The Very Clear Cut Show

In this special bonus episode, Leoson speaks to his own sister, Melody Hoay, about her experiences growing as an early career lawyer through the past couple of eventful years. They also discuss some insights that Melody has garnered from her tenure as a fintech and finreg professional in Singapore. 

We at the show have been talking about the Future of Work as the theme of the quarter, as we look to transition between different kinds of “normals”. When we think of the tech industry, transiting from in-person to remote work is something easily imaginable – and executable. But what does this look like for the legal industry? And how may it continue to adapt to future times? 

In a separate vein, Melody also shares some of her knowledge of the ins and outs of setting up fintech and cryptocurrency businesses in Singapore.

Melody is an Associate in the Fintech and Financial Regulatory Practice at Allen & Gledhill LLP. Her areas of practice encompass capital markets, banking, financial advisory and payments work in Singapore. She has experience in advising traditional financial institutions, international organisations, technology conglomerates and start-ups on regulatory and compliance matters in respect of their business models, conduct of business requirements, regulatory filings and corporate acquisitions. In particular, Melody has advised on a variety of FinTech payments and fundraising models, and cryptocurrency trading and exchange businesses.

Credits:

• Intro and Background Music: Anchor
• Outro Music: Jingle Jazz by Quantum Jazz

A PhD is often seen as a high peak of the traditional educational system. It has also become associated with many opinions and cultural quirks over the years - but at the bottom line, it is the entryway into the world of academia, or high level private research.

One common misconception is that doing a PhD necessarily means one’s end goal is being a professor or teaching at a tertiary institution. For example, even in the early days of data science in 2015, 38% of data scientists on LinkedIn reported having a doctorate. Meta (previously Facebook) also encourages the development of potential talent with doctorates with its Facebook Fellowship Program.

What remains less seen, however, are the ins and outs of actually pursuing a doctorate. The path can be long and filled with many challenges. The decision to pursue one is not trivial, as it involves many additional years of education on top of an undergraduate degree and sometimes a master's.

We’re glad to have with us Ms Xueqing Wang - a current doctoral student in Demography and Social Policy at Princeton University - to share some of her experiences!

This episode originally aired live on 26th Mar 2022. 

Credits:

• Intro and Background Music: Anchor
• Outro Music: Jingle Jazz by Quantum Jazz

Fiona Fan (范静雯) is a Chinese expat in the United States who was laid off during the pandemic, but bounced back to find a job at one of the world's most sought after companies - currently working as a Data Scientist at Amazon.

In the previous months, we viewed resilience from the local perspective. Often, this means being able to fall back on support structures and our network, when we encounter adversity. This changes when we move abroad, far away from our comfort zone. We are glad to have Fiona with us today to share her journey through the adversities she faced as an expat and emerging stronger from it. Fiona previously studied neuroscience and economics at Wellesley College, and computational social science at University of Chicago. In her free time, she enjoys watching animation, reading non-fiction, and not exercising. 

This episode originally aired live on 18th Dec 2021. 

Credits:

• Intro and Background Music: Anchor
• Outro Music: Jingle Jazz by Quantum Jazz

What a year 2020 was. As COVID-19 ravaged the physical and mental spaces of our already fragile world, we attempted to stop and think about key questions that existed before the pandemic, that were perhaps modulated by COVID-19, and that would continue to exist beyond the pandemic. In one of our best received live episodes centered in the vortex of the pandemic, we looked at the theme of "Dreams" from multiple angles: career aspirations, coronavirus challenges, and meaning-making. 

Leoson Hoay and Donavan Cheah riff on wide variety of topics including being a truck driver, the widely debated "Essential vs Non-Essential Jobs" survey and infographic published in The Straits Times, the difficulties of being an artist, and the value of food. 

Link to The Straits Times infographic: https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/how-the-survey-was-conducted 

This episode originally aired live on 20th March 2021.

Credits:

• Intro and Background Music: Anchor
• Outro Music: Jingle Jazz by Quantum Jazz

A clinician intervenes when someone needs help with managing a mental health condition. From 2017 to 2019, an average of 12,600 patients aged between 15 to 34 years sought treatment for mental health conditions at public hospitals in Singapore. 

Mr. Daniel Ho is a clinical psychologist who has experience working with children, adolescents and adults with a range of mental health difficulties. His clinical interests lie in work with stigmatized minorities and at-risk youth populations. In this chat, he shares his perspectives and answers some of our questions about mental health - including how clinicians view mental health conditions, and perhaps, how clinicians themselves take care of their own mental health. 

This episode originally aired live on 28th Aug 2021. 

Credits:

• Intro and Background Music: Anchor
• Outro Music: Jingle Jazz by Quantum Jazz