Reflections on Working in Singapore
Gardens by the Bay on the Mid-Autumn Festival earlier this year
It’s bittersweet leaving a place that has begun to feel familiar and comfortable. After all, it takes time to sink roots into a place and feel like something has become your new normal. It hit me that I was actually living in Singapore when I started to recognize the faces around my neighborhood…and when I would sometimes decide to watch Netflix shows instead of going around to visit different attractions. I’ve had a wonderful stint in Singapore and soon I will be onto the next part of my journey.
For others out there who are looking to work abroad, it’s possible! It will involve grit to make it happen, but it can be done. I started looking more seriously at work opportunities abroad about 6 months before I made the move. There were lots of cold e-mails involved, job applications, and conversations with people in my network. While I wasn’t planning to move abroad without a firm job offer, I have met people who found jobs after they started their travels. This is possible through the work holiday visas that quite a few countries offer to young adults. I came to Singapore under a program like this called the Work Holiday Pass. One and a half months before my intended move date, I received an offer to work at Tinkertanker. I’m grateful for the people at this company who gave me this incredible opportunity to work alongside them. They’re a compassionate crew that cares about fostering young people’s growth and learning journeys.
A student showing me her micro:bit project
Over the past few months, I have been able to learn about the education and technology scenes in Singapore. I had access to insightful events and spoke with seasoned professionals in the edutech sphere. I also assisted in teaching programming classes in a variety of classroom settings — international schools, preschools, primary schools, secondary schools, and corporate events. It was interesting to compare how students interacted with each other and the curricula in these different environments.
When I wasn’t helping out with various events or classes, the core of my internship was focused on marketing: I worked on launching Tinkercademy’s weekend technology enrichment programs and holiday camps. Tinkercademy has a tried-and-true extensive set of curricula and the team of experienced educators to go with it. Up to now, these curricula were primarily brought to schools and corporate events. I’ve been helping to try to expand the group of people we bring these curricula to by getting the weekend programs and holiday camps up and running. Venturing into a new line of business with a different target market is difficult and takes time, but it’s also very exciting to see the new gradually start to take shape.
Tinkertanker is a small company and thus seeing a project to fruition requires stepping into many different roles. I jumped between being a researcher, copywriter, project manager, and analyst. My work involved doing market research, copywriting for brochures and the website, working with the company’s designer to make the necessary creative aspects, crafting e-mail campaigns, establishing partnerships with bloggers to extend the company’s visibility, getting paid online advertisements running on Google and Facebook, and iterating on all of these items to improve their performance. The process of developing a marketing strategy for a new business line and carrying out the steps involved was a valuable and exciting learning experience.
It’s critical for a company to craft a culture where people are encouraged to produce their best work and know that it’s okay to make mistakes and learn from them — Tinkertanker succeeds at this. It’s been wonderful getting to know the Tinkertanker team (and laughing, hiking, and making hot pot in the office with them). Working and assimilating into life in Singapore has truly been an incredible adventure.
Hiking the Southern Ridges