Lusi

Yang Lusi’s worst fear is bad luck and she finds it annoying when people say ‘whatever’. Most people would be surprised to learn that only 14 people out of the 1.4 billion people in China share her name and she’s proud of her unique name even if most people do not know how to write her name correctly in Chinese. One day, after she retires, she would like to open a coffee shop and a hotpot restaurant, but for now, her goals are to become a professor and to travel to Korea.

 

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in Chongqing (CQ), a municipality in Southwest of China. Hotpot was invented there. When it comes to CQ, people mostly talk about its hot (spicy) food and hot weather in summer (indeed, sometimes the temperature even reaches 40 Centigrade ☺).  But more importantly, Chongqing has the hottest girls in China. In my mind, our personalities are like what we eat: HOT! You will be overwhelmed with our warm heart and our passion. If you interact with people from Chongqing, you will also find they are straightforward and having diversities of minds. 

What are you studying at SoC?

I am in the 3rd year of my PhD in major of Information Systems. My research interest lies in crowd-based innovation and entrepreneurship. The current study I am working on helps to build theory on entrepreneurial learning on IT-enabled crowdfunding. My research provides practical insights for entrepreneurs to design experiences to promote entrepreneurial success. In the long run, my work will also provide actionable items for effective design of crowd-based platforms to energize innovation. 

What was your academic path before coming to SoC?

Before coming to NUS, I got my bachelor’s degree in software engineering from Sichuan University. In the eyes of most people, it is probably not a mainstream major among women. As I remember, there were only 40 women (out of around 300 students) in my batch. Although I have liked mathematics and logic since childhood, frankly speaking my first year in undergrad was far from easy because of my limited background knowledge in some of the seemingly “basic” classes in computing, like C programming. So, what I did was to be dedicated to my classes. Through diligent studies, I was very excited to be able to become one of the best students in this major. I love my major. It exposes me to the latest technological innovations. The best part was, I enjoyed the feeling of working with my teammates during projects. We struggled to think about our ideas. We stayed up late to debug for the program. We practiced again, again and again for our project presentations. But when we achieved success in the end, I have to say, the feeling was awesome!! Finally, all of my teammates (four in total) graduated with first-class honors.  

During my last year of undergrad, I applied to work in the machine intelligence lab in my university and gradually started to know academic research. For my final year project, I undertook a project to create a medical image processing platform. The goal of that project was to provide an program for doctors so that they can choose the appropriate segmentation, registration or three-dimensional visualization algorithms they want; as well as to provide a flexible toolkit of united interface for the engineers. Meanwhile, I got to know from my FYP advisor about the opportunity for doing PhD in School of Computing at NUS. I was very excited. Since my first year in undergrad, I was dreaming of studying abroad, to interact with people from diverse cultures and to work with them. Two months after I submit my application, I was so glad SoC gave me this opportunity. That’s the beginning of my current life… 

Why are you doing a PhD?

After I started my PhD journey, so many people have asked me the same question. I was asked this question in the interview when I applied for PhD here. To be honest, I do not think we need to find a reason to start a PhD. It seems like this decision is not like what a normal person would make, even though I do admit every PhD student has her/his own uniqueness (in other words, or his own version of “weirdo”, haha…). For me, if I have to find a reason, I would say it is because of “feeling”. I believe I am destined to do this PhD. Sounds irrational? Actually I think I am a rational person, most of the time (nobody is totally rational). Making a decision is like a coin toss. The moment you flip the coin, one of your subselves has made the decision for you. In my opinion, not every person has the chance to choose to do a PhD. Since you have the opportunity, why not?

Like most PhD students, my PhD journey in SoC is not easy.  I remember, in my first year, someone told me, doing a PhD is like getting on a five-year bus ride. Our choices of different buses decide our outcomes after five years. Have to say, finding the right bus (i.e, the research domain you like) to ride is hard, especially for first year student without much academic experience. The route of exploring topics is like a trial-and-error learning process. In my first two years of PhD, I explored several research directions and started to do some preliminary research. Finally, I decided on my research domain - ICT-enabled entrepreneurship and innovation, especially on crowdfunding. Yes, the feeling of finding a right topic is like falling in love with Mr. Right. It deserves the time and effort. I do love one saying from my advisor Professor Hahn: research is the process of re-searching. Now, I do enjoy the journey of exploring and the process of learning. 

After five semesters studying, I am starting to realize that what matters in this journey are not only what we learn during classes, but also the “capability to learn” and the “entrepreneurial attitude” towards work/life. In my opinion, doing a PhD is like being an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship is our attitude, and it determines how to think and act. We are our own bosses, converting ideas into work. And we need to shoulder the responsibility for our own decisions. After five years, we should be experts in our research domains. 

I really like a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt: “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people”. Exactly, the final purpose of working hard is not to surpass others, but to step into the world of great-minded people. That is true! I love every second of thinking about problems and discussing ideas with my professors and colleagues. 

The next time another person asks me “why do you do a PhD”, maybe I still will not have the exact answer. But there is one thing I can be sure of: if I could go back to two years ago, I would make the same decision without hesitation ☺

What do you enjoy doing when you are not studying or working?

