Personal Impact

My daughter was the first child of a staff to enrol in the school and it was in its third year. From what I heard and saw in the first one, two years, I say the system of education that SMU provides is different. Of course, my daughter went through the normal twelve years in our normal school, which is basically one way of learning. So, understanding my daughter and the way she learns, I'd say I think SMU will suit her learning style. Despite the fact that it's new, I say for that I'm prepared to enrol her here and so she came. True enough, the way we teach the interactive environment, the way we train them to express their views, to be ready to engage in class discussions, to exercise initiative in managing their projects, to pick up enough courage to stand up in a class and do their presentations and speak up all these things are so much more relevant to just taking in that knowledge. And because of these other ways of learning in her case, she has found it to be so much more helpful and less restrictive and all that. It suited her so well and we've seen her change from a frustrated student to a student that was aspiring to do well, and in one sense, did much better than we expected. In the final term, she was on the dean's list and that built up her whole confidence, which is something that she was struggling with for years when she was in school, struggling through the school system, so that changed everything. Today, she's a different person. Yes, we are very proud of her. 

It make me more convinced about the way we teach our students here. The way we do it allows different students of different capabilities, learning styles, learning abilities, to apply themselves in the learning process. It's not a one-way learn, intake, spit it out in exam. So our way of learning, there are so many ways for them to use their own talent, their own skills and all that to excel in their own learning journey. So, I think that's something I am very convinced that the way we do it is correct. And, of course, all these other things who are going for overseas exchange open up a completely different world to them, it's not just Singapore. Now they see something else, they see another place, they see how they do things, they see the environment, how they operate. It's opened up a completely new world, you know. That's the other thing that our system helps our students.