All-rounder Leadership qualities help Chia Wei Xin clinch a bond-free NTU scholarship that promotes active student life By Raymond Poon WITH his three As for maths, physics and chemistry and a B3 for general paper, some would think Mr Chia Wei Xin’s A-level results were not “good enough” to win a scholarship. Not for Nanyang Technological University (NTU), which handed him a bond-free scholarship. Mr Chia, currently a first-year chemical and biomolecular engineering student, says: “The Nanyang scholarship had one requirement called leadership quality, which I seldom see in other scholarships. “And after going through the first semester, I can see they are looking not just for people who are academically inclined.” On that count, his record is impressive. An active badminton player, he was captain of the school team at Anderson Secondary and vice-captain of the school team at Anderson Junior College. And he was an infantry officer during his national service. Now, he is set to develop his leadership ability further. As part of the requirements of the scholarship, he attends about two to three hours a week of self-development lessons, picking up skills like organisation, communication and etiquette. He will get plenty of opportunities to put into practice what he learns. According to him, Nanyang scholarship holders are expected to be involved in student life. He has been tasked with helping to organise the freshmen orientation camp for the next batch of NTU scholarship recipients. He is also involved in the orientation camps for his hall and faculty as an orientation group leader. But as the sports secretary in Hall 7’s committee, what is foremost in Mr Chia’s mind now is charting his hall’s success in the Inter-Hall Games 2008, a two-month event that ends in mid-February. “We’re one of the top four halls in sports,” he says. “It’s a challenging thing, bringing everyone in the hall into the sports culture. “But the sports culture brings the whole hall together,” he adds. “The feeling of winning a game is something you’ll never forget.” His involvement with his hall’s sports teams is not a one-off thing. He says he sees himself continuously involved over the next four years with “Team Se7en”, his hall’s unique spelling for the word “seven”. While organising activities is not unfamiliar territory, given his leadership appointments, the difference now is that “everything scales up”, he says. “Now, in one hall, there are 500 people. This makes things harder and more challenging,” explains Mr Chia, who organises training, scouts for players and supervises the managers and captains of 20 teams competing in 16 sports. “Your planning skills have to improve. You need to be more precise in your planning, so problems don’t happen.” Mr Chia has since improved on his delegation skills, roping in the sub-committee members to help him ensure everything runs according to plan. “You are the person who foresees problems, thinks and plans. You have to set a goal — a direction for everyone to follow — so you don’t have everyone going in different directions,” he says. He certainly has a lot of commitments to juggle with, but Mr Chia has made it through his first semester at NTU with a grade point average of 4.3. He intends to better it, while keeping actively involved in school life. “I’m a person who cannot stop doing things,” he says. “And actually, you learn more from non-academic activities, things like personal relationships, and planning and organising skills. These are skills you will not find in a textbook. “You reap very good learning experiences that help you develop into a better person and prepare you for the working world as well.”