cortex. I became the subject representative for psychology in the 3rd SSGSC Management Committee. After that, I became president in the 4th SSGSC Management Committee and serving my second term on the 5th committee. My time at the club enabled me to develop friendships with my peers and be familiarized with the administrative producers. I hope to continue to serve SSS postgraduate students and be a bridge between them and the administration. Additionally, based on the friendships I have developed from different departments, clubs I am aiming to continue to help students reach each other across disciplines.

Role description: Identifies and monitors the club's activities and ensures that the year's planned events and goals are met.

Honorary Treasurer : Yu Xinfang

My name is Yu Xinfang, a PhD student in the Department of Sociology. I serve as  Honorary Treasurer in the School of Social Sciences Graduate Student Club. Previously, I obtained a year of work experience in clinical psychology at a public hospital after graduated from Bachelor and Master’s degree in Psychology. In my role, I assisted doctors during patient consultations along with the writing of case reports and clinical description. This required me to be detail-oriented in the areas of case formulation, clinical assessment, treatment planning as well as being organized in documentation. My experiences have led to be appreciation the importance of professional integrity, as patient confidentiality is paramount in my work role. This is crucial for the handling of financial matters as the Honorary Treasurer that oversees all financial matters related to the club. In addition, my research work involves me being comfortable with large datasets and using referencing software to organize references. These further demonstrate my meticulousness and organizational skills needed for managing financial matters, such as accounting and the documentation of receipts. Taken together, I believe that my experiences indicate my meticulousness and organizational skills which would be crucial for the responsibilities of an Honorary Treasurer.

Role description: Oversees all financial matters related to the club.

Subject Representative (PPGA): Wu You

I took the role of subject representative because, as a first-year international student pursuing my PhD in Singapore, I understand how hard it would be for international students to fit themselves into a completely different environment. Further, as a public policy student who comes from another background, I am also aware of the obstacles that may arise when students from indirectly related fields endeavor to become researchers in political sciences. Considering the diversified backgrounds (in both the national and academic sense) of graduate students in PPGA, I am keen to represent the students' voice at a variety of levels, to provide a different perspective to contribute to PPGA students' experiences and to facilitate in their integration into the community.

My relevant experience includes working as the program leader in AIESEC, a college student-based NPO that offers international employment and volunteer opportunities for young people worldwide. During the time, I engaged in design and planning for volunteer activities, recruitment and training for international volunteers, and coordination in volunteer projects. The experience as the leader of international volunteer programs equipped me with the ability to organize and lead a team with diversified backgrounds, to cope with all kinds of pressures of team members during the projects, and to respect the thoughts and needs of every member in the team.

As the subject representative of PPGA, I am keen to ease the process for students to integrate into the community of PPGA and the School of Social Sciences by organizing a variety of subject-based activities and providing wide and interactive information channels.   I will listen to students' views and work actively to enhance effective approaches (if ever needed) to both teaching and learning. I will take the role of contributing to the shaping of all aspects of the student experience, both academic and non-academic.

Role description: Represents the interests and concerns of their respective subjects to the club.

Subject Representative (Economics): Wang Yan

I am Wang Yan, a PhD student in Economics, supervised by Prof. Yohanes Eko Riyanto. I serve as the Subject Representative in Economics. As a Subject Rep, I am supposed to represent students' voices at a variety of levels in both academic and non-academic areas; address students' concerns; assist in the investigation of students' problems, and participate in decisions affecting the experience at NTU of students. In the next semester, I will conduct an interview with faculty from our division to share their experience at NTU (like research and life at NTU, the academic journey leading to NTU, advice on research for PhD students, etc.) and to liaise between the faculty and graduate students. In addition, I will help with the orientation, GSC brown-bag seminars and some other academic activities.

Role description: Represents the interests and concerns of their respective subjects to the club.

Subject Representative (Sociology): Cheung Ross

This is Ross Cheung from Hong Kong. My career aim is to bridge the gap between university and society. Through this committee position, I can see there is an opportunity for gathering the needs of the graduate community in general, voicing out the collective's demand, and acting on behalf of the SSS graduate community. It is also the position to communicate our research and teaching in SSS to our internal community on campus, potential students and researchers to NTU, and the greater international audiences. Especially during this special time of the global pandemic, there must be Social Sciences knowledge and practices that can understand the impacts on our society and NTU graduate students, interpret the implications, and recommend the necessary reform. I hope the sociological imagination of connecting personal stories and societal patterns will be helpful in this regard.

Role description: Represents the interests and concerns of their respective subjects to the club.

Subject Representative (Psychology): Pan Lei

Hi, I am Pan Lei and I am a third-year PhD student from the Division of Psychology under the supervision of Prof Suzy J Styles. My research focuses on speech perception, child development, psychology of infant language and bi/multilingualism. Being a graduate student in the School of Social Sciences, I am impressed by how the faculty members and administration office spare no effort to encourage and support students during this challenging period in the aspect of life as well as research. During the last year, it has been an honor for me to serve as the Psychology Subject Representative of the School of Social Sciences Graduate Students Club. For the upcoming year, I will do my best to assist the arrangement of seminars and activities for the club, including the brownbag seminar, orientation events and 3-minute thesis symposium. I hope that our joint efforts could help bring about positive change to the work environment and studying life of SSS graduate students.

Role description: Represents the interests and concerns of their respective subjects to the club.