From scoring 109 at PSLE to earning honours degree at NUS: Man shares his learning journey
PHOTO: Lianhe Zaobao
PUBLISHED ONJune 28, 2021 9:25 AMByAlexander Kyle Thirumaran
Some believed Chan Wei Zhang would never succeed academically after he was placed in the lowest stream in primary five and later scored 109 for the Primary School Leaving Examinations (PSLE).
However, they would be wrong.
Chan, now 28, will graduate from the National University of Singapore (NUS) with honours next month.
Speaking to media, he explained that he didn't like studying then which resulted in his low PSLE score. Hence, he was inducted into the normal technical stream in secondary school.
Then in his secondary school years, he developed a liking for video games which led to an eventual interest in computers and software, Chan told Lianhe Zaobao.
He later went on to take up a course on info-communications technology at the Institute of Technical Education (ITE), and then a diploma in information technology at Republic Polytechnic.
In his interview with Lianhe Zaobao, Chan said that he gets "looked at differently" by some people who know about his academic history in primary and secondary school and his ITE education.
Therefore, after getting accepted into the NUS School of Computing, he made it his goal to graduate so that he could prove wrong those who believed in stereotypes of the less academically inclined.
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Chan told The New Paper that he was unsure at first if he could cope with the NUS curriculum given his academic background before adding that "it turned out to be a lot better than expected".
During his time at NUS, Chan also volunteered to teach coding and networking basics to children from low-income families, he told Lianhe Zaobao.
He will soon graduate from NUS and will be working as a software engineer at a multinational corporation.
"Don't compare yourself with others because there will always be others who are better than you. If you try, but fall short, it is not the end of the world. There are always opportunities for you to grow," Chan said.
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