University - Analytics | Strategy | Innovation

University Choice Analytics: Recently, the Ministry of Education of Singapore released the results of Joint Autonomous University Graduate Employment Survey in Singapore. I remembered a few years back where I would also be one of those prospective university students who would consistently be looking at these results. While I believe that your choice of university and course should not be solely on the salary that you receive, here are some analysis of the Graduate Employment Survey 2020 of 138 Courses on which University and Course you should go to: (i.e. National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Management University, Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore Institute of Technology, Singapore University of Social Sciences)

Top 10 Courses in University (Median Salary)

For the top 10 (well actually 11 due to a tie) courses this year, the Median Salary (50th percentile) received by a Fresh Graduate is S$5,000 and above, with the highest Median Salary being from Nanyang Technological University, Nanyang Business School Double Degree in Business (Business Analytics) and Computer Engineering/Computing. Two other Analytics related courses from SMU and NUS also made the top 10! Do read up more on why I picked Business Analytics as a specialisation here!

The top universities of choice seem to be Nanyang Technological University, National University of Singapore and Singapore Management University! The top course verticals (based on my own classification) are Business, Science, Medicine, Computing and Law.

University	Vertical	Degree	Median Salary
NTU	Business	Double Degree in Business and Computer Engineering/Computing	$5,400
NUS	Science	Bachelor of Science with Honours	$5,350
NTU	Medicine	Medicine	$5,250
NUS	Medicine	Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery	$5,250
NUS	Computing	Bachelor of Computing (Computer Science)	$5,243
SMU	Computing	Information Systems Cum Laude and above	$5,000
SMU	Law	Law Cum Laude and above	$5,000
NUS	Law	Bachelor of Laws	$5,000
NUS	Computing	Bachelor of Computing (Information Security)	$5,000
NUS	Business	Bachelor of Science (Business Analytics)	$5,000
NUS	Computing	Bachelor of Engineering (Computer Engineering)	$5,000

Top 10 Singapore University Courses in terms of Median Salary.

Bottom 10 Courses in University (Median Salary)

For the bottom 10 (12, due to tie) courses this year, the Median Salary received by a Fresh Graduate was S$3,000 and below. The Universities in this list is a good mix of technological and newer universities, with a combination of verticals from Business, Education, Science, Medicine and Humanities and Social Sciences.

University	Vertical	Degree	Median Salary
SUSS	Education	Bachelor of Early Childhood Education	$3,000
SUSS	Business	Bachelor of Accountancy	$3,000
NTU	Business	Accountancy	$3,000
NTU	Medicine	Biomedical Sciences and Chinese Medicine	$3,000
SIT	Business	Bachelor of Hospitality Business with Honours	$3,000
SIT	Science	Bachelor of Food Technology with Honours	$2,975
SUSS	Business	Bachelor of Human Resource Management	$2,950
SUSS	Business	Bachelor of Science in Marketing	$2,900
NTU	Humanities and Social Science	Art, Design and Media	$2,800
SIT	Humanities and Social Science	Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Communication Design	$2,800
SIT	Humanities and Social Science	Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Interior Design	$2,700
SIT	Business	Bachelor of Business Administration in Food Business Management	$2,625

Bottom 10 Singapore University Courses in terms of Median Salary.

Analysing by the Verticals

With so many options, it might be difficult to narrow down your options. Therefore, we are making it simpler for you through summaries of which course vertical you might want to select! We have done the analysis using Excel Pivot Tables and Charts to Visualise the results for you! On average, you will expect to receive the highest salary in Law and the lowest from Humanities and Social Sciences.

Visualising and Ranking the Average Salary for a Fresh Graduate based on course vertical.

Law	$ 4,863
Computing	$ 4,455
Medicine	$ 4,425
Architecture	$ 3,950
Engineering	$ 3,754
Science	$ 3,651
Business	$ 3,574
Education	$ 3,475
Humanities and Social Science	$ 3,462

Some numbers if you are interested in the specific numbers derived through excel pivot tables.

Analysing by the Universities

With 6 Universities, you may also want to know which university would give you the largest return in terms of salary! Here’s another analysis with Excel Pivot Tables and Charts for Visualisation! From the Data, we can see that Singapore University of Technology and Design has the highest starting salary and Singapore University of Social Sciences having the lowest.

Visualising and Ranking the Universities by Salary.

SUTD	$ 4,075
SMU	$ 4,053
NUS	$ 3,995
NTU	$ 3,731
SIT	$ 3,494
SUSS	$ 3,100

Another set of specific numbers if you are into the details.

Best Course Vertical in terms of Median Salary in Each University

In this part, we wanted to know verticals had the highest salary for each of the universities. Here are the answers!

Nanyang Technological University: Business, Computing, Medicine

National University of Singapore: Law, Computing, Medicine

Singapore Institute of Technology: Computing

Singapore Management University: Law, Computing

Singapore University of Social Sciences: Humanities and Social Sciences

Singapore University of Technology and Design: Engineering

Analysing the best course in terms of average salary in each university.

Conclusion

Having said all these, do note that this report is only informative in nature. While the starting salary may be an important factor, remember that that is only one of the considerations. Some other factors include passion, interest and more!

Hope that this article is helpful in making an informed choice for the next phase of your education!

If you ended up deciding on Business School, do read our post on how to make the most of your business school experience!

If you liked this page, do bookmark this site, or follow us on our LinkedIn page.

Original Cover Photo by Tan Wei Xiang (University Logos from Google Images)
Datasets obtained from Singapore Ministry of Education: https://www.moe.gov.sg/post-secondary/overview/autonomous-universities/

After attending business school for 3 years, here are some of the reflections which I have which may be beneficial to all who want to study at business school. Do note that this is an account from my own experience and many other students may experience vastly different experiences. Here are some tips from me to make the most out of your business school experience:

1. Do as many internships as possible, across different industries, and different functions.

While in Nanyang Business School, and many other business schools, we would have one compulsory internship which we may have to complete, I encourage you to go out of your comfort zone to experience the different industries. Some of the benefits include the following:

Firstly, by having more internship experience, you can gain a better understanding of the world of business. Many industries operate in different styles and manners. Having experienced the automotive, information technology and medical device industries, I felt that despite having roles which were in business, in Talent Management, Market Research and Marketing, I could apply my business and analytics knowledge in a variety of ways. This allowed me a better understanding of how what I learn in school can be actively applied.

Secondly, you have more touch points to stay as relevant as possible. You will get to understand what are the skillsets required by each industry, and you gain a head-start compared with other graduates without prior experience in the industry. An understanding of the business operations in the role would allow one to connect the dots and grow to understand more on business functions and responsibilities.

Thirdly, culture. By having more internship experiences, you have the opportunity to compare the various kinds of cultures in each organisation. This would determine whether you believe that you fit into a particular company or industry. By seeing more types of cultures, as fresh graduates, we could also better discern what kinds of cultures fit our personal goals in developing as future business leaders.

If you need help on looking for internships, this post may be useful:

https://tanweixiang.com/ntu-nbs-internship-hunting-guide-tips-from-an-nbs-graduate-with-3-mnc-internship-experiences/

2. Try to work with different people.

While you may feel comfortable with just working with your closest pals sometimes, actively mixing it up once in a while allows the chance to tweak your working patterns to fit an ideal role.

More often than not, when you are working with the same people across different modules, you end up fulfilling a particular role in the group, be it as the one who leads in the discussions, the contributor, task manager and so on, and this may be a missed opportunity in trying something different.

By working with different people, you get the chance to get more creative and hone multiple skills, sometimes going just specifically on design and presentation, and other times managing extremely complex calculations. By actively switching up things, I found it an impressive learning opportunity for me.

3. Surprise yourself by going out of your comfort zone.

Many naysayers may say that in business school you are learning the same thing as everyone else, which means you are not really set apart from others. I would beg to differ.

Some ways which I managed to actively surprise myself to grow my learning experience:

Joining over 7 communities during the course of my studies.
Starting a profit-making small business and collaborating managing the end-to-end of the business with both business and non-business students.
Going for an exchange programme to France where I had the chance to learn from many different cultures.
And so on…

For me, I believe that my business school experience was a great opportunity to learn, grow, lead and serve. I hope that you would actively seek out internships, work with new people and go out of your comfort zone.

In addition, if you liked reading about this post, do follow us on our LinkedIn Page. Also, you might know why I picked business analytics at Nanyang Business School!

Image Credits: Original image by Wengang Zhai on Unsplash