Like many other freshmen, I entered college with a set of aspirations, goals, and expectations geared toward making the most of my time here at UH Mānoa. Part of that was the study abroad experience. With this semester abroad at an official close, I can finally take some time to formally reflect on the eventful and gratifying past few months. Growing up in Hawai‘i’s relative isolation meant that I rarely had the chance to experience life in a foreign country, much less for extended periods of time. I yearned for the opportunity to freely explore unfamiliar places, embrace unknown challenges, and network with new people. The National University of Singapore (NUS) is frequently considered the top university in Asia. Paired with their international approach to education and research, I hoped to develop a more refined perspective of the international business environment. This semester abroad has granted me all of that, as well as some unexpected lessons. Over the course of the semester, I took FIN310A: Corporate Finance, FIN3117: Bank Management, and ACC1006: Accounting Information Systems. Partially due to the need to balance travels, student life, and academics, this semester’s workload was much more challenging than anything I endured at UH Mānoa. Although I did not join any clubs, I participated in the NUS-SGX Stock Pitch Competition, applied for the Yale-NUS Consulting Group, and attended events hosted by SGX Academy, NUS Business School, Tembusu College, NUS Enterprise, NUS Centre for the Arts, and Yale-NUS Society for Academic Research. The sheer number of opportunities available was overwhelming. Singapore’s utopia-esque cleanliness and sustainable architecture was expected, but nonetheless extraordinary. Furthermore, I had the rare opportunity to travel to five additional countries, i.e., Malaysia (Penang), Thailand (Bangkok), India (Jaipur, Jaisalmer, Agra, Mathura, Vrindavan, Delhi), Cambodia (Siem Reap, Phnom Penh), and Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang, Hoi An, Hue, Ninh Binh, Cat Ba, Hanoi). The people I have met throughout this semester, from my suitemates in Tembusu College to my fellow classmates, eventgoers, travelers, and exchange students, will all remain an integral part of this shared experience of this period of my life. As such, I will continue to grow the international connections made with students and people from literally all over the world. "What you think is attainable is just a function of what you know at the moment." After undertaking everything packed within the span of four and a half months, I feel challenged to achieve more with my time. The relentlessness of the modules gradually taught me to enjoy the process, the learning, and the hours of work. The expectations at NUS are high and the students always seek to meet or exceed them. Perhaps the most impactful were the unexpected sources of drive from seeing firsthand the opportunities available, as well as the competence and intelligence of NUS students. Although my primary interests are still in equity research, investment management, trading, and financial analysis, I found other fields that may lead to fulfilling career paths. Working through the cases in ACC1006 and attending SGInnovate and NUS Enterprise events have confirmed the practical usefulness of understanding information technology and its rapidly developing applications for the future. It pushed me to add on Management Information Systems as a third major. The unique opportunities at NUS presented to me ideas potentially worth implementing at UH Mānoa in an effort to provide more options and add more value in Hawai‘i for the majority of our local students. This includes hosting our own stock pitch competitions and case competitions—and perhaps the most actionable and community impact-oriented—managing a student-run consulting group open to undergraduate students of all majors providing pro bono services to small businesses and non-profits in Hawai‘i. “And so I learned the secret of diversity. Life is made up of different avenues. Everything can happen in one of several ways, according to different musical scores and parallel logics. Each of these parallel logics is consistent and coherent on its own terms, perfect in itself, indifferent to all the others.” From experiencing Holi in Vrindavan and Mathura to visiting the Taj Mahal and Angkor Wat, traveling outside of Singapore to five countries over the past few months, both with groups of exchange students and alone, has been rewarding. However, it was not the fact of the countries and places visited, but the nuances and details—the dynamic social environment, the vibrancy of the city streets and the countryside, the blend of local cultures and norms—that defined the experiences to contrast with the familiar life in Hawai‘i. From witnessing the ways that many people try to make a living and the sacrifices that they need to make, to trying to understand what the locals value the most in order to improve their productivity and quality of life, I found an interest in the ideas of social entrepreneurship and social impact consulting. Particularly in traveling alone for the first time for three weeks across Cambodia and Vietnam, I met people from all walks of life, each perfect based on different interpretations of success and purpose in correlation with happiness. Perhaps this is partly a moot point stemming from ‘grass is always greener’ thinking without clear consideration for the true limitations of different circumstances. Nonetheless, this shift in perspective has convinced me that rather than obsess over the best steps to take for a supposed perfect career path and inadvertently waste time in inaction (somewhat like the indecision in the often-quoted fig tree vision in The Bell Jar), take a step and accept the inevitable risks, sacrifices, and detours as opportunities to further explore your interests and your own definition of success, regardless of deviation from seemingly conventional trajectories.
This undoubtedly valuable and forever memorable experience abroad would not have been feasible without the support of the Freeman Foundation and the Shidler College of Business. Just last Thursday, after finishing my last final exam and planning out my last full day in Singapore, I was walking back from the Sheng Siong supermarket near NUS with some cocktail prawn rolls for my mom, when I was hit with a sudden realization of what I owe to everyone that made the past few months possible. That explicit realization of gratitude is emblazoned in my mind and will serve as a force for discipline, humility, and ambition for everything I pursue in the future. Comments are closed.
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ABOUT ME
Keng-Chia Chao BBA Candidate in Finance, Accounting, & Management Information Systems Shidler College of Business, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Archives
May 2018
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