Courser: SUTD Engineering
3. Personal Experience / Preferences
The Engineering System Design pillar is something similar to Business Analytics but we spend more time on problem solving. We find a client, solve their problem and if we need technical expertise, we will get it from the Information Systems Technology and Design (ISTD) pillar or be motivated to pick up the skills ourselves. One word to describe this pillar will be consulting.
I went to JC, and I took H2 Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics and Economics. I struggled a little because in the first year, I had to take physics and I even had to take supplementary classes because I was not as strong in Physics. However, I eventually fell in love with Physics because of my teachers and I even became a Teaching Assistant (TA). Back in secondary school, I wanted to do computer science but when I went to SUTD, I decided that business analytics is more for me.
If you’re doing a double major/degree, what made you decide on that?
In SUTD, you will be exposed to physics and programming in the future. Despite struggling a little, I actually like programming but I still chose to do Business Analytics instead of Computer Science because I cannot do programming in an exam setting.
Besides SUTD, I considered SMU, NTU and NUS. I got an offer from all schools except NUS Computer Science because it was super competitive. I attended the SUTD open house and I really like how the seniors pitch the school curriculum. I did not see that in NTU and NUS, so I decided to choose SUTD instead.
I have 4 modules and it’s pretty standardised across SUTD. I spend at most 16 hours of lessons, inclusive of tutorials and lectures per week.
This depends on the modules you are taking. The previous years focused more on individual assignments but for my final year, it was mostly group work. One person will take one question as homework and everyone will submit their answers as a team
We don’t have them. I guess that is what makes SUTD unique.
Pre-Covid: Everyone had lessons in the morning at 9am. We end lessons at 4pm and afterwards, it’s free time and you can go back to the hostel. For Wednesday and Friday, CCAs are held from 1-5pm. This is where it gets more tiring as we have a lot of project work and some students do not sleep because they are so busy trying to complete them. My senior even had to complete his project work and study for an exam on the same day, and only had 1 hour of sleep!
It depends on the modules. For the compulsory humanities modules, it will be a presentation or video and an essay. The rest of the assessments are usually closed book, pen and paper exams. There are some modules that allow cheat sheets too.
My workload is quite manageable. I spend most of my time doing school work, freelance and gaming.
There are definitely modules that you can learn on Coursera and edX but there is value in having a school teacher because they can teach you the shortcuts. Programming may be easier to learn outside because it is less rushed, but the professors in school will be able to point out your errors and share with you their experience.
Yes. The idea of specialization will only come in the last year. You can choose to major in business analytics and operations research, financial services, supply chain & logistics, urban infrastructure systems or aviation. I am currently in business analytics and operations research. In term 6 (we use a trimester system), I took financial studies but I realised I can study this on my own, so I decided to jump into business analytics because it is pretty hot in the market. I personally find that supply chain and urban infrastructure are too niche and it will be harder for me to find jobs in the future.
They are all very fatherly and pretty ups. All my professors graduated from universities overseas like UC Berkeley, Cornell University and they are mostly Caucasian. You won’t really sleep in class because the professors will make classes very exciting and the western style of teaching keeps everyone engaged.
Yup. I am currently doing a Final Year Project (FYP) which will last for 8 months. NUS and NTU have final year internships but SUTD doesn’t. For FYPs, you will have to form a team with people from other courses. I guess this is how you expose yourself to the multidisciplinary experience that the school has been marketing.
My most favourite class was Network Life which unfortunately, will not be available after my batch because the professor is leaving the school. It is interesting because we get to look at 10-12 questions, like ‘How does the ebay auction work?’ and ‘How does Facebook generate revenue?’. You have to answer them in a theoretical and technical way. The technical way of solving the problem involves Math and Optimisation.
My least favourite class is the humanities module called Business Entrepreneurship in China. At first, it was the most interesting because the professor came from Zhejiang. This was a rare opportunity. However, her teaching style did not suit me as she usually reads off the slides.
I did not expect what we had to do during the Network Life module. Even though it was my favourite module in school, we were told to build a Netflix recommendation system from scratch and it was impossible because there were so many professionals behind Netflix’s recommendation system. The professor made the project a competition (something common in SUTD) and the Computer Science students will always dominate the ranking board.
My first course in Y2, which is called Data and Business Analytics, surpassed my expectations. For the first year, the modules were all general ones. For Y2, I was quite excited because I could take a module that is related to my career prospects. Right from the start, we had to find our own clients and pitch our own proposals. We spent 3-4 weeks getting rejected by multiple companies. It was draining because the clients had a lot of expectations that we had to deliver. Other universities have pretty clear course names but not in SUTD. Thus, to the clients, they will think that we learn Computer Science and we will receive a very coding intensive problem. However, this pushed us to do a lot of independent learning and that made me fall in love with the finance industry.
