We do not say it often enough but: our students are our lifeblood! And to the general public nowhere is this more obvious than at our major outreach events throughout the year, including the recently-concluded NUS College of Humanities and Sciences (CHS) Open House 2023.

Indeed, led by our FASS Student Ambassadors (SAs), and members of FASS Club (NUS Students’ Arts & Social Sciences Club) and 18 other FASS-based student societies, the student body helped make FASS@CHS Open House 2023 a successful engagement of prospective students.

How so? Let us count the ways.

1. They were everywhere, doing just about everything they could: guiding visitors through the sights and sounds of FASS, and distributing refreshments along with dispensing advice that could prove valuable to any incoming year ones. The SAs were in full force at reception points, directing the steady flow of visitors to the various talks and booths located across Central Library (CLB) levels 1 and 2, and Lecture Theatre 14. They also managed the multiple walking tours across our campus – an area that covers CLB and the award-winning building humbly known as AS8, The Deck (canteen) and NUS Geography’s Earth Lab, among other locations unique to the FASS experience – for the day.And to top it all off, there was always an SA at hand to rendering directions to visitors.
2. They performed and injected energy into the day. FASS Club members – on top of working in tandem with the SAs on crowd control, directing traffic, welcoming the stream of curious prospective students and their families, and distributing programme packs (with wireless chargers and laptop sleeves) at the entrances – also delivered a contemporary dance presentation at CLB level.FASS RAG (Receive And Give) performers putting on a show to highlight the vibrant student life awaiting prospective students at FASS
   
   Their performance was a sublime presentation of the dynamism, diversity and creativity that our FASS student body perpetually brings to the University. (The FASS Club crew had the privilege of being distributors of the specially provisioned potong ice cream (lollies) too!)
3. They led the conversations at their Department booths alongside their Professors on level 4 and at their student society stands on level 1, always ready to answer all manner of questions related to academics and student life and whatever else is important to them and their soon-to-be classmates.Student representatives from the departments taking the lead to initiate conversation with our guests and introducing more about the different majors available.Much like the star alumni in the NUS Southeast Asian Studies special Ask Me Anything (AMA) session talking through their experiences, ideas and advice with the visitors of the day, our students were sharing their perspectives and insights in the NUS Economics briefing and Ask Me Anything (AMA) session and the NUS English Literature presentation, and even ran a Sociology and Anthropology introductory Masterclass and Workshop on their own.
4. They took over online promotions and our social media accounts on event day and produced some of the most visually impactful content we have ever seen on our channels – just take a look at https://www.instagram.com/p/CsITZ9rN3ll/, https://www.instagram.com/p/CsLT3WLpgpL/ and https://www.instagram.com/p/CsLsSJJPlzb/ – and made sure our messages of #DepthDiversityDifference, #Interdisciplinarity, #BuildaSharedTomorrow and #ShapeYourFuture will be resoundingly heard by all, including those who could not meet us on 13 May 2023. More precisely the team behind the student takeover that saw the amazing productions is made up of NUS Communications and New Media majors: Ryan Tan, Chelsea Wong and Lydia Ong, who found being part FASS@CHS Open House 2023 both exciting and inspiring.

From left to right: Lydia Ong, Ryan Tan and Chelsea Wong

“The student takeover provided me the opportunity to apply past learnings and was an excellent opportunity to test out new ideas,” Ryan said. “From the ideation to implementation of the campaign, it was a fulfilling journey!” Chelsea told us. In agreement, Lydia said: “Working as part of the team for the FASS Open House Student Takeover was exciting — getting to experience all of the event’s offerings and meeting so many wonderful people along the way made the work very enjoyable.”

Thank you Ryan, Chelsea and Lydia, and thank you to all our students for their service to the FASS, CHS and NUS community. We salute you and look forward to working with you on another successful campaign.