In my spare time,… 

I love dancing and listening to music, especially Kpop and street jazz.  

I like singing. But need to find friends to sing with me in Singapore!

I need shopping, like skin care products. 

I enjoy chatting with friends. This makes me excited~

Quick-Fire! What do you do during Chinese New Year?

Be grateful for my 2014 and plan for my awesome coming year. Most importantly, (enjoy) nice chatting!

If you had to eat only one item from one of the NUS canteen stalls for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Yong Tau Foo at arts canteen ☺ 

Guilty pleasure?

Shopping? ☺

Tell us who we should we talk to next. Email tien@nus.edu.sg

Lynnette

Lynnette Ng studies computer science and uses her skills to help build underwater robots. If there was one thing she would change about SoC, it would be to add a pool table like this one to the student lounge. I think she should just build it with some of you. Who’s in? 

Where did you grow up?

I studied in NUS High School. Surprisingly, I did not do any computing subjects nor did I touch a computer much. One day I received an email about an SoC outreach camp and decided to check it out. It introduced JC students to simple concepts like the history of computing and simple Scratch programming. So I realised computing is fun and I decided to study computer science.  

Describe your experience as a SoC student.

SoC is ‘pressurizing’ fun. The modules are challenging and the projects are usually not easy. But once I start working on it, I enjoy it more. We work until late at night, sometimes overnight, but when I see the completed product, the sense of satisfaction is amazing because I’ve just made something from nothing. 

Which faculty members made impressions on you? 

All the faculty members are awesome in their own special way. That’s why I love SoC. During the exam period, Prof Gary Tan came to the student lounge to distribute food vouchers and play foosball with us. Prof Leong Hon Wai gives out coffee awards, so if you do well in his class, he’ll treat you to a coffee (can be exchanged for other drinks). 

Prof Ben Leong is the funniest. Ben Leong’s Lonely Hearts Club solves a very real and pressing problem in SoC (and in Singapore), to help the Singapore Government meet their 6.9 million population KPI. If you need some help or advice, I’m sure he’ll be glad to help :). 

What is the craziest thing that you did or that happened when you were a student here? 

On Halloween (2014), Sarah Tan and I decided to do something crazy! We had the idea a few days before when the SoC page advertised a Halloween profile picture contest. Well, we needed a break from the crazy semester, and we wanted to make people happy. So us being us, we came up with the Sarah-Lynnette cause. So we borrowed paint and cardboard from the Computing Club, and painted ANDROIDS!

The next day, on Halloween, we went around SoC dressed as Android KitKat and Android Lollipop to hand out… yes, kitkats and lollipops! Although the costume was bulky and hot, we enjoyed ourselves, and we did feel very happy when we brought smiles to those who were furiously coding, and crashed a few Profs’ meetings. Best of all, we gave out almost all the kitkats and lollipops, and some people gave us sweets in return! I’m also very thankful for all our friends who supported us through painting, cutting cardboard, walking around with us, and even laughing at us and giving us those ‘face-palms’. 

What do you count as your most significant achievement to date?

Winning the Google Anita Borg Scholarship. I heard about it during the Orbital Liftoff and upon my friends’ persuasion, I decided to try for it. This scholarship included a 5-day sponsored trip to Google Japan where I met many outstanding women who were studying computer science. It was the time where I really started to appreciate what I have in SoC, after I heard stories from the other women. In Singapore, I am not denied a chance for tertiary education, while some of the Indian and Vietnamese girls had to fight hard and even agree to arranged marriages to study computer science. Studying CS does not make me any less of a woman to the community, nor do any faculty or students question my ability to perform because I am a female. No doubt I do enjoy special privileges, like gentlemen will open doors for me or offer to buy me lunch, but I am thankful that unlike an Australian awardee, I do not have to work extremely hard or enforce my views to get heard. Although I always say that I won the award because I’m female, but really, I won it because I truly love computing. 

What is something most people would be surprised to learn about you?

My childhood dream is to build a rocket to go to space. 

What do you enjoy doing when you are not studying? 

I draw. I like to draw architecture and buildings. I like to draw them with a lot of details. I usually do ink drawings, but sometimes I try different mediums too. Once in a while, my friends will commission me to draw cover art for his music. Each time he does, it’s a challenge. I’ve got to listen to his music and understand how it fits into the title, then make the art depict his intentions. Usually I get it wrong the first two times, then I keep trying and eventually am able to colour his music through my art. 

Best movie you’ve seen this year?

Penguins of Madagascar. I watched it as a late night movie on the last day of my exams. It’s a silly movie with totally random scenes, but it was a great way of relaxing after a stressful exam season. I laughed from the start to the end because the penguins are immeasurably cute!

Tell us who we should we talk to next. Email tien@nus.edu.sg

Kristina

Kristina Egorova can’t stand uncertainty and noisy construction work but can’t live without friends, wifi, and her ultimate guilty pleasure, travelling over the weekend! She’s currently in the third year of her PhD programme and is the graduate student representative for the Department of Information Systems.

