Mr Aloysius Lim's polytechnic acceptance on his fifth try led the 24-year-old to excel and graduate with a close to 4.0 GPA.Unfazed, he tried applying for Nanyang Polytechnic for a fifth time and was accepted. Three years on, the 24-year-old has excelled and graduated with a near-perfect grade point average of 3.99 out of 4.
“I was definitely disappointed that I did not qualify for polytechnic like my peers,” Mr Lim said, speaking to The Straits Times. “I had to take a longer route.” “I tried for so long, but in the end I still couldn’t make it in,” Mr Lim said. “But I am someone who does not give up easily, so that I know that if I keep trying, one day I will succeed.”
Mr Lim is one of 5,300 graduates from NYP’s Class of 2024 and is also one of the polytechnic’s top nine graduates. On May 3, he received from Education Minister Chan Chun Sing the Tay Eng Soon Award for ITE Upgrader, presented to the most outstanding graduate who progressed to NYP from ITE.“Challenges there will be,” he said, addressing graduating students from NYP’s School of Information Technology on May 3.
The motivation to accomplish as much as he could in while in polytechnic came from being looked down upon by his peers who took shorter routes as compared to him.