Temasek Poly student graduates with perfect GPA despite cancer diagnosis

Mr Joash Tan Zhe Xian was thriving academically in his first year at Temasek Polytechnic (TP) as a computer engineering student.

As a child, he had become interested in engineering while watching his grandfather tinker with gadgets.

He would go on to graduate top of his course with a perfect GPA of 4, bagging the school’s Lee Kuan Yew Award for top technology or computer science graduates.

But before that, he had to battle cancer.

He was in training as part of TP’s badminton team in August 2023 when his world was turned upside down.

“I experienced a sharp pain (at my glutes) and I couldn’t move,” he said.

Following MRIs, he was diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare and aggressive cancer that forms in the bones or surrounding soft tissues. 

“Upon diagnosis, I started to have a lot of questions about my health and my future. Everything that once felt very stable was just fragile,” Mr Tan said.

Due to the severity of the condition, he had to defer his studies immediately to focus on treatment. The tumour at his gluteal area pressed onto his sciatic nerve, the largest nerve in the human body.

“Simple actions such as walking and lying on the bed were a struggle because there was too much pain,” he recalled. 

He had to undergo several treatments spanning one year, including a seven-hour operation to remove the tumour, 14 cycles of chemotherapy and 28 cycles of proton therapy.

After the treatments, Mr Tan had to learn to walk again. Initially, doctors told him that he would need at least a month to even sit up in bed. However, he managed to get back on his feet in a week, and took one to two months to walk normally without any support. 

On May 6, the 21-year-old was among nearly 5,400 students from 39 full-time and 47 part-time diploma courses to graduate from TP.

Mr Tan credited his achievements to his family, friends and church community. “I never really felt like my social life was dying, they showered me with a lot of laughter and support,” said the older of two children.

After he recovered, he returned to TP to continue with his studies, repeating Year 2. But he could not return to playing badminton for the polytechnic. Although he has regained full physical mobility, strenuous sports like badminton are still taxing for him.

Nevertheless, he does not wallow in self-pity. “When one door closes, another one opens,” he said.

“When things feel really impossible, as long as we continue to remain positive and surround ourselves with what is good... we continue to remain excellent and we are able to deliver.”

In 2025, Mr Tan worked on BreathCam, a cost-effective tool for early gum disease detection that integrates artificial intelligence and a hydrogen sulfide sensor. This earned him and his team a merit award at the Engineering Innovation Challenge 2025 in the polytechnic category.

During a year-long internship at the Government Technology Agency from 2025, he worked on an operating guide for a real-time monitoring system on security compliance standards.

Mr Tan has been offered a place to study computer engineering at the National University of Singapore (NUS), as well as in the NUS College programme, an honours college of the school.

He said he hopes to continue using tech to solve problems.

“Being engaged at a young age, I think that idea for problem solving slowly developed further into my passion for engineering.”