As my posts span across various disciplines and facets of my college experience, I see this
portfolio not so much as a single narrative, but as a series of glimpses into different moments that have shaped me. While there is a light thread that connects them – movement, in its many forms – I also believe each piece can stand alone. They serve as self-contained reflections, each offering a different window into how I think, learn and grow.
portfolio not so much as a single narrative, but as a series of glimpses into different moments that have shaped me. While there is a light thread that connects them – movement, in its many forms – I also believe each piece can stand alone. They serve as self-contained reflections, each offering a different window into how I think, learn and grow.
I am Stefanie, a final-year Mechanical Engineering undergraduate at NUS. This portfolio is a collection of reflections I wrote during my final semester – an exercise in pausing and making sense of the experiences that have shaped me. What began as a daunting set of assignments became a joyful (and occasionally hair-pulling) invitation to slow down amidst the busyness of academic life and to trace the through-lines between seemingly unrelated moments. Writing these reflections has helped me surface things I once took for granted, draw connections between intuition and inquiry and begin to understand my own way of moving through the world – as someone who will be committed to continuous reflection and learning. These posts are recommended to be read in the order presented below, but readers are welcome to explore them in any sequence that resonates.
A mechanical engineer in training and a dancer by passion – movement has become a thread that weaves through my college experience. In the lab, I study motion systems, heat transfer and fluid dynamics – translating movement into equations. In the studio, I explore the abstraction of ideas through rhythm and form – translating ideas into movement. Writing these posts became an invitation to articulate and unravel the diverse ways I have encountered movement beyond the physical. Across disciplines and experiences, movement has manifested itself as a form of inquiry, manipulation, expression and transformation, shaping my ways of thinking and being.
In Choreography (and its meaning-making), movement takes its most literal form. Beginning with physical, tangible motion, I reflect on how the act of shaping bodies in dance choreography becomes a dynamic process of meaning-making. Through an academic assignment and a contemporary dance creation process, I came to view movement not just as expression, but also as a form of inquiry, collaboration and personal growth. Bridging two significant identities I held in college, a dancer and a student, I began to see how these roles could enrich one another through a shared creative practice grounded in constructing meaning through movement.
Spatiality (and its thinking) explores the realm of mental and cognitive movement – how spatial frameworks scaffold abstract ideas and help us make sense of the world. I reflect on how spatial thinking shaped my understanding of mechanical engineering concepts like the moment of inertia, and how this ability was recontextualised through a humanities lens in a linguistics class, where I encountered how spatial metaphors shape the way we think and talk about time. This interplay revealed deeper spatial cognitive patterns that cut across disciplines.
Movement in Strategy (and its humanity) is more subtle, manifesting as an emotional shift – from initial disgruntlement to a deeper appreciation of the human dimension in business strategy. Beyond being an academic exercise, my personal encounter with strategy in the real world revealed it as a deeply human, emotional and high-stakes practice. Seeing this unfold firsthand made me realise that strategy is not merely about planning or modelling – it is equally about conviction, navigating uncertainty and human stakes.
Design (and its negotiation) traces a conceptual movement, a shift in both Eila’s and my understanding of the design-thinking process, from a rigid, linear model to one that is fluid, collaborative and negotiated in real-world practice. Our reflection revealed that design is rarely a solitary or sequential task. Instead, it is shaped by distributed ownership, interpersonal dynamics and the realities of working with constraints. A timely realisation as we anticipate the next step of our lives into our careers, where collaboration, iteration and adaptability will become everyday realities.
I curated these four posts for the breadth of experiences they reflect from my college journey – across mechanical engineering, NUS College (NUSC), NUS Overseas Colleges (NOC), and dance. Each piece explores a distinct facet of movement, they all map a common trajectory: a movement from rigid assumptions to nuance sensitivities. Whether it’s the movement of bodies, ideas, frameworks or expectations, each reflection traces a shift in how I engage with complexity – not by simplifying it, but by learning how to stay with it.
As I move into professional spaces, I carry forward the mindset that adaptability, reflection and thoughtful negotiation are as critical as technical skill. The habits of movement I’ve practiced in college – shifting perspectives, navigating between roles and learning through process – continue to shape how I approach learning, work and collaboration. What remains with me most is not any singular definition of movement, but the openness it invites – a readiness to respond, to rethink and to reorient.
Made with Bullet