1. DECISION MAKING
Were you from JC/Poly and what did you study? How was your thought process like when you were choosing your course?
I was from JC and studied BCME (Biology, Chemistry, Math and Economics). For me, honestly there wasn’t much of a thought process; it was just an interest basically. I knew I wanted to study about the environment so it was basically just this course or NUS environmental studies course. But, I mean, looking back, I should have thought about it more carefully, I guess.
What courses/universities were you choosing between? Why this course over the others?
I considered NUS, NTU and I also applied to overseas universities but I couldn’t get a scholarship so I didn’t go.
2. ADMISSIONS/SCHOLARSHIPS
Are you on any scholarship/know people on scholarships? Which scholarships would you advise juniors to look out for?
I think the best scholarships you can get would be from the NTU Universities, the College scholarships or the Nanyang Scholarships. Because to me, I think the no-bond criteria in the scholarship gives you the freedom to explore after university and make your own decisions. Whereas if you do take any local scholarships, you’ll probably be bonded for 4 years, which I think is not worth sacrificing your freedom. And, I would rather just pay $20 000 or $30 000 of school fees.
3. COURSE STRUCTURE
What is the course about?
It’s a science degree, so we study basic sciences. After the first 2 years, we have choices to specialise in different areas, but generally they all revolve around the environment and the earth systems.
What is the course structure like?
When you enter year 1 , for the first 3 semesters, you are taking all the same classes / modules. There are some choices and electives, but generally the core modules are the same as everybody. In the second half of Year 2, you start to specialise and get to choose between 3 specialisations : Ecology & Ecosystems, Society & the Earth System, and Geosciences. From then on, you’re taking your own specialisation modules.
In Year 3 and 4, you hardly see students from other specialisations because their courses are just so different. I think they cover quite a wide range so in
Year 1: you will be taking basic science courses (Chemistry, Physics, Math, Biology, it’s pretty much doing your A levels all over again)
Year 2: you start taking some data science courses, you start taking GIS (geographical information systems) which is a type of software that people use for mapping systems and, one good thing about this course is that it’s very fluid and you have a lot of choice to decide what modules you want to take.
How are lessons and grading like?
Since this course is really small, our batch only had 27 students in total. After we are split into our specialisations, there are only 9 students in each specialisation. There are not really lectures, like they lectured in the tutorial halls. It’s pretty good because it’s just back and forth with the professor because of how few people there are. They could be talking halfway and you could just interrupt them. It has a very tutorial-like environment, and there’s a lot of discussion. It’s a very two way thing.
Grading is mostly through projects and there are some tests, but generally there’s no finals for our courses. They will have a test in week 13 ( but I don’t know, maybe 30% of your final grade) , and the rest will be covered in projects, assignments, reports.
Do you have a lot of project work? What are your projects like?
Yea, I guess so , most of the modules will have presentations, and one or two reports to hand up, and probably group work as well.
How different was it from pw?
I think in a way, it’s always a bit like PW, because you’re working in a group and you have to accommodate to that. But in a sense it’s also very different because the topic and things you are working on are very different, for example the group project could be towards doing a presentation or writing a report so how you work in a group during these 2 different things would be different.
Favourite/least favourite modules?
At the end of Year 1: ES1006, It’s called the introductory appeal experience, so that course is a summer module and it was a core module for everybody. We went to Bali and we learnt basically whatever we learnt in the first year, so we went to the volcano to look at the rocks and the beaches to look at fishes. It was really fun and it was free. So that’s a plus! 🙂
There were supposed to be other courses , for example if you do Ecology at the end of Y2, you go to Sri Lanka, and at the end of Y3, you go to Taiwan. If you do Geoscience, at the end of year 3, you go to California. But all these were kind of scrapped because of COVID. So I think our batch didn’t get to do all these.
There are definitely some modules that are quite repetitive, and fluffy in general, like it wasn’t very well thought out. Like maybe tropical ecology, a lot of the concepts are repeated from previous courses, and you don’t really feel like you aren’t getting too much from it. And especially since it was a year 4 module, so you expected it to be more rigorous, but it’s not.