Generally, the other pillars will think that our course is the slackest. It is kind of true but even though we might seem very slack, we are the only pillar that exposes us to real world problems given by companies in our first pillar term. Most of the projects done by other pillars are all student-initiated where sometimes there might be available resources online. For our projects, you can’t really find the answers online and that makes our projects more challenging. Also, like I said earlier on, I am in the Engineering System Design pillar. It is different from the Engineering Product Design (EPD) pillar which is more on the fabrication side. The EPD pillar has specialisation that ranges from electrical engineering to healthcare engineering design as well as robotics. For that pillar, students will need a foundation in physics and fabrication or at least show the willingness to learn. On the other hand, students in my pillar require the ability to look at a client’s perspective and break down their problems. Some of our clients might be tricky to deal with and so negotiation skill is also very important.
At the start, yes. At the end of term 5, we had to find an internship because the exchange was cancelled due to Covid. A lot of companies were looking for interns with technical skills like Javascript and Python, but that was not what our pillar equips us with, even though we had done projects with other clients.
No to both. Generally, people who stick to the course know what they are doing because the school gives us one year plus to decide which pillar we want and we even had a two weeks trial to attend courses from different pillars. The school tries not to retain students. If you perform well in exams but not in projects, you can still move on to the next year because the weightage is almost 50-50.
It is a bit challenging to excel because my course has 120 people and only 20 students are excelling. To really excel, you need to have the initiative to learn new things. For example, in supply chain logistics, if you do not have the skills required for an internship, you will need to pick up the necessary skills on your own because the school doesn’t fill up the gaps. Even though my course is very chill, I still see my friends struggling because they either don’t put in effort or have too many other commitments.
Most students end up becoming data analysts, consultants or business developers.
Right now, I have a job but I am not too happy with it. I’m still looking for alternatives and if I do find one, I would like to jump ship. Currently, my job is in the finance industry but I feel like I don’t fit the culture. I want a job in the aviation industry or gaming industry.
No. When I went into my course, I did not think that far. I chose my specialisation based on what I enjoyed the most and back then it was business analysis.
I had a previous internship experience as a data analyst. On the school end, there is a Career Development Centre and they will send your resume to companies. There is a general consensus that the career coaches in our school are not too good so we usually rely on ourselves, our professors and our alumni.
Most of my close friends do. It is compulsory to stay on campus during our first year but I stayed on for the second year because I was in the student government. Staying in a hostel brought me a lot of convenience because student government meetings are at night and my house is 1 hour away.
For hostel culture, we have house guardians and they will organise events every 2 weeks. There will be frequent house events and games and there are always prizes. You can always knock on their doors and chat with them. I had long heart-to-heart talks with my friends in my 2 years and we can sit on the benches outside the hostel and look at the airplanes while talking.
For my pillar’s culture, It can be a bit competitive in modules. The teammates you are working with may be your enemies in another module. People could be a bit toxic and I have seen it in my juniors’ batch. There are backstabbing experiences but people are generally still quite helpful when it comes to final exams as people will share their notes in the telegram chats.
I had a few in my first year and I also dropped a few eventually. I was in the robotics club for a while and I was in the student government as well as the student welfare club.
My experience may not be representative of the entire student population. I applied and ran for the role of vice president of the student government. This brought me a lot of opportunities because the school nominated me for many events outside. Additionally, I am currently on the advisory panel for Reaching Everyone for Active Citizenry @ Home (REACH). Another event that I was quite proud of is the ministerial dialogue that I moderated. That would not have been possible if I was not the vice president.
Current juniors: People are too harped over their grades. For the first batch of SUTD students, they focused more on having fun and starting their own projects because back then SUTD was a new school. However, the later batches of students consist of more muggers and I hope my juniors will not mug too much. I had a lot of free time and it made me enjoy my learning. I created telegram bots, found existing problems online and created my own solutions to post on github. I hope my juniors will embark on more side projects instead of mugging and mugging.
Prospective juniors: SUTD may not be what you think it is because there is a saying that SUTD is the dumping ground. If you bear this mentality from the start, you will not do well and you will not enjoy your time here. If you come to SUTD, you should come in with an open mind and be sure that the course is what you want to do. This will help you to survive and thrive in school.
The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the interviewees and do not reflect the official policy or position of any institution. They are also not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, class, individual or organisation.
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