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Hooked on history
Ms Goh's proficiency in history enables her to be thorough in collating data.
PHOTO: CHONG JUN LIANG
UNLIKE many Singaporean students who prefer to study engineering or science in university, Ms Goh Siau Yin opted for history, a subject she had been hooked on from a young age.
She credits this avid interest to her history teachers in Raffles Girls School (Secondary) and Hwa Chong Junior College.
Ms Goh, 25, who earned her honours degree in history from the University of Cambridge in 2005 on a Singapore Airlines (SIA) Scholarship, says: "I was just very fortunate to have excellent history teachers during my formative years.
"They made history really come alive and made me realise that there was much more to the subject than mere dates and events."
"It was easy to get hooked when you could see history beyond the pages of a book."
But how is history relevant to her current job as a market analyst at SIA?
She says: "Doing history at university level trains you to work through details and to synthesise large chunks of information."
"You also gain an awareness that not all sources of information are reliable or accurate; so you learn to sieve out what is useful and what is not."
"It's important for a portfolio like this," she adds, referring to her job which sees her keep track of events and developments in the Americas and South West Pacific.
"This involves keeping up to date with current affairs, staying in contact with the sales offices so that they can give updates on what's happening on the ground, and looking at data to get an overall perspective."
She adds: "The fact that SIA allowed me to take a course that did not necessarily have direct relevance signalled to me that this is an employer that is not locked in to a rigid set of ideas about a person's potential and development."
"The academic content is not as important as the general writing and thinking skills that you will pick up in the course of your university studies."
On her SIA career, she says that job rotations to different departments once every few years expose officers to a broad spectrum of experiences and make work life much more interesting.
"My overall experience so far is that the SIA workplace has a supportive and nurturing environment. It is a family-oriented company and encourages a good work-life balance."