What do you consider to be your greatest achievement thus far? Please share this with us in about 500 words. My greatest achievement would probably be my good academic results during my three years of polytechnic studies. How and Why those three years of studies end up as my greatest achievement thus far are probably due to my academic results between the time in secondary school and the time in polytechnic. I also believe that those three years in polytechnic change my mentality towards studying and even allowed me to learn and experience new things.
During secondary school, though I’m inside the school’s pure science class during level secondary three and four; my academic results were average or perhaps even below average in the class , my ranking was always counted from the bottom. My O level results in the end was decent and I chose the polytechnic route because it had my favorite ‘subject’ which was engineering. My hobbies involved playing around with gadgets and electronics.
Additionally my favorite subjects were physics and mathematics which ultimately lead me into choosing “ Electronics and Computer Engineering” for my course in Ngee Ann Polytechnic because the course had relations to those subjects. Studies in Polytechnic was certainly different from being in secondary school; probably because that course was engineering and most of it involves physics and mathematics which were my favorites. After the first semester examinations, to my surprise, I managed to obtain a 3. GPA out of 4 which was quite impressive, even my parents and classmates were surprised at the results. This event definitely lit my passion for electronics engineering and changed my mentality towards studying. During lessons, I learned to mentor those students who are weak and contribute questions or doubts during tutorials and class discussions. Additionally, I also learned to muster confidence and courage within me to speak/present in front of the class during several presentations.
The efforts that I make and contributed eventually had many good returns such as being top 5-10% of the 300 strong cohort, landing myself an attachment to one of the research department in A*STAR, a few awards at my polytechnic graduation and lastly a overall GPA of 3. 93. My secondary school friends and teacher were definitely surprised at the change that I went through because who would knew that the average-scoring student in secondary school can achieved such good grades and gotten himself a placing in NUS.
Now I am proud of myself for becoming who I am today, as someone who doesn’t have much talent but tries his best to overcome obstacles that stands in his way and faces challenges head-on. After being in National Service for more than a year, I have learned many qualities such as leadership which would help me in my future endeavours. But ultimately, I still owe it to my academic results in polytechnic for making me who I am now and considered it my greatest achievement.
