Benecia Tang
Diploma in Business Administration (DBA)
Awards:
Low Guan Onn Gold Medal
Can-do spirit leads to success
Benecia’s passion for business analytics was sparked in the first year of her Diploma in Business Administration course at Singapore Polytechnic (SP). “I was taking the IT & Data Analysis for Business module and really enjoyed working with the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet software program. A friend later invited me to take a course on data analytics using Python programming,” she shared.
The Crescent Girls’ School alumna went further to explore data analytics and took the Analytical Thinking with Tableau elective in SP as well as other courses outside of SP. She became a Tableau Student Ambassador and conducted workshops to teach other students how to use the Tableau data visualisation software.
The self-described go-getter, who is the Low Guan Onn Gold recipient, has also accomplished much in the field of entrepreneurship, including holding the position of Vice-President of the SP Entrepreneurs Club, which contributed to her receiving the SP Excellence Award.
As part of her course requirement, Benecia and her teammates started ThisCounted, a student discount platform business that offers daily discounts to the student population via a Telegram channel. They managed to attract 3,500 subscribers in 11 months. The effort earned the team first place in the Rocket Pitch Challenge 2022. “The experience exposed me to the challenges of running a start-up and how the things that we learned in class could be applied and tweaked to achieve business outcomes,” she said.
She also clinched the Spirit of Enterprise (SOE) Charles & Keith Best Student Interviewer Award, a national level award in 2021. “I had been gunning for the award since I first participated in the SOE Student Interviewers Programme in 2019, and having improved how I did things in 2021, I feel really proud to have won it after my efforts,” she shared.
This same level of determination can be seen in her community service. She launched a mental wellness awareness campaign called Project Our Mind Our World (OMOW), on Instagram, with a group of friends as part of RaonAtti 2021. It was organised by the Korea YMCA to galvanise young people in Asia to create a sustainable society.
Reflecting on her time in SP, Benecia, who is dyslexic, appreciates how SP is supportive of students with special needs. “My lecturers helped to arrange for extra time for my exams, along with sending emails detailing assistive devices that I could use,” she shared.
On her plans, Benecia said that she wants to pursue one of her passions that she discovered in SP, which is business analytics. “I’m planning to go into business analytics at NUS after graduation. I want to become a business analyst who can convert data into actionable insights. I really enjoy data visualisation and spinning a story using data. In the future, I hope to be working on data that can bring about large-scale change and impact.”
The former Crescent Girls’ School student has certainly come a long way since her days as the school’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Club’s president.