Science Career and Internships Fair 2023

The first in-person NUS Science Career and Internships Fair (the Science Fair) in 3 years took place on 21 Feb at the LT27 foyer. It was well attended by more than 400 Faculty of Science students, interacting on-site and meaningfully with the 17 invited employers offering more than 150 science-specific internships and full-time opportunities.

Taking place on the heels of the NUS Career Fest, the Science Fair complements the wide range of career and internships offerings at the Career Fest by zooming in on industries that are perennial favourites of science students. They include the biopharmaceutical sector (Merck, GenScript, to name a few) and the financial services sector (Citadel, DBS Bank, for example).

Lunch time was an especially busy period at the Science Fair.

Dean of Faculty of Science, Prof. Sun Yeneng (second from the right), and Vice Dean of Student Life and Alumni Relations, A/Prof. Chng Shu Sin (second from the left), speak with representatives from the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority at the Science Fair.

Importantly, the Science Fair innovates owing to its smaller scale by introducing, for the very first time, the Resume Book Campaign, utilized by 90+ students, AND On-site Fair-day Interviews (utilized by 4 employers). That provided a suite of valuable amenities to the employers from venue, roster lineup, and most critically, short-listed student candidates for them to assess via interviews on the fair-day. It turned the Science Fair from making the first, tentative, and inquisitive steps by students towards the employers to talking business of getting qualified student candidates interviewed and hired! Indeed, some of the employers who utilized the fair-day interview options opined: “It was fruitful in scouting students for potential incoming interns compared to having the booth alone.” Similarly, the 139 attendees who responded to the post-fair survey gave an overwhelmingly positive rating (4.39/5) on the Resume Book Campaign.

Embedded in the half day-long Science Fair were two seminars, “code-shared” with the Faculty of Science Industrial Seminar Series, on the topics of “The Future of Precision Medicine”, and “Data Powering the Financial Services Sectors”. The topics were selected owing to their extreme relevance to the two largest groups of students at Faculty, namely, the life sciences majors, and the data science students, by highlighting the two key developments in the biopharmaceutical and the financial services sectors, which, with their domain knowledge, they would be more than competent to contribute to upon graduation.

(From left) Mr Wang Jiangbin, of BAM Asset Management, and Dr. Lu Yin, of SAS, both NUS science alumni, engage students at the Q&A portion of the “Data Powering the Financial Services Sector” seminar, looked on by the moderator, Mr. Jason Cheong, career advisor, Centre for Future-ready Graduates.

(From left), Dr. Zhao Pan of MiRXES, Dr. Caine Leong of Merck-BioReliance, and Dr. Teo Yin-Nah of Illumina, speak with students at “The Future of Precision Medicine” Seminar, ably moderated by the Centre for Future-ready Graduates Career Advisor, Dr. Quek Sue Ing.

The Science Fair is an annual event jointly organized by the Science Dean’s Office and the Centre for Future-ready Graduates.