SGPsychStud: Interactions of Psychology Students in Singapore

The main question for this post is:

What is happening now in Singapore for psychology students here?  Are students of respective schools interacting with each other??


The answer:  Nothing much and No...

Seriously, since the beginning of this year, there is actually nothing much happening.  From what I known and have heard from, there have been little interaction between students of the different universities or educational institutions.  It might be that for most institutions,  this period is the 2nd semester, and hence the exams are coming (which is really soon for some universities!)


Why it is so important that students interact, even if they are from different institutions?  


I have mentioned the main reasons for networking in a previous post (Power of Networking):
  • Employment / business opportunities - You never know; you might just find your next boss / customer just by talking to them. 
  • Opportunities to knowing new associates from similar or different fields - Support for your clients often tend to be holistic, rather just from the psychologist (yourself); hence often, you may need the help or support from others from a similar or different line of work, such as psychiatrists, doctors, lawyers, etc.
  • Research opportunities - Through knowing others in the similar field or area of research, this may open up your chances of working with others in research projects in your area of research.
  • Social networking - Just purely for the reasons for making friends and acquaintances in psychology and your psychological speciality/area of research.
Even though the first reason of employment opportunities may not be applicable, the other three reasons of knowing people from different fields, research opportunities and social networking is very possible.  You never know how these friends and acquaintances that you know from the other universities may actually help in your career in the very near future, in terms of asking for advice, work opportunities, or even close friendship!

How is there a chance for students from the different institutions to meet and discuss students, when everyone has very busy academic schedules and our own matters that take up most of our time?


Each respective schools has their own talks, such as the SIM PsychWeek and the NUS academic talks and post-graduate sharing sessions, which are held annually.  NTU has some talks that are held periodically, which is not at any fixed period.  It is not enough to only interact with students in your own institutions, as there is only a small amount of people that you will meet considering the number of students studying psychology in Singapore.

The only two events that happened as a result of collaboration of universities were the PSY2010 in May 2010, which is Singapore’s first-ever inter-varsity career talk jointly organized by NTU, NUS, SIM and SMU, and NTUxSIM Psychology Societies Spring Talks 2014 that happened in March 2014.  Events like these are wonderful as they really bring the different institutions together for the overall learning of the students.

My recommendation to increase the interactions for all students is to:
Attend events or find chances to meet up with the others as much as possible.  
In the most recent event, ARUPS Congress 2015, that happened in Singapore, I managed to associate with MY Psychology, a group of Malaysian psychology students who are promoting psychology.  We are currently in the process of planning some form of collaboration.

Another method would be to participate in the SPS Student Research Award, where students submit their research works for the awards and come together during the presentation.  This is a very good chance where students can come together to interact and discuss about their own works and thoughts.

Always remember this phrase from Jobs (Part 8):
Expanding your network  =  More (future) job opportunities

Comments