Dear New Students,

I want to welcome each of you to the School of Computing (SoC).

This is a new exciting phase in your life where you will transit from being in a secondary school environment to being in an institute of higher learning. There will be no morning assemblies, no school uniform, no fixed school hours. You will shoulder more responsibilities in managing your time, your learning, and your peers. I believe most of you will have no problem adjusting to the new environment, new way of learning, and find many new friends within the next few months. But if you do have issues, we have Personal Tutor assigned to you to help you along the way.

The world that you know today is fast changing, led by the pace of technological advancement and innovation. Your arrival in the School coincides with a time in which there is a call for Singapore’s economy to transform itself through digital innovation. Our nation is set to aggressively develop capabilities in the field of immersive technology, data analytics, artificial intelligence, cyber security, and application development, so as to leverage technology for productivity and innovation. This is the next lap for Singapore and you will play a pivotal role in this transformation process.

However, the pace of change in technology will never slow down and so is our learning. In your next 3 years with SoC, as you learn and pick up new skills, pay attention on understanding your own learning process and knowing the resources from which you can tap from. Your learning will not stop after you get your diploma and our job is make sure that you have the right skills and attitude to continue the lifelong learning journey.

And while you seek to build your technical expertise, you should also be more curious in knowing the world around you. Read widely, be interested in the current affairs, changes in social trends, economic developments. Be involved in CCA, take up arts and sports activities. All these will help shape the way you look at the world, and in turn shape meaningful technology innovation for our society in return.

Once again, welcome to SoC!