Hard work, sacrifices pay off for graduating national athletes
National athletes (from left) T Piriyah, Nur Shafiqa Sheik Alau’ddin and Calvin Kang said they had to put in extra effort to juggle both studies and sports. They will be graduating from NTU this week. Photo: Koh Mui Fong
SINGAPORE — For the past 17 years, Mr Calvin Kang has focused much of his efforts on the track, participating in race after race.
Now, armed with a Sports Science and Management degree and a passion for entrepreneurship, the 26-year-old national sprinter will undertake the next phase of his life, one that will be markedly different from his life as an athlete.
He will not be alone. Several student athletes are graduating this week in Nanyang Technological University’s convocation ceremonies for 9,107 graduands with bachelor’s degrees or higher. National 400m runner T Piriyah is another, and is exploring a path in pedagogy, having just received an offer letter from the Ministry of Education and given her interest in working with children.
Meanwhile, national silat exponent Nur Shafiqa Sheik Alau’ddin, 23, is keeping her options open while looking for a job that would enable her to help others and make a difference in their lives.
Juggling school and the responsibilities of being a national athlete has not been an easy feat for the trio, who all acknowledged the extra effort needed in their schoolwork, especially when sports competitions and exams approached.
“Going to school, training and commuting has taken up a lot of my time,” said Ms Shafiqa, who lives in Pasir Ris, the other end of the island from NTU.
The national silat team has additional and more intense trainings nearing competition dates, even staying at their training centres for two weeks before the competition.
“So if I’ve to do work on the train, (then I will). If I’ve to work on my schoolwork while my other teammates are napping before training, then I will. That’s the sacrifice I have to make,” said Ms Shafiqa.
Mr Kang, who, like Ms Piriyah, trains six times a week, added: “Maybe we can’t sleep as early because we have got to complete assignments after training. It’s about personal time management.”
Despite that, they are glad that the NTU management understood their role as national athletes, especially when they had to be absent owing to major competitions such as last year’s SEA Games in Singapore.
“We could just check with our classmates, or if not, we could just email our professors. They’d be more than willing to update us or guide us one-on-one on what we missed,” said Ms Piriyah.
According to Mr Kang, the NTU lecturers were all supportive; some even followed the athletes’ sporting progress through the news and encouraged them.
“I guess this is what you choose to do: You choose to be in the national team and in university, so you’ve got to focus on your goals and your dreams. Success isn’t easy, so you have to go through hard work,” Ms Shafiqa added.
And now that the hard work is done, Mr Kang told TODAY that he is looking to join a regional-based start-up that marries his twin loves of data analytics and sports.
He has already established a photography and videography company, is a shareholder in another company that teaches interview skills, and has invested in the online platform “shiok.sg” so he is no stranger to the entrepreneurship scene.
“Eventually, I want to be my own boss, so maybe (that’s why) I chose a different path. I started certain SMEs during my time in school, and it taught me a lot — a lot that I’ve learnt through hands-on activities,” said Mr Kang.
