Thursday, March 29, 2007
Career Guidance for the Singaporean Undergraduate
This post is meant for the typical Singaporean undergraduates, as already suggested by the title.In this post, I would attempt to suggest some strategies for you take during your undergraduate days, so that you could be at your peak of your potential employability when u graduate. No matter where you you hail from; the respectable one at Jalan Bahar, the close follower at Buona Vista, the flashy newbie in town, or the 4th one near KAP, it should roughly apply to you. If you are going to start ur undergrad days soon, it is also good for you to read abt this. In fact, the earlier you read this in your undergrad days, the better.
If you are one of the few lucky ones who get to go overseas ... we are all jealous to the core of you and will find fault in you staying overseas or in coming back hahaha.
In general, there are 3 types of sgrean undergrad;
1) the mugger toads/study gods / scholars,
2) the average and somewhat balanced individuals
3) the goofer
Of coz, there would be outstanding individuals who can do extremely well in exams and still hold impt posts in ECAs. Kudos to them, they will be well sought after. There's nothing to complain about their ability, esp if you are not one of them (but u still try ur luck with voodoo dolls, I dun recommend it though).
The thing is, most of us are NOT outstanding individuals.
So there really is absolutely NO need for you to go gaga over their achievements are try to be like them, juggling sch work and ECA. The most important thing here, is for you to able to correctly gauge your true academic abilities. You must be frank and realistic to ask yourself, where do you stand academically?
If you are of Type 1s, and you can't understand why people join ECAs, go back to your books. You will be sought after by top tech companies, and you probably would only join a tech company and be a well paid lab rat.
If you are the Type 1s who can understand everything on earth using very short amt of time and hence have lots of spare time, go join a major club and run for a key post in the main comm, preferably the more glamourous posts. Your resume will be glittering like diamonds and gold. Banks would wanna grab you and make you feel on top of the world. In fact, you can join any companies' management trainee program easily (assuming you can speak well and it's a plus point to look good too). You probably dun need any advice from me anyway.
For the rest of us mere type 2 mortals who are serious about our future, BE REALISTIC. If you are the type who work your ass off and can only be second fiddles, don't get stressed up abt beating the gods in their game. Go join some ECAs and take up some main comm posts as well. Better be, take on different portfolios and make yourself look well balanced and experienced in all facets of leadership and management. Then, you can market yourself as a well balanced individual and studies are not everything in your life. Because you can never beat the type 1s in results, but you can still beat most of them in this aspect.
BUT, not all employers like these 'fancy' stuff. Especially tech companies and some snobbish banks. Ultimately, results and technical competencies are important to them. Pple in the above grp will have a hard time getting into management trainee positions. If you can afford to, send yourself to overseas exchange, or overseas internship. Find a good stepping stone by doing your internship at a big MNC. They do help boost your value a bit, if it matters to your prospect employers. My advice is, you gotta be choosy and apply to bigger companies so that your efforts won't go to waste. If you are dying to join a bank, chances are, you can only join them at a lower rung than the management trainees. No harm though, who knows you might be able to do better than them at work with better EQ.
If you are a laggard not by choice, you are probably in the wrong course, or you are simply the type who will need a lot of time to understand the same amt of things. I will advice that you should conc on your studies. You still may join ECAs but preferably not main comm positions that will suck more time from you. Like said before, ultimately results are still important. At least squeeze into honors classes. If you join a lot of ECAs and as a result u repeat modules, it's gonna look ugly. Dun take more time than recommended or needed, because the law of scarcity will eliminate you first in the game of employment (aka HR process). Gek past your undergrad days and hope for a good stepping stone for your first job. Dun be choosy and apply to all companies looking for positions that fit your abilities and interests. Gaining work experiences would be your differentiator from the others in the future.
Lastly if you are type 3, you are going to have it the hardest if you wanna have a choice. Or you can always be a financial planner, a mediocre teacher or any always-open job openings. They do pay well mind you. Actually I dun have much advice for these type of people. Sometimes I dunno wat are they up to. I hate it when they dun keep up during normal school time and keep bothering others to teach them or ask for notes and tutorial solutions near the exams. It feels worse when they dun repeat their subjects.
But life is so unpredictable.
And not necessarily fair.
After all these advice I have, you might still have a path of your job that you want to take for yourself. You might not like the life of a professional or typical management roles. You just want simple things in life. You definitely are not interested in the race that transforms the rest of us into rodents. You have my respect.
taxi taker at 9:54 PM