Where did you grow up?

I was born and grew up in a very small, but interesting place – a tiny small town of Visaginas, Lithuania. Back in the days, the town had just 30,000 inhabitants, there were people from about 10 different nationalities working and living together. So from the very young age, I was exposed to the multicultural and multi-religious society. We had to learn Russian, Lithuanian and English or German, and some of us could choose Polish or Tatar, based on family background and preferences. We celebrated Christmas twice – first, we did it in December with Catholics, and second – in January with Orthodox people. I believe it shaped my future since it is relatively easy for me to pick up some words from new languages and I am very curious about different cultural traditions.

When I was 17, my family moved to Russia, and I discovered that even though I was Russian, I spoke with a funny “Baltic” accent and used slightly different expressions, but it disappeared in 4 months. After graduating from high school I moved again to Saint Petersburg for my undergraduate studies. In “classic” Russian universities, there are no bachelor and master degrees; instead, we have a “specialist” diploma and to get it, you have to study for five and half years and write a substantial final year project. I graduated with a degree in Information Security and, for the project, I focused on extending the software cost model COCOMO in order to fit in the security requirements of one of the Russian state security standards.

Three months after graduating from University, I got to know about National University of Singapore and research scholarships and opportunities from a Russian social networking site, which looks very similar to Facebook. It caught my attention and I dropped a long email with questions to Pavel Korshunov, who was a PhD candidate at the department of Computer Science at the time. He answered all the questions, and encouraged me to apply and pursue a degree from School of Computing. It took me almost a year to get to Singapore, and… 

What are you studying at SoC?

…here at SoC I continue the exploration of various aspects of Information Security – currently I am a PhD student at the Department of Information Systems and I have just started my 3rd year of study. My research interest is in the individual decision making in the context of Information Security and Privacy, and I seek the answers for the questions like: “Why do we violate security rules and regulations, even being aware about the consequences?” or “Why do our good intentions rarely lead to actions: e.g. why do we think about being careful online, but rarely do it, and click on suspicious links?”, and, on another hand, I’m interested in the criminological aspects of information related offences. With the answers, I hope to make our world a bit safer, especially given the persuasion of information technology and early age of exposure to it.

Why are you doing a PhD?

I have decided to apply for PhD because at some point I discovered that my current job and future career opportunities were not challenging anymore: I used to work as a technical writer, business analyst and project manager for several small and medium IT companies in Saint Petersburg, and it was a bit predictable and started to get boring. My last job was a bit more exciting, since we were creating a large-scale e-learning system, which had social networking sites features and was used by 30,000 schools, 5,000,000 school kids, 600,000 teachers and 2,000,000 parents in different regions in Russia. I had developed a reporting subsystem before joining the IS department in January 2013.

After two years of studies, reading and struggling, I realize I made the right choice, since I really enjoy thinking about research questions, looking for another angle, reading the literature and discussing the matter with colleagues and professors. After taking one of the NUS PhD-level courses, I learned about one very exciting thing – neuroplasticity: our brain physically changes with the changes in environment, behavior, thinking, and emotions. I believe it is amazing, and I feel I have changed a lot thanks to PhD training and exposure to the Singaporean mix of cultures, and food of course. The most important skill I have (almost) pursued is patience: in research, everything takes time, and you have to be patient and continue doing the subject you truly enjoy.

But to be honest, my first experience of Singapore was shocking: at the queue to Passport Check, I’ve discovered that I did not have the address of the hostel I had booked and asked my parents to send it to me over SMS. They sent a wrong address, and after climbing up and down the stairs of two wrong hostels I checked the emails and arrived to the right place, which was at Geylang area, and I did not know a single thing about it! In few days, I had to move to the Campus and a nice taxi driver did not how to get to College Avenue East and have never heard about University Town. Over time, I’ve learned how to get around with mobile apps for everything, and a Singlish dictionary book made my life much easier. Highly recommended to new students!

Anyway, this year I am a graduate student representative for the Information Systems department. Apart from the Welcome tea, which was held on January 8th, my task is to serve as an intermediary between students and the department, and I am willing to take questions, comments and suggestions from students and translate them as summarized opinion to the department. Privacy is guaranteed, as a researcher of privacy and security, I know it is important. So you can find me at Information Systems Research Lab 3, Facebook or drop me an email at kristina@comp.nus.edu.sg - please don’t be shy!

Outside of School of Computing, I love travelling (I actively participate at Couchsurfing and once hiked down the Grand Canyon), sending and receiving paper postcards (using www.postcrossing.com) and Brazilian martial art of Capoeira and social dancing.

I would like to use this opportunity to invite everyone for 2 dancing classes of Brazilian Forro, which I and dancing partner will be teaching this 2nd & 9th February at the PGPR Multipurpose Hall as part of the 100MIN Enrichment series of workshops.

Quick-Fire! Best movie you’ve seen this year?

Night at Museum 3

Worst experience with public transportation?

Public Bus ride from Probolingo to Surabaya – 4 hours in smoking (!) non-aircon bus with friendly curious locals, some random people selling food and playing guitar for money

Best hawker stall in Singapore?

