Learning to See the Grey

To Kelvin NG De En, “the world isn’t black or white”. It is the grey shades in between that make the world so interesting and humans so diverse.

It was this desire to not restrict his thinking to clearly defined boxes that led Kelvin to join the College of Humanities and Sciences (CHS). Exploring the multitude of CHS’ options was topmost on his mind.

It is no surprise that his favourite module in the CHS Common Curriculum is DTK1234 – Design Thinking. Kelvin had never envisaged that creativity can be a “structured” process, and he thoroughly enjoyed the unexpected insights from this module.

He says, “I have always thought that I am not creative, but this module showed me that design is very much ingrained in our daily lives. It focuses on the process of creativity which I find very practical.”

Even before joining NUS, Kelvin discovered options he did not know existed, in between black and white. Initially inclined towards life sciences, Kelvin decided to pivot towards Quantitative Finance (QF) when he was in reservist training, after researching career options.

He adds, “I realised that I have a keen interest in financial markets, and specifically, in computational finance and risk management. QF is therefore the niche programme for me!”

He decided to pair QF with Economics, and is now looking to pursue a double degree. “I believe these two fields complement and reinforce each other in unique ways. QF looks at in-depth mathematical analysis of markets, while economics takes a broader perspective of the market for quantitative analysis.”

In the future, Kelvin plans to take on an overseas internship and undergraduate research in quantitative finance.