The ONE ACS Career Forum took place on Saturday, 27 July at Anglo-Chinese Junior College. Almost 1000 students, parents and guests from the Methodist Schools in Singapore attended the annual Career Forum.

Organised by the ACSOBA and sponsored by ACS Foundation, the ONE ACS Career Forum is the largest annual programme that the ACSOBA organizes for students from all ACS schools. It draws on the collective wealth of experience amongst ACSians in the workforce and attempts to demystify industries as well as understand the reality in diverse career fields. In addition to the students from the ACS schools, students from all the Methodist Institutions are also invited.

The forum kicked off with an Opening Panel featuring Mr Keith Magnus, Chairman, Asia, Evercore and Chairman of Kallang Alive Sports Management and Mr Dinesh Vasu Dash, CEO of the Agency for Integrated Care (AIC). Touching on the theme of Outside the Box but Inside the System – Fostering Creativity and Civic Engagement in Your Career, both speakers frankly shared their philosophy towards leadership, how they found their passions and what led them to their careers. They gave credit to the non-teaching staff, their teachers and other administrators in ACS who had taught them different lessons in their schooling lives, which gave them a strong ethical and moral anchor that served them well in their careers. They closed by providing advice to the parents and children in the audience.

Following the Opening Panel, over 50 ACSian alumni participated in 14 separate career and skills track panels spread across three sessions across the morning, sharing their insights into specific industries, demystifying the jargon and providing frank and unvarnished views about different career paths. In addition, the six autonomous universities also set up booths to engage our students and show their course offerings. It was heartening to see the students engage their seniors with thoughtful and sometimes provocative questions. It was clear that the students appreciated the sessions, as some sought to engage the speakers after their respective panels, and some even tried to get internships and other opportunities.

The ACSOBA thanks all the ACSians who participated in the ONE ACS Career Forum and gave up their Saturday morning to demonstrate the power of the ACS Spirit to our students. We pray that this tradition continues and the attendees of today will be the speakers of tomorrow.