Blog Post #6: Je m'appelle Ben...

My name is Benjamin Ng, and I am a 4th year Mechanical Engineering undergraduate at the National University of Singapore. Having worked and studied in England and France respectively, I speak fluent French, possess a global outlook and enjoy travelling and interacting with people of different cultures.

I relish team-sports, and embrace leadership roles with passion and responsibility. One of my proudest achievements is being appointed captain of every sports team that I have represented my secondary school and junior college in.

Working as a counsellor during National Service and a month-long community service expedition in a rural Cambodian village have had a profound influence on my attitude towards mentorship and contributing to the community.

Growing up in the Mandai kampung and weekly childhood visits to the zoo have nurtured my 'wild' side. Scuba diving has inspired me to save my beloved coral reefs by marrying my engineering knowledge, sense of giving back to the community and love for nature and pursuing a global career in environmental sustainability.

Why do we write?

As is the case with most NUS projects, sometimes you wonder why you bother going through the motions of doing a project that so many years before you have already done. How many people are able to walk away and say that they have actually learnt or done something useful with their reports?

I was just channel surfing a while ago and chanced upon the last episode of Once Upon A Tree: Tides and Coastlines – Hopes and Future on Arts Central. The show is a locally produced info-ed on the ecological footprint in Singapore. The show showcased Singapore’s tidal and marine habitats, and also described how Singaporeans could be more pro-active about conserving Singapore’s natural marine habitats. Having just completed a report on the conservation of Singapore’s natural heritage, I found it incredibly gratifying that my team’s report was incredibly relevant to the show and also reflected similar themes and veins.

My team has attempted to relate Singapore’s natural heritage to its national identity, thus encouraging more Singaporeans to engage conservation efforts through a sense of pride and ownership. The host of the show, Dr. Shawn Lum, also commented on hoping to see a future where Singapore would be able to celebrate her marine biodiversity as much as her ports and urban developments. It was so satisfying to see some form of vindication for our efforts, to know that our research could actually go some way towards fulfilling his hopes and dreams.

As an avid scuba-diver that has dived so much around the region, writing this report was an opportunity to learn so much about my country's biodiversity, right here in my own backyard. If anything, it reinforced my belief that all of us can do something if we really care about our natural heritage, something I believe we have so much to be proud of.

If anything, I believe reports should be this way, not just an experience in terms of team building and personal development, but also of relevant material that can come in useful to society.

Picture courtesy of www.cjproject.blogspot.com

Blog Post #5: A Positive Learning Experience

When I first realized I would be doing my research project with Hannah, Yi Lei and Yuk Lum, alarm bells were going off like crazy in my head! The few other occasions in which I had had to work with girls had ended on the brink of disaster, and now I was the lone male in a group with three other females! Shock! Horror!

I had foreseen the voting of the research topic as a possible topic of disagreement. Much to my surprise, everyone in the group proved to be very receptive of each other’s opinions, and the research topic was agreed smoothly and peacefully. This was a team with three girls! I had been expecting lots of bitching and catfights, but there were none whatsoever! It was not supposed to be like this! Things were almost too good to be true and I was starting to suspect serious foul play.

However, over the course of the project, I realized that I was blessed with extremely patient and cooperative group members. Although the three of them were already close friends from junior college, they were careful about involving me and not appearing clique-ish so that I would not feel excluded. An irrelevant yet particularly delightful memory involved all three of them all putting their legs up on their chairs simultaneously when they saw a cat approaching. The negative perception of working with girls developed from previous experiences was quickly dissipating.

Hannah, Yuk Lum and Yi Lei, I would like to thank you for changing my attitude towards working with girls. I was also able to draw upon this experience to reflect positively upon past failed working relationships. However, I am still unable to comprehend your obsession with having meetings at Macs!