On top of attending classes as a student, I also worked as a Teaching Assistant for BME’s bGlobal module: Biomedical Engineering for Global, where I got to travel with students to Timor-Leste for ten days to directly observe different modalities of healthcare and identify problems they can address from a Biomedical Engineering perspective.

During this fieldwork phase, I was lucky to interact with health workers across various sectors (including nurses in private providers and government hospitals, NGO leaders working towards improved healthcare outcomes, and primary caregivers), and across different locations within Timor-Leste. The observational nature of the trip and our background as Singapore residents with access to high-quality healthcare meant that there were innumerable eye-opening moments for me.

Shashaank Abhinav
Bachelor of Engineering (Biomedical Engineering), Class of 2024

As President of the Environmental Science and Engineering Student Club (ESESC), I was given the opportunity to plan and execute events and activities for our members and the entire environmental engineering cohort. These ranged from industry talks to meaningful events such as fundraisers and beach clean-ups. One such event that I hold close to my heart was the Exam Welfare Packs giveaways, which involved providing students with the best welfare pack possible to spur them on during finals season.

While it was the most challenging event to organise, it was also the most rewarding as it allowed my team and I to make new friends and get to know the wider Environmental Engineering student body. Being on the ground during the exam welfare pack giveaways allowed me to talk to my fellow cohort mates first-hand and get their input on improving the welfare pack for the following semester. Times like these always reminded me that being a student often goes beyond just receiving a good education – the bonds and friendships you forge along the way are just as important.

Kho Jia Hui
Bachelor of Engineering (Environmental Engineering), Class of 2024

A course that combines the creative aspects of technology, engineering, design and business entrepreneurship, Industrial Design allowed me to go beyond my comfort zone as a designer. During my time as a DID student, two design projects helped shape my direction as a designer. The first was Typodont+, a design platform project under “Design for Dentistry”. Together with my coursemates Huang Kai Xing and Koh Min Xiang, we worked closely with the NUS School of Dentistry to refine the project, which was eventually granted a patent. Under the guidance of Assoc Prof Yen Ching Chiuan, Typodont+ was awarded the NUS Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Prize and the CDE Innovation & Research Award.

After Typodont+, I was ready to take on another challenge in the medical and healthcare space. From my work on Typodont+, I had many key takeaways, such as how to create effective, user-centric healthcare products despite not having a background in medical training or studies. From there, I developed Mammosense, which aims to enhance patient comfort during mammogram screenings. Typodont+ and Mammosense made me realise the importance of design thinking and how it can help create functional and user-friendly products.

Luke Goh
Bachelor of Arts (Industrial Design), Class of 2024

I really enjoyed the hands-on learning at CDE. My first major engineering project was EG3301R under the Innovation & Design Programme (iDP), where my team attempted to build an autonomous food delivery robot. It was the first time I had almost complete control over what went into the system being designed. However, that also came with having to live with my design mistakes, where I took the prototyping part too literally, resulting in a final sub-system that was functional but struggled to integrate into the rest of the system. As such, the programme helped me appreciate the balance between “Do-It-Yourself" and using off-the-shelf parts, changing how I approached engineering design.

On top of my passion for learning, I also enjoy talking about what I am learning about, which led to conducting workshops both for fun and for CDE as part of CDE’s outreach efforts. I conducted workshops for pre-university institutions and secondary schools alongside my coursemate, Chua Wei Xuan. We were constantly looking to revise our lesson plan to ensure it was well-received by the students, and it was an extremely rewarding process.

Jasshan Kumerash
Bachelor of Engineering (Electrical Engineering), Class of 2024

Throughout my time at CDE, we were given countless opportunities to engage in hands-on learning through problem-based learning projects in our core modules. I fondly recall two projects from two different modules – Structural Behavior and Modelling (CE3155) and Structural Steel Design (CE3166). Both projects required us to design and develop a product that would be assessed for their structural capacity with applied loading. However, the bridges I designed failed as I was so immersed in the theoretical aspects of the design that I failed to realise certain practical limitations. 

I was humbly reminded that Engineering Thinking doesn’t only pertain to 'designing to code’ or adhering to predetermined standards and specifications. An engineer’s profession often mandates creative problem-solving, and through these projects, I learned that engineering solutions must be engaged with a holistic purview – not only considering statutory requirements, but also actively exercising attention to detail and critical analysis.

Nicholas Tay Zhi En
Bachelor of Engineering (Civil Engineering), Class of 2024