Their poly education prepped them for work life

(From left) Mr Buhendran Nico, Mr Fardil Malik with his wife and children, and Ms Joey Lim. PHOTOS: REPUBLIC POLYTECHNIC, COURTESY OF FARDIL MALIK, COURTESY OF JOEY LIM

As a cyber security engineer at Keysight Technologies, Mr Buhendran Nico's job involves auditing computer systems and identifying any loopholes that may be vulnerable to hackers.

He also helped to plan a company-organised cyber security game in October last year, which was aligned to practical knowledge on ethical hacking.

The 25-year-old had graduated from Republic Polytechnic last year with a diploma in infocomm security management.

He said that aside from equipping students with technical skills, the school also instils a culture of learning by doing, encouraging students to adopt a self-learning style at work. "I didn't have to keep pestering my fellow colleagues for help as I worked through problems myself," he added.

He was among the 90.7 per cent of polytechnic graduates who entered the workforce last year and found permanent, freelance or part-time jobs within six months of graduation.

Mr Fardil Malik, 32, became interested in nursing after he joined the St John Ambulance Brigade in secondary school.

He pursued the subject in both the Institute of Technical Education and Nanyang Polytechnic, and is now a staff nurse at the Singapore General Hospital.

He said he found his diploma course fruitful, citing a module that allowed him to conduct research to better understand outdated practices, as well as learn more about new practices that could benefit patients.

Ms Joey Lim, 20, manages various corporate user systems in areas such as finance and reporting as an associate consultant at NCS.

As her family was not well-off, she decided to enrol in the work-study post-diploma programme to help fund the cost of her education. Through this, she found work as a software engineer at NCS while concurrently reading a diploma in infocomm and security at Nanyang Polytechnic.

"What I have learnt at school has been useful in giving me a head start as a programmer at work," she said.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on January 15, 2020, with the headline Their poly education prepped them for work life. Subscribe