One Sneak Peek Into A New Kind of Smart

“When I received my ITE acceptance letter, it felt like a victory. A validation of my journey, a testament to my resilience.”

22-year-old Claudia was told by her own teachers in secondary school that they did not know if she had the capability to even make it into ITE.

When she did make it there, however, her view of the world around her changed. 

As someone who studied in an elite girls school beforehand, she was suddenly immersed in an environment that was dominated by boys. 

Many of them came from dysfunctional and painful family backgrounds, which let her realise how resigned they were to their circumstances and starting point in life 

They too had passions and ambitions, but most of them had no courage to pursue what they really wanted to pursue, simply because of their starting point in life

Originally an introvert, Claudia grew to enjoy helping her peers around her, and was eventually accepted into Ngee Ann’s Community Development course.

Through sheer hard work and resilience, she managed to enter the National University of Singapore after graduating from poly,

Something which she never expected to do.

Her Final Year Project from her poly days allowed her to create Pathfinders, a ground-up that mentors underprivileged youths to tackle self-limiting beliefs and discover their potential.  

Read on to find out what we talked about! 

1. The search for her life calling

“My experience in local social mobility charity Access Singapore changed my life. 

They sought to help Normal Academic (NA) students just like me, and that drew me in. Through this experience, I realised that people from low income families tend to have more anxiety due to the lack of opportunities for social mobility. On the other hand, people who don’t have to worry about money can afford to pursue what they want with confidence. For example, my own partner is a government scholar who studied in prestigious schools and came from money. These three factors are all very important to help promote people’s ambitions in life. 

I was very lucky to have Access Singapore’s support in my endeavour. I pitched my idea to Clarence Ching, their founder, and offer them my research and network of disadvantaged youths in return for funding from Access. This support allowed me to scale pathfinders, and currently, we are a team of 12. We have a few partners at the moment, and our team is comprised of many students from the ITE. 

We also do quite a bit of social media advocacy work, as we find social mobility to be a very cheem (Singlish: complex) topic, so we think it would be beneficial if we can simplify the topic for disadvantaged youths.” 

2. Her own educational background

“When I saw that I had gotten a PSLE result of 187, my sister told me that it’s ok if I wanted to cry, but I didn’t as I knew that I did do my best. In secondary school, I realised that I wasn’t as academically inclined as my siblings or my peers, and I was the first person in my family that entered the Normal Academic (NA) stream. 

When I was in secondary 4, sitting for the NA levels, I felt that the educational system did not understand me well as I was failing Maths and Science all the time. Although I did very well for my languages — English and Malay, my Maths and Science teachers were very convinced that I wouldn’t do well in the official examinations and even told my parents that they didn’t know if I could even go to ITE. 

Fortunately, I came from a school where the school papers were way harder than the actual exams. I found school papers very hard to do well in, but the Ten Years Series was very doable. I knew that I would not be able to enter the top stream, so I had a goal of joining ITE instead.

So I entered ITE through the DPP route. My parents were not happy, but my father said that he was confident that I would find my own way. My sisters had the misconception that I didn’t study hard enough. I didn’t grow up in a psychologically safe environment, like my peers, because of this.

As I could relate to the students in ITE myself, I thought it would be very meaningful for me to lift my peers up through my involvement in the non-profits Access Singapore, Mentoring SG, and of course Pathfinders.”

Connect with Claudia here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/claudia-selvakumar/

Follow our telegram channel: https://t.me/onesneakpeekinto

And that is all for today’s One Sneak Peek Into.

Stay tuned for more insights from our interview series as we continue to explore the stories of trailblazers breaking barriers and redefining success.