Who’s suited for this course, and are there any misconceptions that people might have regarding mechanical engineering?
I think having a background in either biology or geography would really help, but it doesn’t mean just because you don’t have that experience you can’t do this course. I think a lot of the learning takes place in the classrooms itself. And maybe even coming in with your preconceptions may be harmful because you want to be able to learn and challenge what you are learning in the course itself.
And yeah, I do think that this course is not really for everybody, because I think it’s really what you want to do in the future. Like if you want to do something related to green finance, it may be better for you to go into finance and then do some sustainability stuff at the side. Or if you want to do, like basically whatever you want to do, there’s probably a more direct path to it than this course.
Misconceptions:
I think when people are looking at this course in general, they are looking at NUS Environmental studies. And yeah, they will try to make a comparison between NTU Environmental Earth Systems and NUS Environmental studies, and they are not exactly comparable in that sense because what you learnt in these two courses is really quite different.
One Misconception for Environmental Earth Systems Science NTU is that you learn about sustainability, policy stuff (you can if you want, but it’s not really part of the core curriculum)
Whereas if you go to Environmental Studies in NUS, that’s what you will be learning.
So in Environmental Earth systems science, as the name suggests, it’s a science course and you learn about physical things that are happening on earth and what is causing these things. You’re not really learning about the activism part, like how do you make change in the world and the policies related to it but you can, if you want, there are courses on it, but it’s not really the main focus.
Was there any expectation that wasn’t fulfilled?
I think at the end of year 1, I was in a mid-uni crisis. I felt I wasn’t learning as much as I wanted to learn and not learning what I wanted to learn. I just felt very jaded, and was contemplating switching courses to something else, probably Business.
But I think eventually what you learnt in uni is not really based on what your course is about, the course is probably 30% or 40% of your whole university experience. Like the rest is mostly figuring out your opportunities, and yeah friendships too.
4. CAREER PROSPECTS
What career paths are available?
It’s a super niche and specific course so not a lot of employers are very familiar with what we study or what we know so a lot of them are very hesitant to employ us right now. Also I think there has only been 4-5 batches that have graduated, as compared to other courses with a big alumni,
I think as long as you have a university degree, there’s a lot of things you can do. And I don’t think you should limit yourself to what your degrees say you can do, like so for example a lot of students in my course, my seniors have pivot into data science, data analysts and software/computer engineering . They go on to do Artificial Intelligence stuff because we do delve in it but it’s not the main thing and you can go and do it if you want:)
For me, I have graduated and am currently working at MAS. I’m doing green finance and a few of my friends are also doing green finance, either as fund managers or in big banks. Some go on to do environmental consultancy so that’s what they will expect you to do, like the real thing. Some also go on to do Environmental risk management.
Can I ask what is the difference between Environmental consultancy and risk management?
So we do similar things, so in Environmental consultancy, you would have some people doing environmental impact assessments, like for instance if you were to do this thing to the environment, what would the damage be? Environmental consultancy also involves providing insights such as environmental audits, air, water and soil assessment and environmental management and remediation solutions whereas risk management involves communicating risk policies and processes for an organisation. They provide hands-on development on risk models involving market, credit and operational risk and ensure controls are operating effectively.
What kind of internships do most mechanical engineering students take on? Any advice for internships?
Just do what you’re interested in. It’s nice if you know early exactly what you want after you graduate because you can start planning your internships around them.
But if you don’t, it’s fine too, you can just do whatever you want and it’s okay.
My first internship was with the government, the Prime Minister’s Office. It was super general and broad and had nothing to do with my course.
My second internship allowed me to be a fund manager in finance, so that was also completely not related to my course and I wouldn’t do it anyway.
My third internship was at a startup. That was quite fun but it wasn’t really worth it because we worked a lot and were underpaid. But I think that’s what all startups are like in general. And I thought it was a good experience and I think everyone should do that HAHA.
