Went for my first Economics Society after coming back from Beijing today. Was very impressed with the emcee, the performer and the speaker list when i saw it on facebook and decided to just go for it. Never regret spending the whole afternoon from 3.30pm-8pm listening to them.

The theme of the event was 'How to live a good life in a capitalist world'. Intriguing question that seems difficult to answer and sure enough, at the end of the lecture, I still don't have an answer myself. How do I answer this question when I myself haven't been living in a socialist, communist or countries govern by other system. Then how u define good life? erm..ahah, that probably requires alot of thinking. However, what was good about the event today, wasn't answers to this question at all, but about the speakers and the 'feel' of the whole event that triggers my thinking processes, to ponder more about the next step in my life.

The first speaker of the day was Mr. Hsieh Tsun-Yan. My favourite speaker in this event. His profile WAOH me quite a bit when i saw it. The list of his achievement is too long to be posted so those who don't know him can research on him yourself if you have any interest to know. He talked to us about his life from school till now. In the first phrase of his life, he said he was trying to be what people think he should be. Being the President's scholar, studying what his parents think he should. Which is what many of us are doing actually, being the good girl/boy your mama & papa wants you to be, saying things others like to hear, studying what society thinks you should. But he told us, the most important thing is who you are and not what you do? Being and engineer, the CEO of BLAH BLAH company does not at all tell you about a person. Is is what you truly want in life, what makes you enjoy when you do that matters. An engineer can dislike his engineering job so if you tell me you are an engineer, it actually doesn't tell me much about yourself. At this point in time, I was questioning, what is this guy talking about? Then it got me pondering, isn't this whole journey in life actually just a discovery process of yourself. Why are you doing certain task? Why are you joining a CCA? Why are you studying this major? It all boils down to the fact that you want to define WHO you think are. Anything skill can be substituted but the unique person that you are, cannot be replicated. Ok, at this point, I think this is all getting abit vague. His topic was rather philosphy in nature but he gave a very inspiring speech that I think using words can't do justice. All his questions got me thinking quite a bit about myself, made me feel that my career after graduation could actually be a process I need to undertake to realise whether I LIKE being in the Economics line, should I teach Economics? With his speech questions in mind stirring, during reception, I got to know and talked to this girl called Doria. She does post-graduate studies in policy studies in Malaysia and came all the way down from Johor just for this event. We talked about changing study tracks, taking risk in life and such. All of which in our conversation couldn't have happened if not for this talk.

I enjoyed the whole process of this event, listening to inspiring speeches I couldn't find during lectures. Even if its areas totally unrelate to Economics, just by seeing how the second speaker Professor Wang Gungwu can be so passionate about history, about life about his "Nalanda In The 21st Century" project just gives me a glimpse of hope into this future I am going to face. Probably I might just find myself passionate about this certain thing in life.

Lastly, being face to face with Mrs. Yu-Foo Yee Shoon, my constituency's MP, just made me feel very honoured to be sitting in such a important event. Her talk about her personal experiences helping the low-income group in Singapore through the many government policies got me very interested in the public sector. She graduated with a Business-Economics related degree, but ended up in this social services area in politics. However, her knowledge in Economics served her well when she debates with trade unions, use it in helping the poor and needy. Then from which, I suddenly remembered, isn't this why I fell in love with Economics? Because it gave me a glimpse into the real world workings, because it can be used in our daily life because it can be used as a tool the help others! Somewhere along the way, I forgot this main purpose of me studying Economics under the stress of pursuing all the beautiful 'A's on my transcript.

Overall, I think the Economics Society did a good job for this event. using a new system call Pigeonhole that lets people sms in questions who want to ask the speakers and letting people vote for your questions. It saves alot of trouble and awkward silences when people are asked to ask questions. Especially when you have big shots like the 3 speakers around, you can't afford to show them how QUIET NTU students can be. Generally impressed with the efforts and how the Society has grown so much since it was set up :)

However, I would say the number of audiences who came should be further increase. Such good and inspiring speakers, deserves the attention of more NTU students. It made me wondered if being in Harvard Business School, London School of Economics or other top Universities makes school life different? Are students there more interested and engaged in talks like that, will I get more chances to get inpsired by my lecturers? Why are many of our students ponnning lectures, complaining about lecturers? Has it got to do with the quality of our Singapore Graduates and graduates education. I wanna be somewhere that can ignite my passion in Economics, I wanna be somewhere I get inspired everyday. Only with an inspired mind can I continue to inspire others :)