Why is it better to skip POLY?

Firstly, after completion of your O levels, if you go to a local Polytechnic you will be doing a standard 3 years diploma and depending on your score, you may not always get into the course you want due to not enough score or not enough vacancies.

Secondly, if you are planning to go to a local University after diploma, the sad truth is less than 5% of the entire Polytechnic actually gets into a local University such as NUS, NTU or SMU.

What happens to the rest who does not get into a local University ? They go to private institutions such as SIM or MDIS, where their diploma is accepted and allows them to take an UK, US or Australian degree locally.

Since if you have so little chance to get into a local University if you go to a local Polytechnic and get your diploma, why even waste time going into one in the first place. Thirdy, if after you completed your O levels you go directly into MDIS or SIM, their diplomas are usually 12 mths or less (This saves you 2 years as compared to a local polytechnic diploma) and then after 12 mths you can go for your degree (3 years which is the time frame same as a local degree)

Can you imagine at the age of 20 or 21 years old, when all your friends are still struggling another 2 years to complete their degrees and you are already out making lots of money and enjoying life ?

Myth is that a lot of people say that a degree from a local University is much more recognized as compare to overseas degree. This answer is very contradicting as it is both right and wrong. Right because most government companies would prefer to hire graduates from local Universities first, reason is very simple, if they don't do this, everyone will go get an degree from an overseas University.

However, if you are seeking employment in the private companies for example big telcos such as Starhub or M1, banks such as Standard Chartered or Citibank and even IT giants such as Microsoft or Oracle, you will realise they are mostly US or UK based companies.

Ask yourself a simple question, if you are a UK or US company, would you prefer employing someone with a UK or US degree as compared to someone who graduated from a Singapore University ? Yes, the answer is very obvious as these companies would believe and trust in graduates from their own country's University.

Lastly, UK and US degree if from a well recognized Unversity gives you world wide recognition incase one day you would want to venture out and work overseas, not every companies overseas heard of our local Universities or Polytechnics even though their recognition is improving worldwide. If you go to many big countries, everyone there knows there is a UK or US but you will be surprise that they don't even know that a place such as Singapore exist on the world map.


Well, you may agree or disagree with me on this but this was how i got my 2nd Class Upper (hons) Degree a few years earlier then all my friends who were same age as me and how i manage to get into a US fortune 500 company straight after graduation. I took part time studies (night classes) since my diploma all the way till i completed my degree which means besides graduating with a degree i also got more than 4 years of working experience which means higher salary and better candidate of choice at job interviews. My next plans would be to go to Australia to get my PR and find a job there, a lot of them never even heard of NUS but they definitely heard of UK or US degrees

Resource: http://www.sgclub.com/singapore/why_should_considering_120678.html
Author(Thread Starter): sng from SGClub

something for them to think about. I missed my turn already.