Yesterday night marked the end of the celebratory spirit that has inundated NUS over the last two weeks, with everyone congratulating each other in Commencement and the moving forward of one's life into the workforce. Attending Commencement dinner as a member of the Student Union, not a graduate was a little awkward, since I was supposed to be the class of 2013. I guess in university it is indeed special,; your class is determined by when you leave, not when you start.

Greeting and laughing off questions with answers like "Oh I love school too much to leave so soon", it dawned upon me that many university students just seemed to rapidly run through their three or four years in university. Is university education a means to an end? I guess this question kind of bugged most of us who bothered to think about it, especially my fellow thinkers who had spent hard, long hours mulling in the FASS Clubroom over these issues rather than their immediate coursework. For me, it looked to be pretty clear. It is both. The university degree ultimately brings you to somewhere which without it one would find it difficult to pass. Yet the times in university have often been marked as the final years that a student can consider his/her as a student; to learn as much as possible and to try to fail as much as possible because he/she could not afford to fail again once in the workforce. 

Increasingly, university has evolved in a phase in which I treasure and appreciate more than anything else, for the school has provided me with opportunities that I would only dared dream about. If not for my encouraging seniors and more-than-ever supportive Orientation Group in my freshman year, I would never have taken the plunge into student activism (some call it student politics, the nastier ones - talkshops). I saw dreams after dreams becoming reality, and with this motivation I was fueled to strive even more by the grace of my Lord Jesus Christ, who has shielded me and watched over me thus far in my life. As an introvert I only had the courage to stay engaged with my inner circle of friends, but I was exposed to something else: something far more exciting and meaningful that I never have thought I would like; something that shaped my destiny as my future career, my lifelong dream. While this went on, I was given opportunities to be exposed as a global citizen, not simply through student exchange programme (not to say that it is simple but I didn't manage to go anyway) but interactions with other like-minded individuals: student activists from Taiwan and Hong Kong; social movers and dreamers like me across the world during WorldMUN 2013 and of course looking to the future my much anticipated internship opportunity in Medellin, Colombia during October 2013 which without the school I could never imagined.

As Commencement draws to a close, I felt that I should gather my thoughts and feelings into a post and hopefully through my experiences and life inspire many more like-minded individuals who decided to take a small step forward (like me in 2010) towards their dream. But for now, it is the end of an era for many of my friends, and soon for me as I sum up my duties in the Student Union before relinquishing them in September. Dream on, and we may jolly well find our dreams on even before we know it. With all praises goes above all else to the One that has made everything possible in my life when He had pulled me out of the mire and into my heart. :)