Al Amaan @Clementi Road

If you could eat only three food items for the rest of your life, what would they be?

Young Tau Fou Laksa, Malay Cofta and Laban

Three ultimate dinner party guests? 

Dan Ariely, Heng Swee Keat and James Hetfield

Tell us who we should we talk to next. Email tien@nus.edu.sg

Steven

Dr. Steven Halim grew up in Jakarta, Indonesia and moved to Singapore to do his undergraduate degree in Computer Science at SoC. When that wasn’t quite enough, he stayed on to do his PhD, got his doctoral degree in 2010 and then landed a job here. He still looks young enough to be mistaken for one of the (postgraduate) students here and when he isn’t working, he enjoys ‘revisiting’ his childhood toys – Lego Technic and Mindstorms.

Steven and his family at Legoland, Malaysia

What are you working on and why are you passionate about it?

Currently, visualgo.net, which is a tool I built to help with the visualisation of data structures and algorithms through animation. It combines my passion of teaching algorithms and the visualization work that I did back in my PhD days. When more and more CS-based Universities pick up visualgo.net, I think it should reduce the usage of static PowerPoint (or even manual hand-drawn explanations) to explain the operations of basic data structures/algorithms. The online quiz side will also eliminate the need to ask trivial questions in final examinations anymore.

 
Describe your SoC experience. 

[The part I enjoy the most is] when I can make my student's jaw drops after explaining a certain cool concepts in class. [But the part I find the most challenging is] marking... I hate marking so much that I tried to write programs to automate the process :O.

I have been in SoC for 14 years now so there are many [people who have made impressions on me]. But if I have to choose one, I pick Associate Professor Tan Sun Teck who took me as part-time TAs for his CS1102 module in 2005-2008 period, collaborated in ICPC and IOI activities, and recommended me to stay on as Lecturer here.

I like computing so much and being in SoC is a natural fit. I’d probably suffer if I had picked another course of study for my Undergraduate degree.

What do you count as your most significant achievements to date? 

Before 2008, I thought training a team that can qualify to ACM ICPC World Finals or get Gold medal in IOI was a super achievement (because I had never done so before as a student). Fast forward 6 years later, I have been to ACM ICPC World Finals 3 times (with our team), prepared a team that won an ACM ICPC Regional Contest 2 times, trained Singaporeans who brought home 4 IOI Gold medals, and all these are still ongoing. The core achievement is a system of training that ensures continuity of these (good) results. 

Currently my competitive programming training schedule is like this:
Jan-Apr: CS3233
Mar: National Olympiad in Informatics (NOI)
May: Asia Pacific Informatics Olympiad (APIO); ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) World Finals with NUS team 1
Jun: Singapore (SG) International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) Team Intensive Training
Jul: IOI with SG IOI team
Aug-Sep: Train and select new team members for NUS ICPC teams
Oct-Nov: Typical ACM ICPC Regional Season
Dec: SG NOI training
Then repeat for another year…

[I pursued all this] because I had never won any programming competition during my student days. The turning point seems to be 2011, when SoC decided to keep me as Lecturer here. With more job stability, I can setup that system of training. [It was] heavy work at the beginning to train the first few students. The senior ICPC+IOI students from 2008-2013 era now help me train the current batch of competitors (2014-15). The system is now good enough that I can step to the side and watch it run (and still produce good results).

What did you want to be when you were younger and is that still an interest of yours?

My childhood dream was to be someone who speaks in front of many people and those people listen attentively to me. There are not many jobs in the world where I can do that. Being a lecturer is one such job and yes it is still my interest :).

Is there anything else you'd like to share?

NUS SoC will host the ACM ICPC Programming Regional Contest in Singapore in Sep and Dec 2015. I encourage SoCians, especially CS students [I am planning to have prizes for teams with female member(s)], to form teams of three and join this prestigious programming competition right here in NUS.

Quick-fire! New Year’s resolution?

Do some exercise each week.

Worst fear?

Cockroaches

Guilty pleasure?

Ice-cream

Tell us who we should we talk to next. Email tien@nus.edu.sg

Nutty Tay

Tay Yang Shun is a 土生土长 Singaporean. If he had to eat one thing from an NUS food stall for the rest of his life, it’d be the Mee Pok from the Flavours@UTown chicken rice stall. Last year, he and his friends built Nutty Ninjas for their class project, and to won first prize for that module at the 3rd SoC Term Project Showcase (STePS). When he isn’t working or studying, he’s reading random tech, design or start-up related stuff on the web to keep up with the latest trends in technology and entrepreneurship. If you want to freak him out, dump him in a deep body of water – he finds the thought of not knowing what’s beneath him absolutely thrilling. If you’re wronged him and would like to make amends, chocolate and coke are your best bets. If all else fails, show up to Yang Shun’s dinner party with Prof Ben Leong, Jay Chou and Mark Zuckerberg, and you’ll be sweet. 

What are you studying at SoC? 

