Students from the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, with their packed schedules and heavy workload, have little time to accommodate other programmes beyond their medical studies. With a focus on preparing for their calling to treat patients, few medicine students would see the value of joining NUS College.

Yet, as medical school graduate Jared Ng ’23 shared, “I could not imagine my university experience without having stayed in USP, later NUSC.”

In this article, we sit down with Jared and current medical student Liyana Afiqah ’26, to discuss how their time in NUSC has grown them as aspiring medical professionals and as individuals through the intangible lessons gleaned from being a part of this honours programme. Both are participants in the “NUS College Experience” programme offered to a handful of medicine students each year. The programme started under the University Scholars Programme and continued into NUSC with the launch of the new honours college in 2022.

Why NUSC

As an interdisciplinary programme, NUSC offers a wide range of courses for students. From “Conceptions of Human Nature” to “The Biology and Phenomenology of Pain” and even “Comics as Multimodal Composition and Communications”, the College’s unique classes and student-driven seminars were one of the reasons why Jared and Liyana took the leap to join the NUSC community.

For Jared, NUSC allowed him to achieve one of his goals in the university: to take courses outside of that would otherwise not be part of his curriculum in medicine. NUSC’s emphasis on building a strong foundation in academic writing also drew him to the programme, given his interest in public policy.

Similarly, Liyana wanted her university education to feature a wider range of courses.

“I chose to join USP at that time because I knew I wanted to do things beyond medicine,” said Liyana. “I liked the [multi-disciplinary] options provided; it was like subscribing to a buffet!”

Broadening horizons

Both students took on a variety of interesting courses, but the impact of these classes extended beyond the intellectual content they offer, opened Jared and Liyana to a world outside the medical school.

“One of my biggest takeaways from [this program] is realising that medicine is not a single monolith by itself,” said Jared. “There are so many things out there!”

Liyana added that interacting with students from different majors in the NUSC community helped boost her confidence to communicate with her patients. She feels that she can better connect with people from different walks of life having been exposed to others outside the close-up medical community.

She was even inspired to start volunteering again, having written her final paper for her “Thinking with Writing” course on sex workers in Singapore, returning after taking a break from serving the underprivileged group.

Not always a bed of roses

While they may have benefitted tremendously from their experience in the college, juggling their content-heavy major with NUSC’s rigorous academic programme came with its struggles.

With back-to-back classes scheduled on their medical school timetables, it meant the medical students in NUSC were typically limited to courses offered in the evenings, as those were the only ones that can fit in their schedule. Liyana shared that while peak periods for medical school and NUSC submissions were staggered, it also meant she was constantly busy.

But the experience also taught Jared both to be more resilient and also less shy about leaning on the community support system around him in NUSC.

“Even though I’ve had a lot of setbacks scattered throughout my university life, these were really core learning points for me where I could fail in safe places,” he said. “In spite of the challenges, I would still go through the same thing.”

No regrets

It may seem overwhelming for prospective medical students to join the honours college, but both Jared and Liyana have no regrets making the choice to join NUSC.

“When you come to medical school, you must remember that you are a university student,” said Jared. “Don’t neglect that part of yourself that came to learn and grow as a person.”

Liyana likewise shared one piece of advice for any medical student considering joining NUSC: “Be courageous and take the leap.”