Come October though, she will be taking more than a step: more like a leap or a flight! After working really hard throughout her schooling years, she has done well and got admitted into a good university over in the UK.
Photo credit: Carl Court, Getty Images
The university admission process nowadays include submitting a personal statement. Here's the one she wrote that got her into her university.
My neighbours are unpleasant. They lack etiquette, quarrel vociferously, raid our kitchen and mate indiscriminately in public. While nettled by their temerity and thievery, I feel for them. These long-tailed macaque monkeys were left hungry and homeless as nearby forests were cleared for urban development. Were we the first intruders? Alarmed, my human neighbours and I petitioned to conserve the forest.
I care about how humans change nature, and how nature fights back. Take climate change: while Albert Tucker’s Prisoners’ Dilemma reinforces the imperative for cooperation, there is equal urgency for individual effort. Thus inspired, I produced a video for the National Climate Change Competition to raise awareness about climate change in Singapore. I explored Dr. Renee Lertzman’s Environmental Melancholia, where though many recognise the climate crisis, its sheer magnitude is paralysing. I addressed this aspect of human nature with a practical vision to reduce Singapore’s carbon footprint, through roads that can harness cars’ kinetic energy to power streetlights. My video was placed second nation-wide, but my bigger takeaway was the importance of behavioral science in mitigating climate change. Driven by humans, eventually affecting humans, solutions must be human-centred.
All nature is founded on biochemistry. It awed me that life could be traced back to the simple elements of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen. Intrigued by enantiomerism and its applications in human health, I searched for more but sadly found many gaps: Thalidomide, a drug used to ease morning sickness, caused birth deformities and even deaths due to side effects of its enantiomer. Such unknowns in the medical field underscore the mysteries about humans that still escape us and my curiosity for answers led to my topping Biology in Secondary 4.
Knowing my own studies are incomplete, I opted to read Geopolitics in the National University of Singapore. I learnt a new dimension of human science: the relationship between space and power. Man’s reliance on the environment shapes our policies. Ironically, we cheer scientific breakthroughs for preservation of life, but ignore the millions displaced in conflict. Our Rohingya neighbours suffer atrocities not too long after genocide in Germany. Thus I am grateful that in multi-racial Singapore, urban planning is guided by spatial justice. Amy Chua wrote in ‘Political Tribes’ that humans are wired with tribal instincts & identities. For cohesion of increasingly plural societies, we need both geopolitical and psychological understandings of humans to create liveable spaces that facilitate optimal human relationships. In short, geography makes us human.
I took this further when participating in the National Geography Challenge. In my fieldwork research on therapeutic landscapes as conceived by Wilbert Gesler, I found hospital green spaces do reduce levels of cancer biomarkers. Through interacting with patients, I also found their need for emotional wellness. I proposed multi-functional infrastructure with natural elements for physiological recovery, such as lining train tracks with grass and vertical farms on apartment blocks. My research contributed to my individual Gold and team Bronze award in the competition, and my selection for the Geography Talent Development Programme.
Keen to see good plans in action, I secured an internship with National Parks Board. I made use of Geographical Information Systems to map out future zones of development for the Botanic Gardens. The exercise helped me appreciate the judicious planning needed to sustain growth in space constrained Singapore. If we can house 7 million on 50 km2, in theory the world’s population could thrive in just 1000 such islands.
Macaque monkeys are not unique to Singapore, nor are the factors contributing to their displacement. I am excited by the prospect of learning alongside leading minds, for a collective impact through individual effort when we return to the different parts of our world.
I don't think I could have written anything half as accomplished had it been my application. Onwards and upwards, my daughter.....
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