Since my university days, I deepened my skills in programming languages such as Python and R through online courses and with the help of friends who had coding experience.

I even devoted at least two to three hours a day to related self-learning activities despite having to manage a busy academic schedule.

Be approachable, able to be of anyones help if there is a need so, especially where team dynamics and synergy is important in the projects overall delivery performance. 

Have a focused and problem-solving mindset to make sure that everyone and anyone in the team is constantly time efficient to progress the given project. 

For data projects, able to provide advice and alternatives to the team should they face any impediment in the progress.

The struggle is real when your work expects quite a fair bit from you, and sometimes after a long day of work, you feel that you dont have any more energy and effort to do anything else other than just resting and get yourself mentally ready for the following days work. 

But after a good 1.5 years of working life, I got to understand and embrace this new normal  actually one should train him/herself to be disciplined enough to do the necessary. Especially for the Data Science field where state of technology is so dynamic, it is essential for me to be constantly upkeep with the latest treads and discoveries - for both organisational needs and personal development. 

Hence, what i did was nothing special, but just an overnight tweak of mentality where I told myself that I need to really set aside time for this (based on a few reasons that i have identified like to be accountable for my role to perform technology scans conscientiously, not becoming obsolete in this area, etc.) and it just happened!

Aside from just considering, I did ventured into Data Science field, which is very much different from what I majored in from NTU, and that is Mechanical Engineering. 

This decision was primarily stemmed from my growing interest in this area, since my university days. It all started from my internship exposure during my third year, where I was assigned to carry out a data project in which I had to learn from scratch with no prior background in it. It was tough but I learnt a lot from then.

You can never make a difference but be a part of that difference - influence is key.

It is much flattery to state skills that contributed to my success as i always see success as an means to an end. Especially so when people at their different stages of life/career have varying expectations and job satisfaction - this measure of success ever changes and skills will constantly be re-searched and re-focused to suit that given sets of needs.

But for now, at this juncture of my career, i am able to list out a few notable ones below: 

- Networking! Building strong rapport with your colleagues!

- Project Management 

- Scrum Methodologies Implementation (Agile Framework)

- Public speaking administration (How to make an effective presentation, policy paper, minutes etc.)

- Data Analytics Skills (Data Preparation, Data Modelling (AI/ML) Visualisation)

I was fortunate to receive a mid-term undergraduate scholarship from Ministry of Transport in 2017 as a scholar of Maritime Port Authority of Singapore  (MPA).

Upon graduation, I had the opportunity to venture into a domain (Data Science AI) as a project management in the related department of MPA in which the skills and knowledge required was picked up out of my main academia through internship and Final Year Project experience. As a junior PM, I was also tasked to spearhead and run a couple of data projects as the team lead during my first year in the working scene. It was definitely challenging but such exposure is valuable.