The 10 things I wished someone had told me entering college (part 2)

#6) Make friends. Singaporeans have an extremely bad tendency of clumping together... really if you wanted to hang out with other Singaporeans, why fly 10,000 miles away from home. I stuck with 3 of my American room-mates for all 4 years, and I am grateful for the very close friendships that I have with many of my American friends (many of whom I am still in touch with). .. but there's no better way to give you an insight to the US as well as lend a different perspective to the issues we are grappling with in Sg

#7) Write a dissertation and get yourself  involved in research. The crux of a university is the creation of knowledge, not the regurgitation of knowledge... so I don't think you really get a quintessential part of university without yourself engaging in the creation of knowledge by writing a dissertation itself.

Writing a dissertation helps you not just to crystallize your knowledge, but in helping you develop your toolset to solve the problem that you have chosen. You will also learn how to choose the right problem which is not a trivial task.

To write a dissertation it is important that you get involved in research. For those in the hard sciences and engineering, it's important that you join a lab group early on (even in your first year, if not your first summer). If there aren't paid RA positions, offer to work for free. For the social sciences, it is important to identify faculty that you can/ want to work with. Start with the things that you are really passionate about and take the initiative to approach them.  

#8) Find and develop mentors and learn as much as you can from them. 
You will be surprised by how few people actually make the effort to attend office hours. As much as possible, it is important to find mentors that you can learn from. They can be your seniors, graduate students or professors... and make it a point to learn as much you can from them... you don't know how much you might need their knowledge and assistance in the future.

I got into graduate school because of David Bradford, a public economics expert who came up with the X-tax ( a flat corporate and personal tax). I worked with him on global climate change and never learnt anything from him about public finance and the X-tax. It was only when I got to MTI that I regretted not having learnt anything from him having asked to look at suggestions to reform corporate taxation by my bosses because he had passed on by then. I cried while working through the stuff, all the while wishing that he was still around.

#9) Take more classes than you need....  Don't limit yourself by the classes that you have to take or are required to take. I frequently sat in for up to 7-8 classes per semester as an undergraduate (where the usual load is 4-5)... In most cases I would be enrolled (since Princeton didn't have a cap on maximum number of classes) ... and I did so even though it didn't help me graduate earlier or with more degrees. you never know what you might learn or pick up.

#10) The best things in life are for free.  I wrote about working for free... but is not just that. It's about working for the things in our life that we are truly and deeply passionate about. This is one of few times in life where you have the space and time to give yourself to your dreams. Write down your dreams, tell people about them, write about them...

The 10 things I wished someone had told me entering college (part 1)

It's the start of the academic school year... and instead of rehashing some of the advice I have tried to give incoming students... I thought it would be useful to write all of this up. I try to identify the most useful things, things I wish someone told me when I was 18.... things I have only found out were extremely useful say

#1) Get ample opportunity to work on your writing.

Most colleges prescribe a writing requirement. But I cannot reiterate the importance of learning (relearning) how to write. In many occupations, most especially if you end up working in the government... you will be judged predominantly by your writing. Writing is a hard skill to "teach" as well as to "learn" and the best way to learn how to write is to write and get feedback. I did the most writing in my first semester in college... my political theory class required 1,500 word essay every two weeks, and my history of medieval europe required 500 words every two weeks. So I was writing every week. I had a painful experience learning how to write from my political theory tutor. She liked the ideas I had, but I was just wasn't doing justice to those ideas and it got so bad that she gave me a C+/B- on my second essay (very bad in American terms). She wouldn't take the "I used to be a science student, I can't write excuse" and literally coached me through the remaining weeks. My vindication came when I got an A+ on my final exam paper.

#2) Be on top of numbers. Make sure that you include a Statistics/Econometrics/Accounting class. Whatever your job is, you invariably have to look at numbers, learn to be discriminating with them, and also use them to your advantage. The use of statistics teaches you to learn how to communicate and think with numbers.

#3) Learn how to program. okay I don't care what major you are, but in this digital day and age, I regard programming skills as quintessential... after all you use the computer every day, don't you? When you get to work, it's not that you will end up programming... but very often, if you have to deal with data, it is useful to know how the computer programmers have set up the database, and how it can be improved. Warning here... programming classes are and can be painful.... expect 20 hours of work every week, or as I tell people 2 hours of programming and 18 hours of debugging... but treat it as "character building" ... you won't regret it.

#4) Don't pass up a chance to learn a new language. I took up both French and Japanese in college.... (my claim to fame was to do a sequential translation from French to English for Abbe Pierre to 600-700 people). Learning another language is a way to communicate and connect to people of different cultures, and to learn and appreciate from their different experiences. It also helps us appreciate our own heritage and culture more.

