Testimonials
Richard Koay,INTI-Laureate College Malaysia
Alumni of Experience@Singapore, 16 to 18 Jan 2009
Richard Koay was here in Singapore on the Experience@Singapore programme from 16 to 18 Jan 2009. He is from INTI-Laureate College Malaysia and here’s his say on his time in Singapore,
“The Experience@Singapore 2009 programme is all inspiring and touching. How lucky I am to be short-listed in the first place! My profuse thanks to Contact Singapore for organising such a great event for high achievers among higher education institutions in Malaysia and also to Ms. Naomi from INTI College Subang Jaya’s Industrial Placement Office for assisting fellow INTI students and myself before, during, and even after the programme. It is a proven fact that ICSJ students have the edge when it comes to hunting for employment opportunities locally and abroad! For starters, the Experience@Singapore 2009 is organised by Contact Singapore to introduce Singapore as a wonderful city to live, work, and play in. A total of 40 Malaysian students from various Universities in Malaysia were selected for this heavily subsidized programme.
On the morning of 16th January, we departed from Kuala Lumpur at approximately 7.00am. Bon Voyage! The great lion city was within sight at approximately 12.30pm and we reached the Goldkist Beach Resort to check into our respective rooms before heading to Quentin's, an Eurasian restaurant located just opposite the house of Singapore's President Nathan for our welcome lunch. After that, we visited the Urban Redevelopment Authority to learn about the past, present, and future developments of the city. Singapore's vision to become Garden City is both ambitious and impressive given the challenge of balancing rapid developments and nature preservation. Next on was the Duck Tour where we sat in an amphibious vehicle to tour major attractions in the city by land and sea. The beautiful blend of skyscrapers, heritage buildings, reservoirs, blue skies, and lush greeneries left me awed.
We then headed towards Orchard Road, Singapore's famous shopping belt. There are more than a dozen of large shopping malls and I managed to visit 7 of them in the allocated 3 hours, thanks to a female friend that I tagged along with. It is surprisingly convenient to move from one mall to another given the number of underpasses that interconnect the malls. It was certainly an eye-opener for me and I bought some souvenirs back but for the girls, this experience can be described in an equation where Orchard Road = Heaven. We headed back to our resort at about 11.00pm and there goes our first day.
We gathered for breakfast in the resorts restaurant at 8.00am the next morning. Everyone was formally dressed in preparation for the big event: Careers@Singapore 2009. We reached Marriott Hotel at about 9.30am for the Careers@Singapore 2009 event. There were about 26 firms in the career exhibition. I had the opportunity to speak to representatives from PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG, Citco Fund Services, RSM Chio Lim, and Standard Chartered Bank. There were also break-out sessions and I attended one of the forums with prominent industry figures in the panel to discuss about the right approach in job search and application during the financial crisis.
After the event, we headed back to our resort to get changed for the exciting Self Discovery Tour. We were each given an Ezlink card that enables us to travel on MRT for free throughout the entire day and we were joined by a group of Malaysian students from the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU). We were then broken up into teams and were given clues to search for 8 major attractions within Singapore. Thanks to our guides from NTU, my team was the first team to reach the final checkpoint: Clarke Quay. How shall I describe this place? Just imagine standing in the middle of a stone bridge, gazing into the river as a number of boats move underneath your feet while you enjoy the scenic view of colourful lights illuminating the night sky, trying to make up your mind on which restaurant or pub to visit among the variety of leisure outlets lined up along the river as you listen to distant screams of people having fun on the Reverse Bungy.
In short, I have fallen in love with Singapore and there is no doubt about that. Given the opportunity, I won't hesitate for a moment to take up a job in Singapore. The farewell dinner at Bayang, a Balinese restaurant at Clarke Quay was a rather sad one for me although the food was delicious and filling. We snapped group pictures and said our goodbyes to Rebecca and Ray, the organisers of Experience@Singapore 2009 and also our new friends from NUS and NTU. On the evening of 18th January, we were back in Kuala Lumpur but I believe that there is always a place for Singapore in the brave young hearts of the 40 selected high achievers. Experience@Singapore 2009 simply rocks!”