All entries for Sunday 22 October 2017

Summer 2017

After a long first year at Warwick, I returned home ready to spend quality time with family. At the same time, I wanted to make the most of my summer.

Technology is known to be the future in numerous industries (especially so in finance) - thus, I decided to learn coding as I believed it would be a useful skill. So I took up an online coding class called CS50: Introduction to Computer Science. As it was a self-paced course, I had the freedom to plan my classes around my meet-ups with relatives and friends and that was really convenient for me. At the same time, I attended a couple of supplementary coding classes organised by General Assembly, an organization which aims to bridge the global gap in education and in-demand skills that employers are looking for. I found this a lot easier to digest than CS50 as I was able to ask questions and clear up my doubts as and when they popped up. It also challenged me to consider various viewpoints of my classmates, and even managed to network with students currently studying in NTU! Overall, it was good fun, and although I do not see the practical application of my (very limited) understanding of coding, I feel that I should continue building on my knowledge throughout the year and it will come in handy soon.

Across the summer, I also went for a few personal investment courses held at the SGX building, which offered advice on how to plan out my future finances/investments, especially in terms of real-estate and certain financial instruments. While they were highly basic (and in most cases, introductory) courses, what I took away from those courses is that it is never too early to start planning for the future.

The scholarship dinner this summer was also a great way to reconnect with the trustees as well as meet current/new contributors to my scholarship. While it was a great experience to go up on stage and share all the interesting things that I have done in my first year, it was even better to network with an interesting set of professionals from extremely different backgrounds (think a Senior Commodities Trader and a Director of Education at NTU) and listen to their opinions and advice on various issues. Overall it was good to know that there are so many people who are supporting us as scholars and said so many kind words - it gave me motivation to do even better!

I also had a couple of friends from Indonesia and Lithuania visit me on internships in /holidays to Singapore. While it was nice to meet my own Singaporean friends, it was refreshing to have friends from Warwick come visit me as well!

While I did not manage to get an internship this summer in the field I'm interested in, I believe I took the time to take a step back to re-evaluate my priorities as well as mentally prepare for the year ahead. Now that I'm back in Warwick, it's heartwarming to meet up with friends who have had various experiences over summer and to hear their stories. Living off-campus (Canley) also seems to be less hectic than I expected it to be. It also helps that many friends are living nearby ie a few minutes' walk. Overall, I'm looking forward to the experiences that 2nd year has in store for me!

Chandra Dhanabal : 22 Oct 2017 18:17 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem