National University of Singapore (NUS) Economic Summer Camp, June 2017

Educational experience, networking and university life style are 3 phrases which I believe, describes the NUS Economics Summer Camp as a whole.

The 2017 NUS Economics Summer Camp commenced on the 25^th of June 2017 and was held for one week. Around 90 Commerce students from around the world participated in this year’s Summer Camp.

Throughout this program, we were exposed to many aspects of Commerce as well as diverse branches of Economics. This broadened our horizons in the subject of Economics and enabled us to get a better idea of it, as offered in university. We had the privilege of meeting renowned professors from NUS as well as other world class universities. Each day we had at least one lecture which gave us as an insight into topics we had never learnt before or may have covered briefly in our lessons at school.

Some of the topics covered were, Business Models, Banking and Finance, Basics of Investing and International Economics. In fact, we were also exposed to an interesting Economic field called "Behavioral Economics" which talks about people's psychological approach and behavior to economic variables. In addition, we went on field trips where we visited the IKEA store to carry out a Business survey and The Singapore Stock Exchange. We were thrilled to hear that the general public are restricted entry to certain areas that we had the privilege to visit.

Group work which is another vital method of studying in universities was also experienced during the Summer Camp. At the beginning of the program we were put into groups with students from different nationalities. This was challenging as we all had different views and ideas but after sometime of discussion we established a few ideas and over the week we successfully came up with a project proposal. This taught us a lot about brainstorming, leadership and teamwork.

Being among 4 delegates from Sri Lanka we met 85 students from other nationalities around Asia. Since our project groups consisted of students we had never met before, the four of us had the opportunity to make new friends. Making friends from diverse nationalities allowed us to learn about their different their lifestyles.

Of course, the most fascinating fact was that we were going to a Summer Camp at a University which is one of the highly ranked universities in the world and the best in Asia. Personally, I was excited as it was a new experience for me, attending lectures in huge groups, long walks within the 400-acre campus and living in on-campus residence halls. For some of us it was a novel experience, being away from our parents and being independent. This helped develop new skills and improved current ones such as leadership, teamwork, being methodical and responsible. This exposure would serve each of us greatly when it is time for us to travel overseas for our University studies.

Jan, Pratap, Gihan and I(Gyan) thoroughly enjoyed our experience at the NUS Economics Summer Camp and we would recommend it to all the year 10, 11 and 12 Commerce students. Lastly I would like to thank Ms.Tharangi and Ms.Shamima for their guidance and support during our visit.

By Gyan Wickremasinghe - Year 13A