In a commentary, SMU President Prof Lily Kong makes the case for “galumphing” — Lewis Carroll’s word for moving with exuberance without being certain where one will end up.
Singapore has rightly prized purposeful education, professional competence and measurable outcomes, she writes. But a world reshaped by artificial intelligence, geopolitical uncertainty and longer lives also calls for curiosity, intellectual breadth and the humility to become a beginner again.
She asks how universities, employers and communities might make more room for exploration alongside purposeful learning, drawing on two very different, non-linear lives — former US intelligence chief Avril Haines and mixed martial arts fighter Tiffany Teo, who won Singapore’s first gold at the 2026 Asian Games in Nagoya — as reminders that we do not always know what we will become good at, or which experiences will eventually matter.