While most of us forget what we have learnt in university upon graduation, Sumedha’s and Farizah’s experiences in SUTD taught them important skills that would be vital to their work at HTX.
“During one of my classes, I participated in a modified ‘capture-the-flag’ game where I not only got to hack my classmates’ systems but also designed a system for them to hack into. It was difficult as I had to consider what would be a meaningful challenge for them,” Sumedha recounted.
Farizah also learnt design-thinking skills in university, albeit through different means. During Farizah’s final year capstone project, she collaborated with an industry partner to design a boat that collects marine debris at sea.
“I continuously worked with the industry partner to present more iterations of designs that I thought would work, incorporating their feedback in each new iteration. Ultimately, I designed something that was not only cost-effective but addressed their needs as well,” she excitedly shared.
Upon joining HTX, Sumedha and Farizah found that they had many opportunities to practice the skills they had learnt in SUTD.
At the Immigration & Checkpoints Project Management Centre (ICPMC), Farizah is working to enhance the automated motorcycle clearance lanes at Woodlands and Tuas Checkpoint to reduce the time travellers spend stuck in immigration clearance.
Through her work, Farizah realised that while designing a high-tech system looks great on paper, it might not be the best solution if it is not easily usable by the intended audience.
“I learnt that travellers are used to doing certain things while clearing through immigration. When improving the current system, we need to consider their existing preferences and create something people will be comfortable using,” she added.
As for Sumedha, she also applies design-thinking skills to her work of keeping applications on the government Cloud safe from cybersecurity attacks.
“While overseeing applications uploaded onto the Cloud, I have to ensure that they meet security compliance requirements. It is crucial to create infrastructure on the Cloud that’s easy for developers to understand and use so they can maintain and update their apps,” she explained.
Learning on the job
However, skills alone will only take you so far. As Sumedha and Farizah realised, there was a lot more they could learn at HTX to hone their technical skills.
When Sumedha first joined HTX, she had limited experience with the cloud service provider (CSP) Microsoft Azure. CSPs offer remote computing resources and services over the Internet, enabling businesses to store, manage, and access data without needing bulky in-house data centres. While CSPs serve a similar purpose, each CSP offers their own set of services, features, and interfaces, making it difficult learn how different CSPs operate.
Fortunately, Sumedha’s colleagues were there to help her adapt to working with Azure. She recounted, “My colleagues didn’t just answer my questions, they gave me hands-on opportunities to deploy applications onto Azure as well. Thanks to their help, I can onboard projects onto Azure by myself nowadays.”
Likewise, Farizah also turned to her colleagues for help while facing technical difficulties on the job.
“A vendor once gave me an interface specification document that I couldn’t quite make sense of. However, my colleague took the time to teach me how to read the interface specifications for myself. I really appreciated how he didn’t just give me the answer, but that he taught me how to do it so I can evaluate other interface specification documents in the future,” she shared.
Want to make a real difference with your skills? Swing by our campus recruitment events. We'll be at SUTD on 6 March 2024 and NTU on 7 & 8 March 2024.