#5) Work on your communication skills. The underlying thread behind #1-#4 is all about communication.... #1 is about communicating through writing, #2 is about communicating through numbers ... and when you learn #3 you realise that learning programming is almost like learning another language. To this mix, I would learning how to speak, make powerpoint presentations, not make powerpoint presentations... One of the best things here in the US elementary school education is that kids do show and tell starting from kindergarten. It's a skill that you never stop learning.

The Good Samaritan

"A man in torn clothes sprawls across an urban sidewalk. He moans softly. Pedestrians hurry by with no more than a worried glance. No one stops to help. Someone watching from afar might wonder at such uncaring behavior; surely some conscientious person would stop. Moreover these pedestrians are all young adults wearing clerical garb, seminarians studying for the ministry. Why did they not stop? Researchers who staged this test found that seminary students did not stop because they worried about being late. Their personal obligation to keeping an appointment outweighted their general commitment to helping others" --Michael J Lovaglia, From Summer Camps to Glass ceilings: the power of experiments.

What to do on your first day, week, month at work

Instead of repeating this advice over to successive generations of interns, I thought I would take the time to pen some of this down. I think for those who are starting out work, this is a useful to do list.... or should I say, these are the things which you aren't told to do, but you should do...


1) Go around and make friends
This is the most important and critical advice, so I am putting this up front. Work (unlike you school) is a team sport not an individual sport. Your success is dependent on the efforts of the people around you, and so is their success dependent on your efforts. Hence, it is important not only to go around to make friends, it is important to be generous and helpful to not just your bosses but the people around you.

2) Take notes
If this is any job that is worth your salt, you will be deluged by knowledge, information, data, insights, observations. If you aren't, it probably means you aren't getting out and attending enough meetings, chatting up with enough people or volunteering for enough work, or reading enough.

What are good notes? Use the "as if you there" rule. For someone that didn't attend the meeting, reading a set of good notes, would be as good as if one were attending the meeting and listening to everything. For someone who hasn't read a book, article, lecture, reading a good set of notes would be as good as reading the original, except that the person would save time going through the process itself.

Keeping notes is also one way to make sure you are trying your best to understand and digest all that you are taking in.

Or yes, no matter how senior you are... remember whenever you are the best junior person in a meeting, your responsibility is to take notes. There is no need for your superior to designate and assign you for this...

3) Write up your cheat sheet
To do your job well, you need to have certain numbers, facts, figures at your finger tips. In the event that your bosses require such information, you should place yourself as a turn-to person when people need such numbers. Very often, ball park numbers are required... However, it is important to be familiar with the numbers and memorise some of the critical numbers, so that you can give good ball park estimates when called for.

Nothing is more irritating when in the course of a discussion, a decision point hinges on a lack of information/data point that is readily available on ought to be at an officer's fingertips. Hence start first with asking what kind of numbers you need to know for your job... in the financial sector, it might be that you need to know what the STI level is, every morning... if your job is in the area of productivity, you better know what are productivity growth rates are like.

If your memory ain't that great, like mine, do up cheat sheet... write down the numbers that you frequently are called upon to use, and if necessary mug up these numbers from time to time.

4) Start populating your data book
What I also do is to collect various data, spreadsheets in a "data book" folder. This is where I go to for all the facts, numbers I need to substantiate the arguments I am going to make. I also try to anticipate what kinds of facts and figures of need proactively, instead of only responding when senior management asks for info.

This helps you look professional and prepared. Always ready...

5) Do up a powerpoint template
I don't believe that form trumps substance... however, if you have good substance, please do sufficient justice to your good substance by having good form. So one of the first things you do is to come up with a useable powerpoint template.

What I usually do is to take from the corporate template that is available, and make the necessary changes to the fonts, sizes, for my use. This saves precious time when making up snazzy presentations.

6) Find out what people are reading
If you want to learn from others, find out what they are reading. Be Kay Poh enough to sneak around their tables, or ask them about what they are reading, and do, from time to time, borrow books off their shelves.

7) Come up with your reading list
I cannot reiterate this more... You want to do well, you must read more than you are required. That means, that in college, you must be prepared to read beyond your reading list when taking your courses. In your work, it means that you must read beyond what is required on your job.

From time to time too, do read something totally way left field (i.e. totally unrelated to what you doing)... you never what insights you might be able to obtain...

One of colleagues had one good practice. Every pay day, he would make it a point to go to the book store and buy a book... this was in addition to the books he borrowed and read... but I was really inspired by the point behind this... which is the willingness to invest $$$, time in your reading and development.

Interview and Resume Writing Tips Part II

Okay, I will move onto the interview proper for this second part. All this advice has been drawn from my experiences interviewing candidates for university admission, for jobs (and I think I have done a fair bit of interviews by now.

