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Who: Sophia Ng, 21
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| Studying at : Singapore Institute of Management Business Year 2 |
| Pre-Uni: St Andrew’s Junior College |
| Status : Seeing someone |
| On her Facebook: "There's a point in your life when you realise
who matters, who never did, who won't anymore, and who always will.
Don't worry about the people from your past; There's a reason why
they didn't make it to your future." |
She may not have known it, but I had actually crossed paths
with Sophia Ng even before we met on a lazy Sunday afternoon at the Coffee
Nations.
The SIM UOL Year 2 undergraduate won first runner-up and
Ms. Popular at her school's Glowmetrik pageant held late last year.
Then, she was to me but a mere silhouette, bathed in strobe
lights, her visage obscured by the heavy make-up required of the contestants.
Today, however, we're up close and personal.
Even when I arrive late, Sophia is decidedly gracious about
it as she invites me to sit with her.
|
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She is dressed casually in a simple no-frills tee-shirt
and jeans that cling to her petite waist. Her face is open and friendly,
with perfectly proportionate eyes and high cheekbones that convey a certain
sensitivity, so it is no surprise when she reveals that she's introverted
and would rather spend her 21st birthday catching up with a small clique
of friends over supper than throwing an extravaganza.
Yet, one gets the impression that Sophia is anything but
an introvert. Her phone constantly goes off during the course of the interview,
probably beeping with messages from friends, perhaps even a special someone.
After all, we're looking at the representative of St. Andrew's
Junior College in the Inter-JC pageant, the SAFRA Beach Babe 1st Runner-up
and Miss Crowning Glory at the Miss Singapore Finals 2008.
In her free time, Sophia models for blogshops, which is
where she admits, she obtains a lot of complimentary fashion items, which
she just wears even after the assignment is over.
She also interns at a model agency where she helps out with
marketing and operations, a role she claims to be more enjoyable than
modeling because she gets to liaise with clients.
Sophia is far from being a vapid trophy pageant queen. She
was also the Valedictorian of Crescent Girls' School in 2005, scoring
straight 'A's at her GCE "O"-levels. Her face lit up with pleasure
as she recalls so fondly, "I was so honored to be selected to narrate
a speech to motivate my peers. The time I spent in secondary school were
easily the best years of my life".
In fact, Sophia muses that in retrospect, if she could do
it all over again, she'd choose to go to a polytechnic as she too faced
the all too common JC-student crisis of not knowing what her direction
in life was at the tender age of 17 years old. Why? "I was afraid
to venture out of my comfort zone then," she admits, "But I've
learnt that one should choose what one's heart desires and one should
do one's best wherever we go".
"Even though I really wanted to get into Nanyang Business
School, I was posted to another faculty so I decided to go to SIM where
I could do business instead of pursuing a course I wasn't interested in",
she explains.
But wait, how could this be? What could have possessed the
top student of Crescent Girls' School to opt for SIM, commonly perceived
to be the lesser sibling of the Big 3 local universities? What would other
people think?
Surely, the thought must have crossed Sophia's mind.
And it did. The decision to take a non-conventional route
was not by any means easy, and she has her father to thank for most of
it. "My father is a SIM graduate and he understood that being bilingual,
having work experience and being actively involved in school is more important.
He fully supported me in my decision."
When asked if Singaporean youths are adventurous enough,
Sophia points to entrepreneurship, citing the myriad student-established
blogshops that have proliferated in recent years, some even managing to
go brick and mortar eventually.
She steers neatly clear of commenting on youths in general,
but we both know it.
Thanks in part to the stifling local education system and
a society still entrenched in parochialism, it's ingrained in us that
we toil our way towards the Big 3, making the necessary pit-stops along
prestigious secondary schools and JC (or better yet, IP) en route. Alternatives
are unthinkable, reserved for those who falter along the way. Going to
a polytechnic? Sure thing, but make sure you graduate in the top 5 % of
your cohort, else you can see yourself out. Private educations are for
rich kids who can't study and have to dip into Daddy's coffers.
But enough of the blaming. If we ourselves as students don't
keep an open mind, the windows of possibility will remain firmly shut.
Sophia Ng is one of those who knows this for sure. "I used to be
an ugly duckling back then," she confesses, "But I plucked up
courage to join the Miss Singapore International Pageant anyway. "A
few years, multiple life-changing life experiences and an internship later,
she's still forging ahead on her own path on the roads less taken.
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