Career Catalyst

Kick-start your career preparation with CFG’s foundational career course.

Career Catalyst

career-catalyst-revamp

As a student in the early stages of your studies, you must be excited about the vast number of career paths in front of you! You may not know it yet, but the preparations you make today will impact your career options by graduation.

Enrol in Career Catalyst (CFG1002) to equip yourself with essential career skills such as resume writing, creating your personal brand and elevator pitch, and sharpening your interviewing skills. When done well, they will set you apart and help you maximise your chances of getting the internship and job that you have always wanted!

Besides picking up these technical career skills, Career Catalyst will also enable you to enhance important life skills such as building a greater sense of self-awareness, learning how to better communicate and build relationships professionally, broaden your global perspectives, and enhancing your digital literacy skills through the use of various career tech tools.

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Get Internship-ready

Discover the importance of internships in securing full-time employment
and how to land your first internship

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Career Pathways

Identify your career interest(s) and
build a personal brand aligned to it

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Captivating Resumes

Learn how to craft a resume and cover letter
that stands out among other applicants

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Interview & Networking Excellence

Receive expert tips on interview preparation
and build a networking strategy that works for you

Course Details & Registration

Course Units: 2 Units, Unrestricted Elective (UE) Course.
Career Catalyst (CFG1002) does not count towards the limit on the number of Level-1000 courses in fulfilment of graduation requirements.

Assessment and Grading Basis: CS/CU

Pre-requisites: No requirements 

Schedule: For AY 2025/26 Semester 2, Career Catalyst will be offered twice in a semester - in Term 1 (Weeks 1-6) and Term 2 (Weeks 7-12). The format will be conducted in a hybrid format, where Sessions 1 – 3 (Week 1-3 in Term 1 and Week 7-9 in Term 2) will be conducted face-to-face, while Sessions 4 – 6 will be conducted through e-learning on NUS Canvas, where you can complete the lessons at your own time and pace.

Registration for AY 2025/26 Semester 2 will commence on 08 December 2025. You may register via the registration links below (according to your faculty and major*) and choose your preferred term:

Please ensure that you click the ‘Submit’ button after registering. You should see a “Thank you” message confirming that your response was successfully captured.

If you do not see this message, it means that your registration was unsuccessful, and you will need to register again.

CHS (FASS)

CHS (FoS) + Nursing

CDE 1 (BME, ChBE, ESP, MSE, ME, RMI)

CDE 2 (BArch, BLA, CVE, EVE, ID, IPM, PFM)

CDE 3 (EE, ISE), Others(Non-Business students only)

SOC + CEG

Please refer to the FAQs for more information.

* Please note that Business School students are not eligible to enrol in this course, as the curriculum content overlaps with STR1000 and STR2000 which are compulsory courses for Business students. The exception is students pursuing a Double Degree Program with Business as their second major, and primary major from another faculty.

Class Schedule

The complete schedule of classes can be found here.

For any questions on this course, please email careercatalyst@nus.edu.sg.

Course Structure

Session 1 (In-Person Lecture):
Developing Self-awareness and a Personal Brand

  • Introduction to the course
  • How to identify a personal strength/quality/trait and use that to develop your personal brand
  • The importance of aligning your actions and experiences with your personal brand
  • How to craft a personal brand pitch that showcases your personal strengths
Learning content:
  • Attend face-to-face lecture (in Week 1 for Term 1 students; in Week 7 for Term 2 students)

Session 2 (In-Person Lecture):
Knowing What’s Out There: Industry Awareness and Insights

  • Identifying the “challenge” that you are inspired to work on
  • Insights about common industries and careers that your seniors have ventured into
  • Reflecting on the industry/industries that best align with your interests and skills
  • Identifying potential career paths within these industries to work towards
Learning content:
  • Attend face-to-face lecture (in Week 2 for Term 1 students; in Week 8 for Term 2 students)

Session 3 (In-Person Lecture):
Your Roadmap Towards Career Readiness: Portfolio-building while in NUS

  • Understand the importance of building a "portfolio" consisting of various experiences and skills for your career development
  • Create an intentional and actionable career readiness plan for your time in NUS, which you can begin working on
Learning content:
  • Attend face-to-face lecture (in Week 3 for Term 1 students; in Week 9 for Term 2 students)

Session 4 (E-learning):
Effective Resumes and Cover Letters

  • The purpose of having a resume
  • The 4 main steps to develop a resume
  • How to craft results-oriented C.A.R. statements (Competency, Action, Results)
  • How to draft effective and targeted cover letters
Learning content:

Session 5 (E-learning):
Ace the Interview

  • Types of interviews and selection processes
  • How to prepare for interviews
  • Introduction to interview response frameworks & techniques
Learning content:

Session 6 (E-learning):
Networking for Career Success

  • What is networking and why it is important
  • Tools for successful networking
  • How to grow your professional network
  • Networking techniques (such as your Introduction/Elevator Pitch)
Learning content:

Assessment Instructions for Students

All assessment components for this CS/CU graded course must be completed and submitted for review by the instructors by the end of the final week of the course in Week 6 (Term 1) or Week 12 (Term 2). If you miss the stated deadline for any assessment component, no late submissions will be allowed, and you will score 0 marks for that assessment component.

Grading Components:

Assessment Task Passing Score / Criteria

Uploading of Elevator Pitch on VMock Interview

(www.vmock.com/nus)

 3/5

Uploading of Resume on Vmock Resume

(www.vmock.com/nus)

 70/100
Completion of Final Quiz on Canvas 16/20 

Passing Criteria for CFG1002:

To obtain a CS (Pass) grade in this course, you will need to complete all 3 assessment components above, which includes satisfying the following requirements:

  1. Attempt at least one recording of your elevator pitch on VMock Interview with a minimum score of 3/5 (inappropriate video recordings will not be accepted)
  2. Obtain a minimum score of 70/100 for your resume score on VMock Resume 
  3. Obtain a minimum of 16/20 for the final quiz (one mark will be allocated to each correct answer for 20 questions)

What our students say

“Honestly, this course was really useful to me, and I found it very helpful in my interviews and resume writing. I previously was not very sure how to write a cover letter but after this course, I was more clear of what they wanted.”


SoC student

“The course was extremely helpful to learn about the basics that we have to know about job application and careers in general. It's a good stepping stone and eye opener to help us start off. It also helps us build our portfolio early and teaches us the do's and don’ts.”


FASS student

“I like how it was an 'own time own do' sort of course; gave a lot of flexibility in when I wanted to complete the tasks. The materials were of splendid quality and instructions were clear. Definitely more in–depth tips in career planning, which I found extremely helpful.”


FoS student

“Through Career Catalyst, I learnt various essential career skills such as resume writing, elevator pitch and ways to sharpen my interview skills. These greatly helped me in getting an internship and to excel in them. Wait no more, enrol in Career Catalyst today!”


CDE student

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