A helping hand

A scholarship from PSB Academy helped to ease Ms Roshinee Singh’s financial worries when her father was diagnosed with throat cancer

By Gel Cabotaje

October 23, 2019

Just before she entered Coventry University at PSB Academy in 2017, Ms Roshinee Singh received news that her 62-year-old father had been diagnosed with third-stage throat cancer.

“To be honest, that was one of the darkest and toughest periods of my life,” the 27-year-old recalls. “Coping with work, school and my dad’s ailing health wasn’t easy to juggle.”

With her dad’s condition came hefty medical bills, which made it harder for Ms Singh’s family to afford her university studies. Fortunately, PSB Academy has a financial assistance programme called PSB-Sinda Scholarship, which offers a part-time (50 per cent) or full-time (100 per cent) scholarship to private and polytechnic diploma holders interested in pursuing a course at PSB Academy. Singapore citizens, like Ms Singh, and permanent residents of Indian descent are eligible for the scholarship.

Ms Singh applied for the grant and received a part-time PSB-Sinda Scholarship for a part-time honours degree programme in business and marketing, offered by Britain’s Coventry University at the private institution.

“I was extremely delighted and relieved when I received the scholarship,” she says. “I would not have been able to pay for my tuition and earn my degree had it not been for this assistance.”

Striking a balance

To enhance her future work prospects, Ms Singh balanced the two-year programme with a job in business development.

“Taking my bachelor’s degree and working at the same time was hitting two birds with one stone. It gave me enough working experience and the right educational level to advance my career,” she says.

She explains that her past learning experiences at the Institute of Technical Education, where she attended her first marketing module, sparked her interest in business and marketing. Her internship at a Formula One event made her decide to further her studies in the field – which led to her earning a business diploma from Temasek Polytechnic and eventually a first-class honours degree from Coventry University.

Ms Singh, who graduated in July, is now a business development representative for the Asia-Pacific and Australia and New Zealand regions at Digimind, a social listening and analytics company.

Aside from academic content, the graduate says that university has also taught her a lot about life. Focusing on her studies, holding a job and coping with her father’s illness was a test of her mettle. However, these experiences helped her to develop resilience and perseverance which she believes will help her in building her career.

“I learnt how crucial it is to prioritise your tasks. It would have been easy for me to crash and burn if I did not know how to manage and complete my tasks on time.”