5. STUDENT LIFE
Was JC/Poly or Uni more stressful?
I think it’s not more or less, but rather really different types of stress.
In JC: you have very clear goals, objectives and frameworks for you to do what you need to do. And the stress is just there because you want to do well.
In Uni : I mean yeah, you also want to do well in uni but that’s not really the main concern. I think the main concern is figuring out what exactly you really want and how do you get there and what things you should do to move you closer towards that direction. Personally I think trying to figure yourself out is the most stressful thing.
Is the course very stressful/competitive?
Yeah, I think that’s one thing that a lot of people don’t like about my course is that because its small and competitive, and the bell curve is very steep. If you are on the wrong side of the curve, it just really sucks, but if you are on the right side, then it’s just great HAHA. And I think it also depends on your batch, my batch was not as crazy about achieving a high GPA , there would be some people that are competitive but in general, most people will help you if you ask. But I have heard stories from other batches where a lot of snakes exist.
Are there any exchange programmes?
I don’t think exchange programmes are course-specific. Okay, so I don’t really know if it’s relevant now, but I know local exchanges, like SUSEP (Singapore Universities Student Exchange Programmes). They have quotas for each course. And I think coming from a small course, nobody else really applied so it was easier to get. I think for Overseas Universities, there are some UEs (Unrestricted Electives), modules you can take that are easier to match courses than others. But in general they are still quite broad, so you can still go through it.
Did y’all have the GEM exchange in NTU last time?
Yeah, so I did GEM, at the University of Toronto, Canada. So everything is on your own and you have to find your accommodation. And I went alone too but I don’t regret it because it was more fun. And you had to make friends on your own, but I made a lot of cool international friends.
Did you choose to stay in halls? How would you describe your hall life to be? Was it fulfilling to you?
Yes, so I stayed 3 years in hall 8. The first year was really fun. I completely enjoyed myself. Orientation was good and I made a lot of friends and joined a lot of committees and things. I just did normal hall stuff, went out at night and hung out in people’s rooms till late at night, and it was fun. But I think in year 2, a lot of my close friends didn’t stay in halls anymore and I still had some friends but I guess it just wasn’t as fun. And afterwards I stayed overseas for nearly a whole year. By the time I came back, it was Year3 Sem 2, and most of my friends had already left the halls. So by that point of time, it was really just a place to stay.
What do you do in your free time!
My path is a bit different from other people, so I think people may need to take my interview with a pinch of salt HAHA.
In my Y2 Sem2, I went on a local exchange with NUS for one semester, and then after that I went for an overseas exchange for 3 semesters so I wasn’t in NTU for a whole year.
Actually I didn’t take a lot of my core modules at NTU and took them overseas instead.
I was in NTU ODAC in Year 1. It was fun but it got a bit political so I quit. But I do have good friends from there.
And I joined the Diving club for the next three years. I was also in a bunch of hall activities and I was also in the Lifeguard club in NUS. Yeah, I think it’s worth doing all these things in uni, and if you don’t, then you aren’t getting your full education HAHA
Any advice for juniors?
Think carefully about what you want to do, for eg, if you want to be an ecologist, or a marine biologist, then maybe NUS life sciences is better because they have a better science programmes over there, or maybe if you want to do environmental education, then perhaps environment studies in NUS is better because it’s more holistic and covers things like policies. If you want to do a job in climate change mitigation , maybe engineering is better because you can work on seawalls, drainage and livable cities, or if you want to work on livable cities or urban planning it may be better to study urban planning instead.
But I think why you would choose NTU environmental earth system science is , I guess, if you’re not super sure of what you want to do in the future, and you’re still figuring things out.
If you want somewhere where you can have access to an experience in learning about different things and also a lot of advice from mentors and professors, because of how close the community is, you can try environmental earth systems.
But do think about what you want out of the course and also don’t expect to learn everything in the course because I think most of your learning is going to come from what you studied on your own and what you’re interested in.