How a Scholarship Aids Your Long-Term Career
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How a Scholarship Aids Your Long-Term Career

How a Scholarship Aids Your Long-Term Career

Many Junior College and polytechnic graduates view scholarships as an intermediate solution to their higher education needs and first job. Other than fully covering your tuition fees and providing you with a comfortable living allowance, scholarships provide scholars with opportunities to take part in enriching internship programmes over their semester breaks. And while the stress of a protracted job search after graduation may weigh on some, scholars can rest assured knowing that a job awaits them after they graduate.

Beyond that, a scholarship also bodes well for your long-term career, ensuring that you can expect to climb higher and faster even after you leave your sponsoring organisation. Furthermore, your history of having been groomed by top organisations, enjoyed unique opportunities and the mark of academic excellence makes you, the scholar, a highly sought-after employee.

Unrivalled Experiences

Scholars are set on an accelerated path to greater opportunities. Many scholarships, such as the Singapore-Industry Scholarship (SgIS) and the Keppel Group Scholarship, start scholars off with internships even before they begin their first semester at university.

These internships give scholars early exposure to their future workplace and industry, priming them to eventually assume a role there. As a scholar, you can begin preparing for your career ahead of everyone else, effectively building a substantial head-start early on.

And combined with other job attachment opportunities and the chance to take on actual projects during your internships, you as a scholar will emerge into the workforce with one foot over the threshold. This early head-start will start scholars off on a firm footing and will carry them further down their career paths as future employers will value these additional experiences.

Your history of having been groomed by top organisations, enjoyed unique opportunities and the mark of academic excellence makes you, the scholar, a highly sought-after employee.

A Detailed Career Roadmap

Scholars are also granted faster progression up the career ladder, starting higher and moving quicker than the majority of their peers. Their career progression follows a carefully planned roadmap, and they can thus enjoy the certainty of assured progress that few others can hope for.

In addition, many scholars can expect to take on leadership roles upon joining the organisation or soon after doing so. If you are a scholar, you also have the opportunity to be rotated to different departments to be exposed to a variety of roles and gain a more comprehensive overview of your organisation. And when given ample resources to develop your potential, you are empowered to lead your own career from strength to strength.

Regardless of whether you choose to stay on in the organisation after the expiration of your bond, as a scholar you can look forward to scaling even greater heights in your career. The plenitude of experiences will provide you with valuable skills and knowledge that will help you do well anywhere.

Mentoring and Guidance

In addition, scholars are often assigned mentors or buddies to guide them along in their careers. This helps to ensure that they settle in quickly and develop into capable, well-adjusted working professionals with the ability and presence of mind to take on any challenge.

Many fresh graduates often wish for a mentor whom they can consult and seek guidance from. You, the scholar, are provided with this exact privilege and are also given the freedom to discuss your areas of interest and the direction you want your career to follow.

The autonomy you will be given to chart your own growth will shape you into an independent thinker and learner. And in a time when Singapore’s labour market is projected to remain tight up to 2030, scholars will find that they stand out from the crowd with ease, representing the blend of talent, aptitude, knowledge and skills that companies seek.