Month: October 2011

Economics Student Tops Competition for GIC Essay Prize

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MichaelWan
Michael Wan with Mr Lim Siong Guan, Group President, GIC

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences recent graduate, Michael Wan, was the inaugural winner of the GIC Essay Prize. At the crux of his essay on “Post-Financial Crisis: Key Lessons, Opportunities and Recommendations for Asia’s Institutional Investors” were three points: 1. the need to fundamentally re-think risk management; 2. the debunking of the belief in efficient and rational markets; and 3. the increasing disparity between the developed and developing world, thus increasing the need to understand the nuances of each country before investing.

An Economics Honours student, Michael has always been passionate about the workings of the world economy and he saw the Essay Prize as a practical way of applying knowledge gained through internships and classes in NUS. Indeed, he seems to have a treasure trove of knowledge; what was most challenging to him was not the lack of ideas but the condensing of his ideas to fit the 2000-word requirement. He says, “I could have touched on so many aspects of the Global Financial Crisis”.

Michael has just completed an internship with RBS on the economic research desk and will be joining the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) as a property market analyst at the end of the month.

At the award presentation ceremony on 7 October 2011, GIC Group President, Mr Lim Siong Guan, was on hand to present the prize to Michael and second prize winner, Ting Zuo Min from the NUS Business School. The first prize winner received $5,000, while the second prize winner received $2,000. Mr Lim was joined by GIC’s senior management who oversee GIC’s investment groups, economics and investment strategy.

The GIC Essay Prize was launched in April 2010 to deepen interest and understanding in the areas of finance and investment among undergraduates. The annual essay competition is open to all undergraduates studying in Singapore, or Singaporean and Singapore PR undergraduates studying overseas. Submissions are now being accepted for the 2011/2012 competition. For more information, please click here.

SAP TERP10 : Information Session on 19th October

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Dear Fellow Students,

In the current working environment, IT systems are a necessity in order to ensure a firm’s competitiveness. Companies of today rely heavily on enterprise systems to carry out their business processes, regardless of the industries they belong to.

With such widespread use of enterprise systems in the workplace, you will find that a globally-recognized Information Systems certification will increase your employment prospects and your knowledge of the business processes that goes on inside a large enterprise.

The School Of Computing Students Trainer Team will be conducting certification workshops for the SAP TERP10 systems this coming December. SAP is the world’s No. 1 provider of enterprise information systems. Upon attending this workshop and passing the examination you will receive a globally recognized SAP Certificate.

By attending this workshop, you can enjoy the following benefits:

Independent of Industry Type – SAP systems are used by governments and MNCs from a large range of industries such as Aerospace Engineering, Pharmaceuticals, Accounting Firms and many more. Attending the workshop will allow you to understand the functions of such companies better. You will stand to benefit even if you are not a Computing student.

Increased Employability – The SAP certification is conducted on a global level and is recognized worldwide. Having such a certification on your resume enhances your prospect of employment in the near future

Affordable Course Fees – The workshops are offered at an affordable price of $680 (non-SoC students) and $650 (SoC students). A similar cost conducted out of school could cost up to $8000.

Interested? Come on over to our SAP Information Session to find out more!

Details of the session are as follows :

Date : 19th October 2011

Time : 1815PM to 1945PM

Venue : Seminar Room 7 at COM1 #02-07

If you have any inquiries, please direct to terp10@comp.nus.edu.sg . Thank you and we are looking forward to seeing you there!

Fifteen Flying Fijians have Fantastic Fun in Fiji

fasswebmaster Student Bloggers, Undergraduate

“Where is Fiji?”
“What do they look like?”
“What do they speak?”
“How does it look like?”

These were the initial reaction of friends and family when we first told them that we were going to Fiji and occasionally, there would be well-meaning chimes of, “Oh, have fun in Japan!”

Sent on a mission to discover the answers to all the questions and (secretly) super proud to be the first 15 NUS Geography Majors to step foot on Fiji, we packed our bags and set off for a ten-day fieldtrip to the South Pacific island from the 15th to 26th of September.

Otherwise known as Big Fiji, the island of Viti Levu has an area that is slightly more than ten times the size of Singapore, but hosts ten times less the population. While there, we had the privilege to be part of a joint Geography expedition with the University of the South Pacific (USP). 70 Geography students accompanied Dr Mark Stephens from the School of Geography, Earth Science and Environment at USP. Our group of 15 Physical Geography students was led by Assoc Prof James Terry from FASS and Adjunct Prof at USP.

When we got there, we were greeted with friendly calls of “bula” (“hello” in Fijian) wherever we went. We probably did look queer to them, standing out as a conspicuous bunch on the streets with our fair skins and surprisingly fluent English. We were also mistaken as Japanese tourists so many times!

Some of us having dinner at a pizza place in Nadi Town
Some of us having dinner at a pizza place in Nadi Town

At our first stop in Nadi, Assoc Prof Terry was featured in a public lecture organised by USP’s Lautoka Campus. He shared about investigating a number of recent and historical tropical cyclones and the nature of their physical consequences for island environments in the South Pacific and beyond. Before joining the USP students on the 19th, we also had the chance to visit several key sights such as the Valley of the Sleeping Giant in Nadi and Lautoka town.

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