Paving The Pathway To A Brighter Future

On 24 August 2021, Sports School’s student-athletes from all academic levels were immersed into the possibilities of future career choices in informative webinar sessions catered to them.

Secondary 1 student-athletes were introduced to the World of Work in a video session from the school’s Education and Career Guidance Counsellor, Subramaniyam Jekanathan, who shared on the future of work and some emerging career trends globally. Mr Subramaniyam played several news bulletins on the growing value of logistics and operations, as well as emerging industries like artificial intelligence and virtual reality.

He urged the youths to think carefully about their priorities in life and their sport, educational and work aspirations. He advised them to explore a variety of different interests and skills in their own free time, such as photography, music or programming. The goal is to see if the student-athletes would like these interests and eventually be willing to pursue them as a career in the long run. He also introduced student-athletes to the MySkillsFuture portal. After the session, mentors took time to ask student-athletes to give their reflections on the introduction to work and their thoughts.

For the Secondary 2 student-athletes, the National Youth Sports Institute (NYSI) facilitated the session, and Leslie Tan, who heads the Athlete Life division, helmed the presentations from different NYSI staff in departments such as Talent Identification, Performance Analytics and Nutrition. The NYSI team discussed about their career journey and what led them to the roles they are in now. They also encouraged the student-athletes to find their passion and interest and be open to new opportunities. 

“I found the NYSI session incredibly helpful to my ambition to have a future career as a table tennis athlete. It taught me many useful skills and knowledge that are vital for my development and sport performance. What stood out to me most was the session on performance analytics where I was first introduced to such a technology. It analyses myself as well as my opponents in a competition. This helps me have a clearer view of how I should play with different opponents,” said Secondary 2 paddler Yang Ze Yi.

For the upper Secondary student-athletes and Polytechnic students, the focus was on an exciting field – Growth Industries. Two up and coming industries are Allied Health and Cybersecurity. The school also managed to secure two leaders in these career fields to share their experiences and to provide insight on these industries. The first was Professor Alan Wong, Professor and Cluster Director of Health and Social Sciences from Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT). Professor Wong shared the Health Sciences Programmes in SIT, and how allied health services in radiography, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, dietetics and nutrition are an integral part of the healthcare system. He also delved into the various career options in services, research, administration and education available to graduates. 

In the second segment of Growth Industries, Mr Aaron Ang, Senior Manager at the Cyber Security Agency (CSA) of Singapore captivated the student-athletes’ attentions with the exhilarating and mysterious world of cybersecurity and white hat hacking.

He also explained what roles CSA took on, such as cyber threat intelligence, digital forensics and cyber risk assessment. Mr Ang revealed that cybersecurity was a booming industry and that many cybersecurity graduates would be highly sought after. He ended the session on an unconventional note, demonstrating to student-athletes how white hat hacking was done. He did this by hacking a test website to show just how easily hackers can penetrate a website, underscoring the significance of cybersecurity and cyber defence.

“I found the talks very informative. They shed more light on the topics and also gave more details on the potential courses which we could go to. In particular, I found the cybersecurity talk very interesting and made me want to learn more about the field, and possibly a career in it,” shared Secondary 4 fencer Juliet Heng Jie Min.

The Growth Industries programme will also be made available to IBDP student-athletes as part of their post-exam programmes.