I’m back from Marina Mandarin

I went for the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) networking event earlier on with Ben. Bumped into Jason down there. The event is meant for graduating students from local universities (NUS, NTU and SMU). According to MAS, it is the second time they have conducted this type of networking sessions to shortlist potential graduates. Well, it is indeed rather grand (at least to me). The event was held in 3 ballrooms. There were a lot of students. I saw a lot of students from NTU Business School, a lot of students from SMU Business, and a handful from NUS Information Systems and Computer Engineering. I was wondering, why didn’t NUS Business School attend the event?

I reached there at around 6pm and the area is already crowded with students and management staffs of MAS. Collected the name tag and joined Jason in a chat with one of the management staff. Well, they talk quite a fair bit on business related stuffs – Economics and other business related stuffs. I just stood there listening and replying only when the staff talked to me. Don’t have much business knowledge so better don’t make too much comments.

We stood down there for close to half an hour before we were invited to go into the ballroom. Each of us were pre-assigned to a table of 8, of which 2 of them are MAS staff. The table was filled with unfamiliar faces from NUS, NTU and SMU. The staff started a topic for us regarding the “Aging population in Singapore” and want us to come up with policies and plans for them, at the same time they must maintain Singapore’s competitiveness in the world. I feel that it is kind of weird to talk about such things as ice breaker. The topic lasted for the whole dinner. As usual, the issues of foreign talent surfaced. As usual, I talked rubbish for the whole dinner.

The food is pretty alright! Salmon was prepared just right, not under cooked nor was it over cooked. They kept passing the “baton” to talk and I end up not having the chance to finish my food. I really wanted to finished the salmon so I came up with a magnificent plan! Grill somebody like a lecturer so that he/she talks longer when I finish my salmon. End up my plan got discovered and the staff ask me not to grill the person and how about I give my points. *doink*. Luckily, I managed to finish my salmon before he discovered my plan.

The event ended with the MD of MAS giving a speech then some question and answer session from the students. NTU and SMU students are proactive in asking questions! NUS only voiced one question and the answer for it was so long. The Q&A session took quite sometime.

I met up with Ben after the event outside the ballroom to talk a bit on SAP stuff before walking over to the station. Bumped into Mevin (my CS3254 tutor) and learnt that he is now working with IDA! Glad that he still remember me and he mentioned that he remembered me for my technical skills in security. He remembered Weichong and Kumar the salesman too.

Wish Mevin all the best in his career! Hope to bump into him soon.