New beginnings await final-year Yale-NUS students
Final-year students share what is in store for them after their Double Degree Programme in Law and Liberal Arts
“In many ways, Yale-NUS has opened my eyes to possibilities and cultivated an attitude of exploration,” remarked Joanne Ho (Class of 2022) as she reflected on her Double Degree Programme in Law and Liberal Arts (DDP) and her post-graduation plans.
This opinion is shared by her fellow final-year DDP students Wu Jiankai and Jannell Natasha Job (both from Class of 2022), whose exposure to different disciplines during the five-year programme — jointly offered with the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore — has inspired them to embark on interesting and new beginnings after graduating from Yale-NUS College.
Joanne Ho is considering a Master’s in counselling after graduation. Image provided by Joanne Ho.
Apart from sitting for the Singapore Bar Examinations and considering a future in art law, Joanne hopes to pursue postgraduate studies, likely in counselling. While the connection to law may not be immediately obvious to some, the Arts and Humanities major credits this interest to the wellness- and mental health-friendly culture at Yale-NUS as well as her stint as a University Court Friends volunteer at the Family Justice Courts. “That experience helped me understand that communication, listening skills, and mental well-being (or a lack thereof) are intimately entangled in conflicts brought to the court. I believe counselling and the legal profession share common ground insofar as they require strong people and listening skills as well as an ability to help problem solve appropriately,” she explained. “For this reason, I see my interest in counselling as building on some of my natural inclinations and interests, which brought me to the DDP in the first place.”
Similarly, Jiankai believes that the broad liberal arts education combined with professional training in the law has expanded his worldview and skills. It gave him the opportunity to take different modules, such as Applied Econometrics and Big Data, and Women and Work around the World, and discover that he enjoyed learning various qualitative and quantitative methods, which he hopes to utilise at work.
Wu Jiankai will be joining SkillsFuture Singapore-Workforce Singapore after graduation. Image provided by Wu Jiankai.
As a recipient of the SkillsFuture Singapore-Workforce Singapore (SSG-WSG) Joint Undergraduate Scholarship, Jiankai will join SSG-WSG after graduation. On what he is looking forward to in his job, he shared that he strongly believes in the ethos of the SSG-WSG. “My experiences at Yale-NUS strongly shaped that [belief]. One of my mentors said that self-growth is like a toolbox and the more we experience, the more tools we can add to the box. This perspective made so much sense to me and I believe it is relevant to most tasks we want to apply ourselves to. I look forward most to helping shape a Singapore where people love to learn and love to grow, and provide the resources and support to those who wish to do so,” added Jiankai.
For Jannell, pursuing the DDP allowed her to build on her diploma in Psychology and passion for the law. The interdisciplinary education offered by the DDP also provided the intellectual challenge she sought and set the necessary foundation for her career: “I believe that being exposed to a multidisciplinary education will be useful for any job as it teaches you skills, such as writing, critical thinking, analysis, or even just how to read for better understanding. It also helps students to tolerate and embrace ambiguity when faced with unfamiliar or novel subject matter”.
Jannell Natasha Job plans to work in the public service sector. Image provided by Jannell Natasha Job.
After graduation, she will be sitting for the Singapore Bar Examinations. Beyond that, Jannell hopes to work in the public service sector, specifically in the policy sphere. It is in this area that she sees herself applying the research and analytical skills she has gleaned from her psychology modules.
While their academic pursuits were a significant part of their undergraduate journey, all three students consider the people they met and the communities they created the most treasured part of their time at Yale-NUS. These relationships were equally important in exposing them to diverse views and experiences, which they will carry well after graduating from the College.
“Yale-NUS was an education in perspective, compassion, and self-worth. It definitely has something to do with the diversity of the student body, the design of our Common Curriculum, and an environment that encourages you to find the best version of yourself,” observed Jiankai.
