To
the equator and back, for the love of Science
Laurence
Osen
At
7:30 am, I woke to the sound of my alarm in the Copthorne
Orchid Hotel, Singapore.
I am on a business trip along with two colleagues, Dr Wallace
Bridge and Dr Chris Marquis. We aim to set up a link between
the University of New South Wales and Ngee Ann Polytechnic,
Singapore (a technical college for the equivalent of Australian
students in Year 10 through to first-year University).
By 8 am, I was down by the hotel pool for a quick swim before
I ‘officially’ started the day. It gets quite hot and humid
in Singapore and since I’ve been away, I have tried to start
and finish each day by doing a few laps of the hotel pool.
At 9:30 am, after enjoying the complementary hotel buffet
breakfast, we hailed a taxi, and proceeded to Ngee Ann Polytechnic,
which was about a 15min drive away from the hotel.
Our hosts at Ngee Ann were kind enough to provide us with
our own office space within the Office of Innovation and Enterprise,
one of the support units of the polytechnic which strives
to incorporate a culture of innovation and enterprise within
the students of the polytechnic.
The prime purpose of our visit to Singapore was to develop
a strategy that would promote a flow of Ngee Ann graduates
to UNSW to study a Bachelor of Science, in combination with
the Diploma in Innovation Management.
The Diploma in Innovation Management is a unique undergraduate
program currently being offered by the Entrepreneurs in Science
Unit in the Faculty of Science, UNSW. It aims to encourage
an entrepreneurial mind-set and provide students with the
knowledge and skills needed for developing business opportunities
based on scientific innovation.
Some of the other aims for the trip to Ngee Ann were to discuss
and explore potential research collaborations between the
two institutions, as well as sharing information on the strategies
for incorporating, monitoring and measuring the delivery of
"graduate attributes" in universities (the attributes
of graduates from universities is currently a ‘hot topic’
around the world due to pressures from industry and government
for ‘job-ready’ university graduates).
From the time we arrived at Ngee Ann, until 12 pm - lunchtime,
I worked on my laptop, answering a long list of emails that
had built up over the past few days. For lunch we were taken
by one of our hosts to a local hawker centre (a Singaporean
food court) where I had a traditional Singaporean dish, carrot
cake (a savoury, rather than a sweet dish).
We returned to the office by 2 pm and had a discussion with
a Ngee Ann representative about assessment techniques for
group work and team-based learning. Our discussion covered
the advantages and disadvantages of techniques such as peer-review,
individual grading, and the allocation of a single combined
mark for all members of a team. Its purpose was an ‘information
sharing’ exercise, and I think both parties came away with
something of value.
The rest of the afternoon, until 6 pm (the end of my working
day), was taken up with preparation for a presentation that
was to be given the next day to officials of the Singapore
Ministry of Education. The presentation is to cover the UNSW
strategy for incorporating graduate attributes into students’
education.
Update from my last WWDS entry in 2005:
Some may remember from my last entry that my scientific career
wasn’t a straight or predetermined path – this still hasn’t
changed! You may also recall that during my time at university
I gained an interest in, and passion for, the commercial aspects
of science, in particular biotechnology. It is this interest
in the commercial side of science that has led me to start
a part-time postgraduate degree in business (on top of my
full-time job at UNSW) since my last WWDS entry in 2005.
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