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The University of Southampton
Chemistry

Adrian Tay BSc Chemistry, 2003

Science Teacher, Singapore

Adrian Tay's Photo

Hi, I'm Adrian Tay and I studied BSc Chemistry within Chemistry at the University of Southampton.

I was successful in winning a teaching scholarship from the Singapore government and was accepted to Southampton.

During my schooling in Singapore I had always been interested science and my ambition was to teach chemistry. I was successful in winning a teaching scholarship from the Singapore government and was accepted to Southampton.

The major change I noted in the first year of my course was the much more independent nature of study - if I wanted to get more information on a topic I would find it on my own rather than have it spoon fed to me. Moving into the second year, the course became more challenging and the tutorial system proved really useful. As well as helping with learning it allowed me to appraise my own level of knowledge on an ongoing basis. Having initially found the amount of time spent in the laboratory (six hours per week) a bit of a surprise, I quickly found it useful as a different learning environment but also as a place to interact with other students and staff.

The chance to take up some independent research in the third year really gave a flavour of what full time research would be like. The failure of some experiments was really frustrating and tried my patience but these lows made the highs of success all the more sweet!

Looking back I’m surprised at how fast my time in Southampton passed. Although I looked forward to returning to Singapore to take up a teaching post I was sad to come to the end of what was an enjoyable part of my life.

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