Picture: Dialogue in the Dark

Only a few weeks of our attempts in adapting to the change in surroundings, our lecturer gave us a pleasant surprise by announcing that we would be going for a tour in Dialogue in the Dark during our tutorial class!
Everybody was elated for being able to get out of the classroom and was full of anticipation of how DID is going to be like.

Initially, from what I could infer from the name, I expected it to be us sitting in a pitch dark room and having talks from visually impaired people but lo and behold, it's not. ._.

Instead, it was even better.

With only a blind stick in one hand and a hand of a friend which I had randomly grabbed inside the room, we made our way through Singapore led by our visually impaired guide, visiting the a park, making our way through the bustling city, taking a boat ride down the Singapore River and going to a market where we try to identify the different spices and fruits by touching and smelling it. Nearing the end of the tour, our guide brought us to the Dark Cafe (operated by a visually impaired) where we bought drinks and cookies to snack on while chatting with our guide to know more about his life and difficulties in life as a visually impaired.


It was a life-changing experience for me because I never knew how tough it was to be surviving in this world without your sense of sight and all I had experienced was only blindness for only about 10 minutes. Also, it made me realise how lucky I am to be able to see all the beautiful things in the world because I never had to deal with the physical and mental difficulties that a visually impaired person faces.

Are you taking part in Hair for Hope 2010?

Three of the Year 1s in Business and Social Enterprise, together with our Year 2 & 3 seniors and our lecturer Dr Red are shaving their hair for Hair for Hope 2010 at Vivocity today at 1pm!


Join them! (:


For more information on Hair for Hope, visit http://www.hairforhope.org.sg/

Today, BZSE Year 1`10 questions their existence in BZSE.

During Introduction to Social Enterprise (INTSOE), we discussed about social enterprise and social entrepreneurship. What is a social enterprise, profitability etc. It was rather mind-blowing, with all the definition.

At the end of the day, some of my classmates started questioning themselves about their passion for BZSE, about their existence in BZSE.

Perhaps, this is something that all the pioneer batches would have to go through. Although we are not technically the pioneer batch, being the third batch of BZSE students still make us rather pioneer-ish, no?

Fun fact: NP is the only polytechnic which offers Diploma in Business and Social Enterprise.

What is a social enterprise? What makes a social enterprise, a social enterprise?

Presently, there is not a fixed definition for a social enterprise but in BZSE, we strive to create our own definition for it.

My classmate felt rather dismayed at the fact that BZSE isn't as well recognized as other HMS courses such as Psychology and Community Services (PCS), Early Childhood Education (ECH) and Child Psychology and Early Education (CPEE). However, I beg to differ. I think it's a blessing in disguise that BZSE is not well known and not defined because that gives us the chance to be the people promoting BZSE to the rest of the world, to give it a definition created by us. To me, a definition is not that much of an importance because why let a single definition tie all of us down? We should not live to fulfill that definition but instead BZSE (or even social entrepreneurship) should be something special, something that you can't describe it with just a definition and definitely something that you have to experience it yourself to feel the passion.

Some of my classmates start to doubt themselves if they are really suitable for this course and are thinking of transferring out to another. If you are posted to this course and you don't like it, you should appeal out immediately. Why wait until 3 months later to let a mere definition falter you?

I question myself too, about my passion and existence in BZSE, but I question myself on how much more am I able to learn from this course, how much more am I able to grow from the experiential learning, and how much more am I able to contribute back to the society.


For those graduating students, you might not understand why am I posting this up. I'm posting this because I feel the need to let you know about the questions we are facing now and hopefully, it would help you in making your choice to join or not to join our family.

Don't be hesitant to join us because in BZSE, we learn more than just business, we do business with a heart.


One thing I love about BZSE is that it never fails to amaze me and makes me want to contribute whatever I can to the society.

My first post would be about how I ended up in BZSE and some of the dilemma I faced which I think most of you are facing now, or in the near future.

My L1R4 for O levels was 13 and I guess it’s an average score, good enough to get into rather decent courses offered by the various polytechnics. But the problem was this; I wasn’t really good at sciences, seeing that I barely scraped a pass for my pure chemistry, engineering isn’t my cup of tea and I even fail at drawing stickmen so design courses were out of the list, this narrows down my options by a lot to the business courses.

Business courses offered by Ngee Ann Poly were one of the best and nearly everyone I know is in there, so I was really desperate to get a spot there, but the number of courses weren’t enough to fill even half of the 12 options JAE has so kindly provided. As such, I threw in business courses from Singapore Poly but it still wasn’t enough.

Desperate needs calls for desperate measures, seeing Business and Social Enterprise on NP’s website, I just included it in for good measure with the thought of : Come on, I won’t be that unlucky to get into a course that I have no idea what is it about at all. You know what, I’m THAT unlucky.