After four years as a Research Engineer, David Low knew that it’s time to upgrade his skills. Hear about his learning journey in the NUS-ISS’ Master of Technology in Knowledge Engineering, and how it has led to a new career in a dream field.
Formerly a Research Engineer at Living Analytics Research Centre, David Low (photo on left) was working on data crawling and data visualisation. Four years on, he felt the need to upgrade his skill set as his career progresses.
“The NUS-ISS Master of Technology (MTech) in Knowledge Engineering (KE) programme was exactly what I was looking for – industry-oriented curriculum, experienced lecturers and hands-on projects, which allowed me to put what I learnt into practice,” says David.
In line with its practice-based and real-world approach in the Master of Technology programme, NUS-ISS encourages its graduate programme students to participate in industry hackathons, which offers students the opportunity to work with real business data and solve real business challenges for organisations.
David has participated in two of these hackathons and won both times, “The MTech KE programme emphasises on application and uses case studies, as there is no universal solution that fits all the problems. Having undergone classroom discussions and Q&As with lecturers on case studies, I was trained to be fast and good at problem-solving. This helped greatly in my participation in the hackathons as there was time pressure, and it was really challenging to rush out a working prototype within hours.”
“That said though” continues David, “It was a fantastic experience participating in the hackathons, not to mention the exposure and domain knowledge I gained.”
It was a school project too, which helped him in his job interviews. David, who is now a Data Scientist in Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore, credits the programme for helping him clinch the job.
“During the interview, I presented a school assignment which my course-mates and I completed on “Data Warehousing for Business Analytics” and it was very well-received,” says David, “What impressed the interviewers most was how I managed to extract meaningful insights from online social media posting. I wouldn’t have gotten the job if not for the knowledge and experience I’ve gained from the programme.”
“Most of our graduate programme students are working or have working experience, hence our programmes are focused on providing them with hands-on practice with real-world case studies and projects,” says Charles Pang, Chief of Master of Technology Knowledge Engineer, NUS-ISS, “This would give them the edge they are looking for job change or career progression.”
David can testify to that, “Coming from an academic research background, I faced resistance in trying to advance my career into the private sector as my research background is not valued in the sector.The MTech KE programme equipped me with the technical know-how, business acumen and knowledge on managing a real-life data analytics project, which gave me an edge and opened the door to the sector for me.”
Despite that, David believes that his greatest takeaway from the programme is not the job, “I feel that my greatest takeaway are the people I got to know through the programme – the lecturers, classmates and alumni. There are many opportunities that opened up for me through the NUS-ISS network and more are coming.”
Looking back at his journey, David concludes, “I consider studying in NUS-ISS to be one of the best decisions I have ever made. I would greatly recommend it to anyone who is looking for a graduate programme.”
The NUS-ISS Master of Technology in Knowledge Engineering programme is specially designed to meet the needs of today’s busy IT professionals and domain experts without disrupting their work and career. It emphasises the concepts, techniques and methods of Intelligent Systems, and their application to the development of data analytics applications.
Application for the January 2017 intake will be open in April. For more information, click here.