Father of quintuplets who took up SMU postgraduate programme after retirement believes in lifelong learning

Last evening, SMU held its 13^th Commencement Ceremony, where the Guest-of-Honour was Mr Ong Ye Kung, Acting Minister for Education (Higher Education and Skills). In his speech, he encouraged graduates to have the courage to be different, to identify their own special trait, attribute, skill or talent that will define them, and to devote their life to mastering it. In an interview with Lianhe Zaobao, SMU graduate Humphrey Chin, who is also the father of Singapore’s first quintuplets, noted that he does his best to provide a good learning environment for his children, and believes in lifelong learning himself. Bearing this spirit, he applied for the SMU Warriors Scholarship after retiring from the Singapore Armed Forces following 30 years of service, and took up the SMU Master of Science in Communication Management last year.  Another fresh graduate Cheong Yong Qiang (Bachelor of Business Management), shared that he had to take up part-time jobs when he was studying to deal with tight family finances. Through sheer hard work and determination, he managed to secure several scholarships and bursaries and eventually graduated summa cum laude with an excellent GPA of 3.82. As the President of SMU’s Business Society, Mr Cheong and his team had initiated a community service programme by utilising their business knowledge, enabling 68 students from eight secondary schools to learn more about how company operations models, and taught them how to write business plans.  This year, SMU graduated 1806 Bachelor’s degree graduates, 39 Juris Doctor graduates, 798 Master’s degree graduates and 20 doctoral degree graduates.  SMU Chairman Mr Ho Kwon Ping and SMU President Professor Arnoud De Meyer attended the ceremony.