Ang Han Wei
[PhD 2022]
I startled many in my family when I told them of my plans to resume studies as a postgraduate student back in 2016. To them, that meant leaving a stable job, embarking on a journey fraud with uncertainties at the expense of bright career progression and job security. Doing this within the context of a traditional family setup like mine is akin to committing an unforgivable cardinal sin. Okay I might have exaggerated, but I have never regretted the decision to come back to NUS almost 10 years after my Bachelor’s commencement.
I am sure there are many articles on the web highlighting the merits of an education in physics. Given how well-written most of them already are, I have decided not to contribute to the article count. Rather, I prefer to share my experience as a PhD candidate with the High Energy group not too long ago, with the intent to provide an alternate point-of-view to those who are considering a postgraduate education.
A physicist’s framework of perceiving and interpreting the world goes much further beyond the realm of the discipline.
While subjects about physics and my projects were common conversation starters with my supervisors, what I gained from these conversations went well beyond its realms. Stimulating exchanges about the philosophy and history, the historical and social backdrop against which well-known theories were conceived often brought me new perspectives with which to perceive the utilities of the field. These have made me not only a better physicist, but also a more comprehensive connoisseur of science and a much deeper thinker.
Though I have moved to the next phase of life beyond NUS, the lessons and outcomes of my NUS encounter continue to guide me day-to-day. These lessons made me a valuable contributor during meetings and discussions as a data scientist within the cybersecurity industry. To those who deem it unrelated to my background in physics and thus a waste of time, allow me to end off with this message: A physicist’s framework of perceiving and interpreting the world goes much further beyond the realm of the discipline. Those that fail to recognise this even after a rigorous training in physics would then have wasted their time.