WorldSkills Singapore 2012: Making IT a rewarding experience

By Ho Khin Wai, Year 2, Diploma in Banking & Financial Services

Here’s the second installation of NYP competitor profiles from the WorldSkills Singapore 2012 competition! Today I feature David Jonathan Ten for the “IT Software Solutions for Business” trade. 

David decided to join WorldSkills Singapore 2012 for the opportunity to showcase his talents in a prestigious competition. WorldSkills Singapore 2012 had been a very rewarding journey for David as he has gained valuable experience and friendships through the competition.
Said David, “Some of the challenges I have faced in this competition was to keep within the time limit! We may have many IT problems to solve, and proper time management was important. It required a lot of meticulousness to address the different problems and work out solutions for my tasks… I felt that I did much better on Day 2 than on Day 1.”

In this trade, competitors have to use Microsoft Office applications such as Word, Excel and Access to solve critical problems and come up with solutions for use in everyday life. You might think you know all about Microsoft Office, but wait till you see what they had to come up with! Some of the tasks include building and managing a database, customizing and automating processes, and using a microcomputer operating system to manage files and data, all using the Microsoft Office suite. 

David (one in red) and three other competitors from NYP – Bernard Yip, Jing Loon and Wei Kang

Besides David, five other competitors from NYP join him in the WorldSkills Singapore 2012 journey. All of them have been training hard to prepare for this competition. Joining WorldSkills Singapore 2012 was a big commitment, where they had to attend trainings a few times per week, on top of their normal school curriculum. However, all their hard work was well worth their while, as they finally stepped onto the national stage in a bid to compete for a place in the international arena.

“Having gone through the competition, I have learnt to be more patient when I face challenges in completing the tasks. Also, I am more aware that there can be different ways to approach a problem. By building on my fundamentals, I am much more confident looking for solutions to tackle these problems”, said David.


***16 July Update***
Congrats to David for winning the Silver Medal!

----------

	Khin Wai is an NYP Year 2 Banking and Financial Services student from School of Business Management (SBM). He started writing for NYP Portal in 2011 out of interest and was soon "addicted" to it. He has also written book reviews for Straits Times YA Classified. Besides writing, he loves singing and has performed for various events in NYP under NYP Soundcard.