Các vận động viên NUS giành huy chương và bằng cấp

No matter the sport, being a competitive athlete is an exhilarating journey that can push you to your emotional, mental, and physical limits.  

From left to right: Jerome Teo, Kok Hui Wen and Toh Wei Soong (Photo credit: Jerome Teo, Kok Hui Wen and Joseph Koh)

Now, imagine going through all this while studying for a degree. Three student athletes who are graduating from NUS in July 2024 did just that, rising admirably to the challenge of balancing training, schoolwork, and competitions.

Jerome Teo Sze Yong: Finding his rhythm

Dancer Jerome Teo Sze Yong excels at displaying grace under pressure. At NUS, he was a national DanceSport athlete, President of Tembusu College’s Students’ Committee, and a double-degree major in Electrical Engineering and Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) at the NUS College of Design and Engineering and NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences respectively. In both student life and competitive ballroom dancing, this was his key secret: keeping perfect time.

Kok Hui Wen: Riding the waves

The most important thing about sports, said former competitive canoeist Kok Hui Wen, is to enjoy what you do. “As much as training is serious, it should be fun as well. It should fill you up,” she remarked.

This was what drove the water sports enthusiast, who studied Nursing with a second major in Public Health, to join NUS Canoeing and also surf in her own time.

Toh Wei Soong: Diving into the deep end

National para-swimmer Toh Wei Soong pulled off a stunning victory at the 2023 Hangzhou Asian Para Games, scooping up gold medals in backstroke, freestyle, and butterfly. But the competitions were not his only race against the clock.

Then a PPE undergraduate at NUS, he had spent the previous few years juggling classes and assignments on top of a gruelling training schedule for international competitions, including the Tokyo 2020 Summer Paralympic Games.

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