NUS scheme giving some shine to engineering
Stacey Chia | The Straits Times | Wed Feb 27 2013
SINGAPORE - While the rest of his friends are only halfway through their studies, chemical engineering student Tan Peng Soon is about to graduate.
Mr Tan, 23, is part of National University of Singapore's gifted programme for engineers, which allows students to complete their degrees in three years or less - compared with the usual four.
By letting them get ahead of their peers, the Global Engineering Programme (GEP) hopes to attract the brightest to study engineering, which appears to be losing its shine.
The programme, first launched in 2009, allows students to pursue any branch of engineering at NUS.
It will see its second and larger batch of 16 students graduate at the end of this term in May.
A GEP student is allowed to take six or seven modules per semester, compared with five, which is what an average engineering student would take. Each candidate is attached to a professor who mentors him or her closely.
Students under this scheme are required to complete their undergraduate studies within three years - of which one semester must be spent doing an overseas exchange programme.
They are also expected to go on to a postgraduate degree in the fourth year, in a move to encourage them to pursue
engineering-related careers.
Applicants must have excellent grades and pass an interview.
Those accepted into the programme are given full bond-free scholarships.
Programme director Quek Ser Tong said engineering has become less popular among top students, who prefer courses like law and business - a trend also evident in other countries.
Professor Quek said: "It is hard science and students are shying away from it." Surveys have shown young people tend to see it as boring and "a hard slog with little reward".
Although the proportion of students in engineering courses has remained stable - the universities here continue to produce about 4,500 engineering graduates annually - many of the top students opt for medicine, finance and business.
According to a Manpower Ministry study published last year, engineer is also among the top 10 occupations with the most vacancies going unfilled for at least six months.
Prof Quek said the programme, which took in its largest batch of 37 students in the current academic year, is likely to take in about 40 students every year.
Mr Tan, who recently started his masters in chemical engineering at ETH Zurich, said: "When you're on the programme and attached to a mentor by default, you're 'forced' to interact with the professor. But I got to learn so much more."
|