Pivoting Toward New Discoveries

Year 1 College of Humanities and Sciences (CHS) student CHUA Wei Qi, who joined NUS from Anderson Serangoon Junior College (ASRJC), found the flexibility and interdisciplinary nature of CHS appealing.

Her personal academic journey so far illustrates how it pays to pivot.  As a Junior College (JC) student, Wei Qi was “drawn by the charms” of chemistry and literature and signed up for both when she joined CHS.

To her, “Chemistry shows how concepts can be abstract yet logical, and their applicability to our lives. On the other hand, literature is beautiful as we can gather meaning from different texts and form our own interpretations.”

Fast forward a few months into her journey of discovery, and Wei Qi decided to switch from Literature to English Language and Linguistics, offered by the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, after reading the introductory modules in both.

What fired this change of mind? Wei Qi says her interest was piqued by the “unexpected discovery” of the interdisciplinary nature of linguistics, which she describes as an intriguing blend of various disciplines including science and philosophy.

In sociolinguistics, for instance, “statistics is applied to prove or disprove a certain trend or feature in language”, thereby shedding light on how language use interacts with, or is affected by, social factors such as gender, ethnicity, age or social class.

While chemistry and literature (or linguistics) are not closely related at all (“I do not know of any specific career path that requires knowledge from both these fields”), the opportunity to gain exposure to new concepts and experiences through the Common Curriculum and explore contrasting fields were precisely the reasons Wei Qi joined CHS!

In addition, Wei Qi is also reading a Minor in Forensic Science which more closely relates to Chemistry.

Look out for our second story on Wei Qi’s CHS experiences, coming to you soon!