By M.B. Dharshni (25S03O) and Teo Hui Sian (25S06C)
We need not shy away from superlatives – the President’s Scholarship is undoubtedly Singapore’s most prestigious undergraduate scholarship, awarded by the Public Service Commission to a select few students every year. Excellence, the simple but often elusive quality of being extremely, extremely good at something, forms the foundation of the President’s Scholarship’s exacting criteria. Recently, we had the opportunity to catch up with one of 2024’s President’s Scholarship recipients – Emily Tan.
During her time in RI, Emily was part of the Humanities Programme and the Vice-Captain of the Volleyball Team. After graduating, she chose to study Economics at Stanford University. Giving us an hour of her time in the late hours of the night in California (with a time difference of 16 hours with Singapore!), Emily shared with us aphoristic reflections, life lessons and thoughtful advice with both candor and humility.
As you read on, you’ll find that these reflections and lessons were shaped not by her academic accolades, but by a desire to give back to the community and an appreciation of the people around her.
“You will be role models in both the pursuit of excellence and humility, and in your commitment to improve the lives of all Singaporeans.” – President Tharman Shanmugaratnam, 2024 President’s Scholarship Award Ceremony
Read our full interview with Emily below!
- During your time in RI, you took on many commitments and responsibilities – how did you manage your time?
Something that I tried to do intentionally was to have an idea of when it would be more busy and to balance my commitments such that it wouldn’t get too overwhelming. For example, I took two H3s in J2, but it was manageable since the finals and deadlines were at different times of the year, and were also completely separate from the A-level season.
Other than that, when it came to difficult weeks – the week where you feel like everything is completely burning and falling apart – something I appreciated was how understanding my teachers were when it came to asking for extensions. As long as you were honest about it and asked early, they would almost always say yes, which definitely helped.
- How did you balance community service with academic pursuits, and why was service important to you?
Similarly, having a rough idea of when I would be busy definitely helped. I did more volunteering towards the start of the year and after CCA stand down because I was somewhat freer. Something else that helped me was finding volunteer commitments that were more flexible, or ad-hoc.
I also truly enjoyed the volunteer work that I did and believed in the mission of whatever I was doing. Generally, the spirit of trying to help people was something that I was always taught from young. And throughout secondary school, I was always trying to find ways to give back to the community that I felt were meaningful and had a more concrete impact than others.
That’s also why I especially like volunteering with kids; you get to see their growth in a very concrete and tangible way, and their progress is so satisfying. It’s nice to see that what you do can genuinely have an impact, and that was enough to keep me going. On another note, coming from RI, you definitely realise that you live in a bit of a bubble, and finding ways to get out of that and meet other people is something that I was trying to do as well.
- What were the most important life lessons you’ve learnt in RI or outside of RI that have shaped you as a person?
I spent a lot of time in JC figuring out what mattered to me and I realised that I care a lot about my relationships and spending time with people. It was easy to take for granted that my friends would be around forever, especially being in an IP school. But in JC, it finally occurred to me that the time that I had with my friends was limited, and in a few year’s time, we could all be in different countries and never see each other again. That kind of consciousness, at least for me, made me rethink how I should spend the time I had left with my friends.
Along the same lines of figuring out what was meaningful to me, I also realised the importance of having hobbies. It’s easy to be wholly focused on academics in JC and secondary school, and even in extracurriculars, there’s always sort of a pressure for you to strive towards a level of excellence. Being in volleyball was crucial to me because I wasn’t the best at it, but I still had so much fun just spending time with people and exercising. It made me realise that it’s important to have other things going on in your life that you do genuinely just because you like it. You don’t need to be good at it, as long as you enjoy it.
- Do you have any role models or people whom you are grateful for?
Yes, 100%. Throughout my life, my biggest role models have always been the people around me, like my friends, my classmates and my CCA mates. I would always see certain aspects of someone’s character that I respected and I would try my best to emulate those characteristics in a way that was authentic to me. For example, I had so many friends who were genuinely the most disciplined and hardworking people. And I had friends who had such compassion, patience and magnanimity that I looked up to. Seeing my peers, in the same situations as me, being able to embody all of these great characteristics and live it out was inspiring, because it puts me in a position to believe that it was something that I could do too.
- You’re currently studying Economics at Stanford. How is life in the US?
I will say, I’m very, very grateful for the opportunity to study here. What I enjoy about college here—and why I chose it over studying locally or in Britain—is because the culture is very much “work hard, play hard.” You have so many opportunities to pursue your passions and whatever you’re interested in.
Academically speaking, you don’t declare a major until the end of your second year and you’re free to take any class under the sun before that. Outside of academics, my time here so far has been characterized by many side quests; right now, I’m in Stanford Dragon Boat, I’m playing percussion for a musical, I take drum classes, and I’m also doing a bunch of volunteering.
I was definitely very homesick, especially at the start. At first, I felt alone in my homesickness, but eventually you realise that it’s quite a canon experience for everyone around you. But I still make the time to call my family and my close friends, and I’ve also built a support system with other Singaporeans and Malaysians who are here with me as well.
- Why did you choose to major in Economics?
When I was in JC, I fell in love with economics. It’s sort of a mix between the humanities and more math-y technical subjects, and you can choose to lean more in the latter with statistics and computer science. But it’s still a social science, so it’s interesting to have the flexibility and the subjectivity of all the social aspects.
To me, it was interesting to see how economics treated things such as decision-making, and I enjoyed H3 Game Theory in JC. In a more practical, long-term perspective, I was always pretty strongly considering going into public service, and when it comes to policy making, economics is one of the more useful subjects in terms of how directly applicable the content that you learn is.
- Why did you choose to apply for the President’s Scholarship, despite the 6-year bond?
The main reason why I applied for the PSC scholarship was because I want to work in the civil service. For me, remaining true to the mission of serving people in my job is what gives it meaning. I know that I’ve been very lucky to enjoy many privileges in life, and what I do with this privilege should be, to the best of my abilities, about helping people. If anything, the scholarship is just a reminder and a call to commit to serving the community to the best of my abilities and to strive towards the highest degree of excellence in that field.
In that respect, the six-year bond period was not a drawback at all. In fact, one of the biggest draws for me about the scholarship was the ability to hop around to different sectors of the civil sector during the bond period. There’s such a broad spectrum of opportunities within the civil service and all of them have their own appeal to me. Hopefully, I will be able to find what I like the most, in terms of being able to help people in a very concrete way.
- Do you have any advice for other Rafflesians?
If I could go back in time and give advice to my younger self in RI, it would be to strongly believe and have faith that everything is going to work out. I know that JC, especially Y6, is a very stressful year, where you’re juggling exams, CCA competition seasons, university applications, scholarship applications—there are a million things happening, and a million ways it can feel as if your life could go very, very wrong.
But genuinely, trust the process. And I say this not just from my own experience, but from seeing it happen to almost every single one of my friends. Everyone I know has ended up in a place where they are at least mostly content, and everything has a way of working out in the end.
JC can be incredibly challenging, but it won’t last forever. Even the busiest weeks or months pass quickly. A-levels will come and go faster than you think. So take time to enjoy yourself, take care of yourself, and don’t lose sight of the fact that there is light at the end of the tunnel.
The President’s Scholarship is a constant search for talent that can be harnessed for the good of society. Traditional excellence is a quality that will always be recognised and rewarded in this regard, one way or another. Nonetheless, excellence in character – something clearly embodied in Emily’s commitment to service and experiences beyond academic achievements – will always leave a deeper impression on those around you.
We would like to thank Emily for taking the time to participate in this interview, and we wish her all the best in her future endeavors as she embarks on a new chapter of her life!
