Nicole (Eng Wei) Quah
Class of 2021
Why Urban Studies?Urban Studies is such an interdisciplinary field that covers many sociocultural, environmental, and political topics that I'm interested in, including sustainability, migration, and informality. The courses that I've taken under the major has equipped me well with important skills such as thinking about problems in different perspectives, putting myself in the shoes of a policymaker, learning how to use GIS softwares, and much more!
What is your most memorable experience in the major to date?I think anything in the field has been super useful in helping me connect theories to reality. One of the field trips we went on in Water and Waste in Urban Environments was at the Yishun Dam in North Singapore and we conducted a 2-3 hour cleanup along the beach. It made realize how we don't really think about where our trash goes once we throw it away (the whole "out of sight, out of mind" mindset) but it has to end up somewhere and it only becomes important when we physically see the trash and have to clean it up! It has also made me become more mindful of the resources that I've been using and how I can reduce waste. As urban citizens, we should all taken on responsibility to keep our city clean!
What is Urban Studies to you?I'm incredibly interested in how migrants utilize, claim, and create their own spaces (or anything that has to do with international migration!), how gender shapes spatial patterns within cities and impacts people's experiences of the city, how informal networks and resources form in response to a lack of government support, and the resilience of cities, particularly following natural hazards.
