Embrace Serendipity — Tales From My Tembusu College Experience (3/3)

One of the gifts of my Tembusu College experience was the frequent opportunity to converse with the professors. I have voyaged with the foremost expert on Charles Darwin, Dr John Van Wyhe across Indonesia, spoke at length about marriage with my Residential Fellow Dr Kuan Yee Han, and interviewed at least six other professors on their life trajectories leading up to them being in Tembusu College. There was also an interesting mix of nationalities amongst the professors, which made me very intrigued as to how they wound up in Tembusu College when it had not even existed when they embarked on their own paths. 

What made it even more curious was the variety in those paths. As Tembusu’s Director of Programmes Dr Margaret Tan would one day enlighten me about, it seemed serendipity was the common denominator. I spoke to her at length after she generously agreed to be one of my first interviewees. I was about to embark on making my second documentary, and wanted to hone my interview skills. Who better to practice on than with the very people that I was so curious about. Fortunately, with schedules permitting, my professors were glad to help.

Unfortunately, their generosity never materialised into a final product. The interviews questions and footage captured were so abysmal that it would not do justice to their stories. I did not have time to re-do the entire process, so I could only personally apologise to each of them.

It was in this context that I spoke at length to Dr Margaret. I apologised for not having the necessary skills to mitigate this failure. Perhaps if I was properly trained, this could have been avoided. I was an ex-hospitality polytechnic student undertaking a degree in business administration while pursuing a documentary filmmaking career with no prerequisite skill set apart from the miracle achievement that was the finished production of my first documentary the year prior. Dr Margaret, however, did not think that my life trajectory was weird. In fact, it mirrored that of many of the professors in Tembusu. It was then when she asked me if I knew what serendipity meant. It implies a happy outcome, but that outcome can also manifest itself when you work through what life throws at you. She challenged me to continue to explore what serendipity meant to me.

It remains one of the most important pieces of advice I have received, and that exploration compels me to take the twists and turns of life (remember 2020 everybody!?) in stride and for the better.

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This article is a three-part special detailing some of my key takeaways from a critical phase in my life - three years of being a student at Tembusu College, National University of Singapore. And while I can talk for hours on what a gift it has been, I would like to share my experience in three simple lines:

A Motto: Home of Possibilities

A Title: Heart of Negotiation

A Piece of Advice: Embrace Serendipity