I'm a final year Computer Science with specializations in Interactive Media and Visual Computing (maybe). I'm actually in my fifth year because I started school in NUS as a Mechanical Engineering student. However, in my second year, I found myself spending most of my time on a CS module I was teaching (CS1020E) rather than on my own core Mechanical engineering modules. It was then that I realized that I should probably be in a course that I'm truly interested in. With the help of Dr Ang Chuan Heng who was my CS1020E lecturer, who wrote a recommendation letter for me, I managed to change course, yet still retaining my NUS scholarship! I was extremely grateful and thankful to Dr Ang and the school. 

Describe your SoC experience. 

I enjoy creating applications and websites as I like to build things and solve problems. There are many aspects involved: Software design, interface design, user experience design, etc. Being able to work on all these different aspects simultaneously is a challenge and the experience is very interesting and dynamic. 

Solving problems through technology: This was the main reason I changed course to Computer Science: I get to build stuff and solve problems. Many SoC modules are very hands-on and require students to code and create programs. I'm prefer hands-on activities over studying theories, hence I enjoy the way many of the CS modules are taught. Programming is a really powerful skill. After learning programming, I feel that I am empowered to solve problems that I wasn't able to if I didn't know programming. Among the useful things that I have built, there's a cleanliness records app for teachers to keep track of the cleanliness of their students' rooms, and also, NUSMods, which is used by NUS students to plan their timetables and look up module information. 

Teaching: I have tutored/will tutor the modules CS1010S, CS1020E, CS3216, CS3217, CP3101B, and these are modules that I am passionate about. I hope to influence my students with my passion and encourage them to explore beyond what is taught in class. In my opinion, teaching has multiple benefits: (i) In the tutorials that I teach, I code the solution on the spot and explain the thought process behind my approach. I have found this skill to be extremely relevant in technical interviews where I have to explain my approach of tackling a technical question to the interviewer as I code the solution out. (ii) Tutoring is a good way to meet other like-minded peers among the teaching team and collaborate on projects, be it school or external ones. (iii) A stable source of income to survive the semester. The renumeration isn't a lot, but it's sufficient. 

Working on NUSMods: Ever since Beng (founder of NUSMods) graduated in 2014, I have since taken over the responsibility of improving and working on NUSMods. Over the summer, Beng, Ashray Jain and I, worked on revamping NUSMods and added many more features to it. The most significant new feature was having dedicated module pages which served as wiki pages for NUS modules. Module-related information such as pre-requisites tree, module reviews, CORS bidding history, and timetable data can also be found. I enjoy building useful things that solves peoples’ problems, and NUSMods has given me an opportunity to do that, because it is being used by virtually the whole NUS student population. This keeps me motivated to keep working on it and making it better for the students of NUS. As part of my module project for CS3240, I have extended NUSMods to include friends' timetable saving and NUS venue directory features. Over the December break, I will be working with Chen Minqi on finalizing the features and testing them so that they can be pushed out by Jan 2015. 

Creating content for SoC modules: I'm currently preparing for CP3101B and CS3217 next semester, I'll be serving as a tutor for CP3101B and CS3217 under Dr Steven Halim and Prof Sim Khe Chai respectively. Soon, I'm currently in the midst of preparing materials for these two modules. I enjoy creating new materials for modules because it challenges me to design questions that are helpful towards students' learning. I also try to make the nature of the assignment interesting and relevant so that students will be motivated to work on them. 

Last semester, the 2048 game was extremely hot, and Prof Ben Leong had the idea of creating a programming assignment out of it. Hence I worked with Emmanuel Goh (who will be next semester's CS1010S Head Tutor) and we produced a 2048 problem set for students of CS1010FC and CS1010S. With some guidelines, CS1010FC and CS1010S students had to program the logic behind a 2048 game for their homework. Students were also encouraged to write a solver for the 2048 game as part of a contest. I recall my CS1010E days where I wrote a simple reversi game in C using an ASCII and command line interface and had a lot of fun doing it. I'm glad that there are such programming assignments these days that break the monotony of standard programming homework. 

This year alone, I went on 3 overseas trips and they were all sponsored by the overseas organizations. Facebook sponsored my trip to their HQ in Menlo Park for the Facebook Open Academy program, University of Pennsylvania sponsored part of my trip to Philadelphia for PennApps and NYU Shanghai sponsored by trip to Shanghai for HackShanghai. My respective module lecturers were understanding in allowing me to skip classes for these overseas pursuits. This semester, I spent two weeks overseas and as a result I had to rush to catch up on the work during and after my trips. I had a report for CS3240 due during my return flight from Doha, hence I was rushing to complete the report on the plane from Philadelphia to Doha. My MacBook's battery was running low but thankfully I managed to connect to the WiFi at Doha's airport and submitted my report on time before the battery went flat. It kind of felt like I was defusing a bomb >_< 

[Here are some of the things that I think make SoC different than other faculties.] I find that many students in SoC are innately passionate about their work, and willingly spend their weekends and free time exploring new technology and learning new things. I look forward to my classes as I’m innately interested in the content I’m being taught. 

