Parliament, Presentations and Partings

Parliament House was the first stop today. We joined students undertaking a summer program at the National University of Singapore to learn about the Parliament that runs this amazing city-state. Surprisingly, Singapore’s Parliament shares quite a few similarities with the Australian system, as they are both manifestations of the British system. Unfortunately today was not a Parliamentary sitting day, but nevertheless we could sense the solemnity of the House.

Finally the day has come to showcase what we have learned over these past two weeks, as we delivered our final group presentations at the CPA office. We were all shocked at the quality of all the presentations and the ability of all the groups to critically analyse Singapore’s housing issues. Reflecting on the work of my own group, I cannot believe how far we have come, from knowing nothing about Singapore to becoming experts in sustainable housing. It was different, and sometimes not easy, working as an interdisciplinary group, but this experience has definitely added a new dimension to my teamwork abilities. Learning to work with people from different backgrounds and how to utilise each other’s unique skills will surely be beneficial to my academic and professional ventures. As the presentations came to an end, it finally hit me that this was the last day of the field school. To perfectly finish off the trip, we headed out for a group dinner and enjoyed the Singaporean heat for one last time.

This blog was originially published on Sydney Life: Student experiences at the University of Sydney.

Betty Huang
Current student at the University of Sydney Business School and participant in the New Combo Plan, a short-term interdisciplinary field school in Singapore where students work together to understand and analyse the Singapore government’s housing policy