The first thing I will say is that Singaporeans really do rather badly at interviews. I don't really know where to attribute this: is it the fault of schools for not teaching students these real-life skills? is it because we don't like to sell ourselves because of our Confucian values? Are we too comfortable? I really don't know. But this is bad news is really good news for those of you that prepare well for your interviews.... the competition ain't that great. So don't really stress if you can't follow all ten tips... I am sure if you do a couple of them well, you will be well ahead of the competition.

#5 Do your homework.
There is simply no excuse for this one. Especially in this day and age of the Internet. Anyplace you interview, you better make sure that you have scoured the web for everything that you can possibly find on the particular company you are interviewing for. I was particularly impressed when one university candidate managed to hunt down an essay I had written in my undergraduate days (of course, she would have scored more brownie points if she had read the essay and came up her viewpoint with regards the points I raised in the essay).

Just as important it is for you to show your numbers in your resume, you must bother to remember the numbers that the company has on its websites. (A company's website is pretty much their resume) If you don't bother to remember these numbers, who should your interviewers reciprocate by remembering your numbers?

Researching the company means you must know what are the key thrusts they are moving to. You can find this in their media mentions and on their websites. After all these are the thrusts they are trying to promote... and you need to know this for the next tip.

#6 Show how you can contribute.
Having done the homework, you know have to show how you can contribute to the mission of the company... with the skills, talents, experiences and passion that you have. You have to show why the agency is going to be better off with you, because if you can't even make this argument, why should they even hire you?

#7 Enjoy the process.

This is perhaps the hardest piece of advice.... but yes, you have got to enjoy the whole process.... In fact the more you enjoy it the more your interviewers will enjoy it... and the person they will pick is the person they simply enjoyed interviewing with, because they want to have the opportunity to continue talking to them.

Congratulations

Would just like to take this opportunity to congratulate all the interns and high fivers on their A level results. I am sure all of you guys did really well. No worries, I am not going to ask the interns to post their results on their blog.

I would like also take this opportunity to wish all of you all the best in applying for university, courses, scholarships. Please tell me if there is anywhere I can help in the process, whether by doling up advice, writing testimonials, or introducing you to some of my friends who may be better placed to advise you.

I have also done up Top Ten List of what to do for interviews which all you will find helpful. I had previously arranged a session on this with the Interns, understand that 2 or 3 of the High Fivers came but had to leave before I could start the session. Anyhows, if there is still sufficient demand, I don't mind conducting another session. (just post comments on this)

Tips on Resume Writing and Interview Techniques Part I

My first session with the interns was the go through their resumes. I thought I would take the opportunity to summarise some of the advice I had for them in writing resumes as well as interview techniques...

I will start first with the resume writing stuff...

#1 Be different
The most fundamental role of resumes and interviews is to stand out.... and yes, stand out in the right way. You must walk out of the interview room leaving an impression of just how unique and special you are. The bad news is that this something really tough to do, the good news is that most Singaporeans generally suck at this.... so you don't have to do too well to stand out. It's tough, because for the last twelve years, you should be very worried if you put down an answer that is very different from every body else in your exams. When it comes to interviews/resumes, you should be very worried if you are NOT different from everybody else walking through that door.

So when it comes to the resume, I want to read about how different you really are. I am not so interested by the number of As you have, because everybody seems to have the same number of them. Mention it by all means, but don't waste time on it. I am particularly interested in what is your project title for your project work, because this is something you and your team mates presumably chose, and its something different that I can talk to you/ find out and learn more about.

This was something I shared with the interns "You don't really know who you are until you are different from everyone else." What's really behind this statement? Honestly, if we are just doing whatever else is doing, how do we know that this is really what we want to do, or we are just folloing everyone else?

#2 Explain things in your resume.
please do not assume that I know all about your platinium award that you have received in your school. don't just give one liner explanations about what you doing, but explain it out. Resumes are predominantly written in point form, however, in appropriate junctures you may wish to switch to prose to explain things which are not particularly clear to the people who are interviewing you. For instance in my resumes I use when I am overseas, I will have a short paragraph that explains what the administrative service is.

#3 Add in numbers.
Numbers are what make resume professional and solid. Examples...
Bad: Awarded platinium award for social service
Good: Awarded platinium award (Top 50 out of 1600 students) for social service

Bad: organised programmes for elderly, in charge of budget...
Good organised programmes on a monthly basis reaching out to 80 elderly over 100 hours.

The numbers don't have to be high, and some numbers are always be better than no numbers.

#4 Be prepared to talk about anything on your resume
Your resume is pretty much your script so you must be prepared to rattle off a positive spiel about every single thing you are going to put down. If you put down that you were say section leader in the choir, you must be prepared to tell a pretty good story when asked about this experience.
This is one way to figure out what to put in your resume: figure out what you want to talk about, or what you think your interviewer might be curious to find out about you and put it into your resume. You must know what are the interesting titbits in YOUR life, it musn't be the case, where the interviewer has to snoop high and low just to uncover something really interesting about yourself.