We also have undergraduate tutors! I think this is something uniquely SoC (most other faculties require their tutors to be of at least Masters level). There was this semester where my friend was taking a module that I was tutoring and I was taking a module he was tutoring. It can get complicated sometimes, but at the same time, it makes life in SoC more interesting and fun. As tutors, we get to work with professors very closely to run the course. We also have post-exam chillax sessions with some drinks! (: 

And, I really think we have the best faculty staff around! Perhaps because of the nature of the course, many of the faculty staff are on Facebook where our profs share interesting posts (tech articles, Nala photos), and interact with the students. The faculty staff make an effort to know their students on a personal level - [these are a few] profs who made an impact on me and taught me some classes that I enjoyed: 

• Prof Ben Leong: I owe a lot of my achievements to Prof Ben; he gave me many opportunities to learn and I learnt a tremendous amount of skills (beyond CS) from him. Prof Ben is also extremely popular among the students – he even has a Fan Club!
• Dr Colin Tan: Dr Colin is very cool and personable, and has many interesting stories to share. He's very active on Facebook and shares many cat photos (only Nala). 
• Prof Ng Teck Khim: Extremely caring professor that takes the effort to know each and every of his students. He even goes the extra mile and specially gave make-up lessons to students who have missed his class. I have taken two modules (CS3218 and CS4243) under him. 
• Prof Zhao Shendong: Prof Zhao is very kind and has given me extensions for his assignments as I was overseas >_< 

Also, there's so much welfare for the students: interesting hacking contests, Halloween profile picture contests, and also Prof Gary Tan and Adele giving away meal vouchers during examination week. This makes us feel very taken care of (: 

What is the one thing you would change about NUS? 

I think more students should try programming! I would encourage everyone to take an introductory class (one of the CS1010-variants) and see if they enjoy it. Programming isn't something every student gets to try because Singapore's educational system doesn't include CS as one of the compulsory foundation subjects in secondary school. Many of my Science students from CS1010S who are extremely talented programmers, gained interested in CS after taking CS1010S. I think that if they got to try programming earlier, they might have chosen CS instead. Although, CS is not for everyone, but you won't know until you try it! Trying programming is extremely simple, all you need is your laptop! 

What do you count as your most significant achievements to date? 

Prof Ben appointed me as Head Tutor for CS1010S in AY2013/14 Semester 1. In fact, it was my first time tutoring but he trusted me to take up such an important role. It was an eye-opening experience for me as I got to coordinate a course from start to the end. What made it "better" was that it was a new course, there were no materials to reuse and the teaching staff had to port the materials from Scheme to Python. There were also a lot of administrative issues to handle. 

People management has never been my forte but I got to hone those skills by being the Head Tutor. My approach was to get to know most of the people (staff and students) on a personal level outside the classroom. The motivation behind this was to better understand each individual's personality so that delegation of work could be more efficient and mismatch of interests could be prevented as much as possible. 

The process was painful and coupled with CS3216 (another painful module), I slept very little that semester. However, I was very glad with the outcome of the course and would deem it as a huge success. It left a deep impression in many students' hearts as the toughest, most painful, most time-consuming yet enjoyable freshmen module. In my teaching performance report, positive remarks from my students included: hardworking, responsible, approachable, caring, friendly, efficient, patient and nice. 

What is something most people would be surprised to learn about you? 

That I have been a student in 4 NUS faculties. In my first year of National Service, I was in Architecture, but I switched to Mech Engineering and Accountancy DDP in my second year of NS, and subsequently, CS. There is also an artistic side of me; I used to write Chinese Calligraphy and do some graphic designing. In 2012, my designs for the Welfare Diary and NUSSU Student Life Tee were selected to be used university-wide! 

Is there anything else you'd like to share? 

Recently I talked to a few people and found that they were in their course because their parents wanted them to study it because of the supposedly good prospects and not because they are interested in it. I think it's extremely pointless to study something that one has no interest in. In my opinion, extrinsic motivation such as money and prospects will fade off eventually. One has to be intrinsically motivated by what they are studying/doing. If you haven't found something that interests you, keep finding and trying new stuff! 

Quick-Fire! Pet peeves? 

So many! Where do I start…

• Chewing very loudly when eating. 
• Bad coding style. Students, please follow this Python style guide.
• Literally using acronyms in face-to-face conversations: “TBH”, “IMO”, “ASAP”. 
• Not pushing in chairs after leaving the seat. 
• "k", "kk" and "okok". These are common replies used by many people in instant messaging and it gets to my nerves. “Ok”, “okay”, “okie” sound much better as acknowledgement replies. "k" sounds rude and is a convo-killer, while "kk" and "okok" gives people the impression that they are getting impatient. 

All I want for Christmas is…? 

Time. Time is the only resource that money can’t buy. How nice would it be if I had 48 hours a day, I can sleep for 24 hours and still have 24 hours to do work.

Tell us who we should we talk to next. Email tien@nus.edu.sg

Aaron

Aaron Tan is one of quite a decent number of faculty members here who are also our alumni. At our recent anniversary gala, Aaron hosted a mini musical game where he sang a number foreign language songs, like Maori,Hindi and Indonesian, and the audience tried to guess the songs' origins. He is an avid Facebooker - follow his daily musings on his page. 

