When I visited the NUS Open House, I was in the middle of a transition that had felt quite intimidating at first: moving from education and programme operations into the world of artificial intelligence.
I had worried that studying AI would be too technical or unfamiliar for me.
Now, I’m halfway through most of my modules, and I’m beginning to realise that the transition has not been as difficult as I initially feared.
One thing that helped me understand this better was a conversation with a career coach. Through the assessment and discussion, I discovered that I lean more towards the artistic side than the investigative side.
That was an interesting insight.
It reminded me that learning something new does not mean abandoning the way we naturally think. My interest in AI is not necessarily about becoming the most technical person in the room. It is also about understanding people, improving experiences, asking better questions, and finding creative ways to make processes work better.
Those interests have been part of my work in education for years. I am now learning how they can be applied in a different context through business analysis, data, prompt engineering, and AI-enabled workflow automation.
Visiting NUS also brought back memories of being a student there. This time, I was returning with a different purpose — not to begin an undergraduate journey, but to continue learning at another stage of life.
I will likely be visiting the NUS Lifelong Learning Festival again at the end of September, which feels like a fitting way to round off this period of study and reflection.
I may still have much to learn, but I no longer see being a beginner as something to fear.
Sometimes, the most useful thing we can discover during a career transition is not just what we are capable of learning, but how we learn best.
#LifelongLearning #NUS #AIOperations #CareerTransition #ArtificialIntelligence #ContinuousLearning #SkillsFuture #ProfessionalDevelopment
