Also in my undergraduate years, I had the opportunity to explore my other interests further. I had taken a minor in Philosophy (actually, I’m just short of one module—Introduction to Logic—to obtain a second major), and that afforded me a perspective of physics from the world outside of science. On top of various other factors (including, of course, personal interest in the first place), it convinced me that I did in fact want to know more about how modern science is performed and contributes to this field of knowledge. For a fresh graduate, what better way to do so than to pursue a PhD?

I think the best way of summarising the pursuit of a PhD in general is “constant firefighting”. There are always problems to solve in the lab, big or small, and ingenious ways to do so. While the proposed solutions may not always bear fruit, they always bring useful skills and knowledge.

The greatest opportunity I’ve been granted in NUS Physics is to put out these fires with like-minded people—my supervisors, Asso Prof Andrivo Rusydi and Assoc Prof Tok Eng Soon, colleagues and lab mates, and even fellow PhD candidates and postdocs in other groups who had great ideas to solve problems that I’d mentioned in passing. It is incredibly rare to meet people who share similar interests, and even more so to meet so many of them.