The man himself at a Christmas Fiesta rehearsal (circa 1993/1994)

Where did you grow up? 

This is an interesting question, as I guess my answer would be rather interesting for the readers. I grew up in Geylang, a notorious red-light district. So, as a little boy, I ran around prostitution dens and got to know the sex workers and, occasionally, I would bump into clients who were local celebrities and even my own teacher! 

Well, I guess anything more juicy might be inappropriate for this publication so I shall stop here. 

What’s your academic background? 

At one point of time, I studied at two kindergartens at the same time because I was bored at home. I enjoyed going to school so much that I kept pestering my parents. May I add that it was very rare for kids to even attend kindergarten in those days. 

Later, I studied in the GEP school. No, that’s not the Gifted Education Programme which was to be introduced only 13 years later. It’s the Geylang English Primary school, which you may not have heard of because it has long been defunct. 

Then, from being the top student in my primary school, I landed in Raffles Institution only to realise that everybody around me was smarter than I. I was intrigued, particularly by my smart school-mates who were writing BASIC programs on the Apple computers. 

I chose Computer Science as one of my subjects in my junior college years, and then came to NUS in 1985 to study Computer Science in the then Department of Information Systems and Computer Science (DISCS), which was under the Science Faculty. Four years later, I graduated with a first-class honours degree. 

Do you have any interesting stories to share about your time as a student here? 

Too many stories to share that they might fill a book. The undergraduate years were the most colourful and memorable years in my life. Like the song goes: “those were the days my friends, we thought they’d never end…” 

Our batch was small by comparison to today’s class size. There were fewer than 200 of us in our batch, and most fortunately, an equal number of male and female students! This is important because it gave rise to many interesting love stories, as well as triangular and multi-sided relationship, but I shall not digress. 

The department was small too, so we were close to our professors and tutors. It was quite common for a lecturer to take us out for lunch treats, or we would visit our tutors at their offices for a chat. 

But we were also hot-headed young adults then. I remember we were unhappy with the light workload given to us by one of the lecturers and so we wrote a letter to the head of department to complain about it. Talk about being impetuous! Well, today I would advise students to talk to your lecturer first before shooting a letter to the head of department. 

Those were the pre-modular system days where all of us took the same package of modules. We were in the same tutorial group throughout the 3 years – at that time, the general degree took 3 years, with an additional year for honours degree – so the bonding was very strong. Such strong bonding became history when the modular system was introduced, so we lament. At the end of our third year, we organised a campfire at car park 10 for remembrance sake and to thank our professors. I wrote a song called 年轻的歌 (Song of Youth) for my tutorial group, which we sang at the campfire. Lecturers and tutors were also invited and some of them put up their own performance. 

During my fourth year in the university, a certain junior college was looking for a relief teacher to cover one of their Computer Science teachers who was due for reservist training. A university classmate of mine recommended me for the job, so I ended up taking a short teaching stint while I was still an undergraduate. And guess who was in my class? Dr. Colin Tan, in his tender years!

What did you want to be when you were younger?

Realising that I wasn’t as smart as my secondary school classmates, coupled with my immense craving for chicken rice – I ate it almost every day, and it was only 80 cents or $1 at that time – I actually thought that I might end up selling chicken rice. Serious! However, I am now into healthy eating, so no more chicken rice for me. 

What do you enjoy doing when you are not working? 

Since young, I have been very interested in writing songs and lyrics – mainly in Cantonese and Mandarin – though I had no formal musical training. I wrote quite a number of them, even took part in some competitions and I was lucky enough to grab a few prizes. 

I wrote a song last year to honour our nation's 50th National Day, and I have been wishing to make a video out of it. Unfortunately, so far I have little luck in getting people to help out with this personal project. So readers out there, if you are keen, whether in singing, acting, playing the musical instruments, script-writing, directing, video-shooting, choreographing, please contact me! 

Recently I posted the lyric “This is C” sung to the tune of “Home” by Kit Chan on Facebook and somebody suggested to make it into a video as well. What a cool idea, but again, I need volunteers! 

As a pastime, I enjoy singing and playing the guitar. I learned classical guitars for many years after I graduated. At the end of every semester, I would invite students to join me for some karaoke sessions. 

I run regularly too. During the recent summer vacation, I invited students to join me run around the campus. A couple of them and some alumni came and it soon became a weekly running event on every Wednesday evening. We have completed our 24th run at the writing of this article (23 November 2014)! 

What are some of the craziest things you have done recently? 

Five and a half months ago, as I approached my 50th birthday, I thought of doing something totally wacky and so I enrolled myself into Wing Chun class and I’ve never neglected it. These days, you will find me practising Wing Chun in the gym. 

Recently I took part in the Swim-for-Hope event and swam 20 laps. Never a serious swimmer, I swam occasionally and have not attempted more than 4 laps at a go for many years. I wouldn’t call this crazy but just another little thing I wanted to try outside my comfort zone. 

