Page 50 - Scholarship Guide Aug 2020

48 SCHOLAR’S PROFILE

The Diverse

World Of

Computer The main reason why I wished to study

overseas as a Computer Science student is
the buzzword: “exposure”. I meant this in the
sense of wanting to experience diverse places
Science and cultures. To me, the environment contrib-
utes greatly to the university experience, even
for a Computer Science degree. I also believe
that the prime time to experience more of the
world is during one’s youth. Being able to study
URA Scholar, Wilson Chua sets to achieve digital while exploring more of the world allows me to
achieve these “life goals” of mine.
fl uency and global exposure at Imperial College Another reason was that Imperial College Lon-
London don’s computing course is pretty unique! The
fi rst programming language taught is Haskell,
a truly fascinating functional programming lan-
guage that is usually more fun to think about
than to code in. To engineering geeks like my-
self, the most attractive part of the course was
its comprehensive exposure to practical aspects
of computing, which I prefer to a more theo-
retical focus. It seemed to be a perfect place to
improve my technical programming ability.

Hence, I researched online for scholarships
that might help me achieve my aspiration to
get into the Imperial College London. With the
enormous demand for “technology talent”,
there are many organisations offering Infor-
mation and Communications Technology (ICT)
related scholarships. However, having done
Geographic Information System (GIS) work
previously, I had an inclination for spatial data
analysis. This naturally led me to the Urban
Redevelopment Authority (URA) Scholarship.
For the more data science-oriented people,
there is an increasing demand in URA for ex-
pertise in this fi eld of work, i.e. analysing data
sets to drive planning decisions.

URA is highly supportive of me honing my skills
based on my own interests. When I asked my
senior in URA about what courses I should take
in relation to my future work at URA, the reply
was that I should choose what I am passionate
about. While this might seem vague, the wis-
dom behind this is that the fi eld of computing
is highly volatile. You will never know which
fi eld might be storming the industry next. It
might be that your interest in robotics or video
game development suddenly becomes hugely
relevant and gives you the edge in a trending