Steered to succeed
In 2013, Afiqah Suhaiemi was chosen to join the Steering Committee that planned Singapore’s 50th birthday bash. At age 20, she was the youngest member and only undergraduate. The experience was both refreshing and eye-opening, she shared. One of the most valuable aspects of her experience was the opportunity to discuss big picture concerns with working professionals, and observing the different perspectives they had. Without taking part in this, she added, she would not have been able to come into contact with or understand these concerns.
Being part of the Steering Committee was not the only accomplishment of this high-flyer, who graduated this year with an Honours degree in Economics.
Afiqah represented NUS in the Princeton Interactive Crisis Simulation; an adaptation of Model U.N., held in the US; and took on an exchange programme to the Netherlands. She was also part of the University Scholars Programme and the Chua Thian Poh Community Leadership Programme.
Afiqah traces her interest in Economics back to Junior College days. The role economics plays in policy changes is of particular importance to her, along with its subsequent impact on community issues. Driven by this, she conducted independent research on the long effects of unemployment on low wage workers, and did her Honours thesis on the effects of parental incarceration on children.
"Hectic" is how Afiqah described her NUS experience.
“I think I really challenged myself,” she said. “Sometimes I look back and wonder how I did it. Having been in NUS and stretching myself to multiple limits of what I can do and achieve gave me a lot more confidence to move forward in life. I hope I’ll be able to keep up that kind of perseverance and fire when I start working.”
The passionate student believes that having a clear vision of where you want to go and what you want to achieve is an effective way to motivate yourself. She shared one of her visions of being someone useful to society, particularly to help increase the level of numerical literacy.
“There are a lot of instances where people don’t understand charts and graphs, because there’s just so much information and assumption behind them,” Afiqah said. “Sometimes the information you get can be quite misleading. I want to help people understand how numbers themselves can tell a story and that these stories can move people to do different things. I want to be a data storyteller.”
Afiqah will be furthering her studies with a Master’s Degree of Science in Economics at the University of Warwick before embarking on a career in the Economics Service at the Ministry of Trade and Industry.
Hopefully, she will be able to fulfil her vision while there!
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