The photo above was taken last year. I was pestered by my son Cowen to take him to the ice-skating rink, and that was my first ice-skating experience! A painful experience, but fun nonetheless, and it makes me realise that it is never too late to learn something new. 

Do you have any interesting stories to share about your experience as a teacher here? 

When I was a tutor, the students were quite active in organising activities such as charity events. I joined them in some of the activities, such as going around the housing estates collecting old newspapers. There were charity concerts as well, where our students showed their varied talents. Karaoke was very popular then, so the students organised a number of karaoke singing competitions, which I was invited as a judge for some of them. It is a pity these days our students don’t organise such events. I also miss the student-staff games (sports games, not computer games) which we used to have. 

Do you have any advice for our students? 

Don’t just spend all your time on the computer! Get out of the house and sweat under the sun. Healthy body, healthy mind. That’s why in the past, when I trained the IOI students, besides training in the classroom, I also took them out to jog and swim. 

Recently I came across this powerful article and would like to share it here, along with a message for all our students: 

 “Your job — as students who are receiving an education — is to be aware of your privilege. And use this particular privilege called “education” to do your best to achieve great things, all the while advocating for those in the rows behind you.”

Tell us who we should we talk to next. Email tien@nus.edu.sg

Fireman Ash

Md. Ashmawi Md. Jailani has an insatiable appetite for chocolate and has admitted to being ‘one of the driving forces’ contributing to the impending global chocolate shortage. The word he finds most annoying is ‘exams’ and gaming is his guilty pleasure. Unsurprisingly, academically, Ash is interested in digital animation and gaming and is aiming to specialise in Interactive Media. He is in the second year of his Computer Science programme.

Describe your SoC experience.

[I enjoy] the SOC community and its people have always been warm and friendly, making SOC like a home for all of us. [The thing I find most challenging is] coding. It’s really difficult to think of the algorithms and implement them, but incredibly satisfying once you get the desired result. [The craziest thing that has happened to me here is] getting sabotaged to participate in a blindfold dance competition onstage during Computing Bash, and my blindfold was a ski mask. It was like a robber was dancing onstage hahaha XD. [If there was one thing I could change about NUS, it would be to] add Foosball as an IFG Sport :D 

Right now, [I have been] playing soccer more, and also studying hard to pull my grades up hahaha. I’ve really liked playing soccer for quite some time and would really like to improve myself in the game. Other than academics and soccer, I’ve joined some of the cells in Computing Club.

What do you count as your most significant achievement to date?

Participating in SOC Rag 2014! I was tasked as an Engineer for the float, and with the help of seniors and friends we came up with a truly impressive float. The dance was enjoyable and fun as well, and we learnt a lot of new dance styles! Also, special mention goes to the recent Funball competition during IFG where SoC managed to win first place XD! 

I applied for vacation stay during summer break, so as to be able to go to rag site (most of the float building took place at the Central Forum) every day and also participate in other events such as camps and Orbital during the summer break (late May – August 2014). It was worth it. A lot of friends were involved – seniors, freshmen and even graduate students! SOC is awesome in that sense; we’re like a big family who look out for one another and always help each other out.

  

I hear that you were a former fire fighter in SCDF. Tell me more about that.

SCDF training was long and arduous, as all trainings for NSFs are, but it was a truly great experience as I learnt a lot of new and useful skills. We had one day attachments at fire stations, and during the attachment I was able to go for 2 cases, but both cases were not too serious or had already been dealt with by the time we reached the incident site. It was still fun however, to have been able to ride in the fire engine and have the initial adrenaline rush of going to an actual emergency situation.

Firefighting is not easy, and really takes up a lot of effort and energy. Fire stations are not as ‘lepak’ as people would think, especially with the 24 hour work, 48 hour off shifts. During the 24 hour work, firefighters would have to be alert and awake throughout the whole period of time, as they must set off and reach the emergency site within a specific period of time. Also they could be activated at any time, regardless of activities they were doing, such as drills. The firefighting suit, while it protects the wearer from the fires and heat to a certain extent, it also traps heat inside itself. Heat exhaustion is a very real and serious problem and the firefighters train hard to endure this heat and also the weight of the equipment they’re carrying and wearing, to ensure that during an emergency they’re well prepared to face long hours of work.

Firefighters, especially the ones I’ve met and known, are dedicated to their work and take pride in it. Salute to all the firefighters and members of Home Team out there, for enduring tough training and situations to keep Singapore and all of us safe J

What is something most people would be surprised to learn about you?

I can’t really take spicy food – just not too fond of it. And I’m a shy guy, hahaha.

What do you enjoy doing when you are not studying?

[Playing] video games, be it on laptop or console, as long as it’s a fun game that I can play solo or multiplayer. Multiplayer would be more fun with friends of course, like L4D2 or Battlefield.

Quick-Fire: Worst fear?

Being alone and forgotten.

Worst experience with public transportation?

I missed 3 shuttle buses and realised that walking is far more reliable than waiting for the buses.

Singapore’s best kept secret?

LeSteak at Jalan Kayu, one of the best halal restaurants specialising in steak :P

Tell us who we should we talk to next. Email tien@nus.edu.sg