The bigger picture
At first glance, one would never peg Aingeal Keong as a Philosophy major. The Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) graduate is currently working at Dyson as a digital optimisation analyst under the APAC RACE Graduate Programme, which aims to build a strong analytics foundation in early career talents to drive the company’s digital business performance. Her job revolves around analysing data across the various Asia-Pacific markets, as well as proposing best practices that markets can adopt and take into consideration across various domains, such as sales planning, media expenditures, and user experiences.
Aingeal (third from left) with her Dyson colleagues outside of the Singapore headquarters at St James Power Station.
While many may be puzzled as to how philosophy actually prepared Aingeal for a career in data analysis, she shares that the ability to connect the dots and spot macro-patterns quickly and logically—a skillset she honed as a Philosophy major, have equipped her to excel in the workplace.
Playing devil’s advocate
Another useful trait Aingeal has been able to transfer from philosophy to her workplace is the willingness to question commonly held assumptions and beliefs. “In a work scenario, it helps to raise potential risks that people may miss when they attempt to implement an idea,” she elaborates. “Pre-empting possible negative scenarios helps you to be aware of the potential repercussions of any idea, which is useful in planning!”
One real-life example was of how Aingeal preempted a potentially poor voucher redemption experience for users. When discussing this redemption experience, her entire team was on board with the idea of redirecting users to Facebook Messenger, and then to their email to get a unique voucher code. However after reflecting on this, Aingeal felt that this method would be operationally taxing and also result in a poor user journey, and counter-proposed that voucher codes should be sent directly to users on Facebook Messenger. By playing a “devil’s advocate” of sorts to question the status quo, Aingeal was able to get her team to rethink the user journey and have her new suggestion implemented across Asia.
What keeps me up at night
As a student, Aingeal’s love affair with the whys of life made philosophy the perfect fit for her. As a curious introvert and avid learner, she confessed that even though she found her introductory philosophy modules fiendishly difficult, she could not stop herself from ruminating on the ethical questions they stirred up. “I would obsess over my weekly quizzes and topics they brought up, such as ‘how can a good God allow evil to exist?’ or ‘should you eat factory-farmed animals?’ These questions literally kept me up at night; I couldn’t let go of them as every new stance you take in the argument will trigger more new questions,” she muses. Aingeal is living proof of just how life-changing a philosophy class can get: she became a vegetarian because of the moral arguments she encountered against eating animals.
Lest one is daunted by the high-brow arguments or esoteric philosophies in this field, Aingeal would have you know that some of the most popular cross-faculty modules are also from the Department of Philosophy. “GET1025/GEX1011: Science Fiction and Philosophy and GEK2040: Philosophy and Film are perennial favourites. We have students from other faculties flocking to our Department to take these modules!” she laughs.
A different school of fish
Musing on the culture in the Department of Philosophy, Aingeal says:
Movie nights were also a common occurrence among her Philosophy peers, with many people staying on long after the closing credits to have robust discussions about the movie’s topics or themes. She was amused yet unsurprised to discover that Philosophy’s reputation for having a tight-knit community was so well known that current Sociology undergraduates in FASS are actually studying the community as part of their project, and postulating reasons for their cohesion!
Aingeal (first from left, second row) celebrating with the Philosophy community at their graduation party.
This passionate group of thinkers also values everyone’s varied interpretations of readings, and often helps to interrogate and refine each other’s points of view. “It is common for us to critique one another’s papers. Brutal honesty and rigour are appreciated, and getting your paper returned and annotated with 20 to 30 peer comments is the norm,” she explains.
Outside of her Nietzsche and Kierkegaard texts, Aingeal also professes a love of Japanese literature and cats. The avowed cat lover is actively involved in helping community cats around her neighbourhood by ensuring they are fed, and that any new cats in the area can be safely neutered and cared for.
Aingeal devotes her time to helping out with community cats.
Intern extraordinaire
Aingeal’s passion and drive further extends beyond academics and community work—during her undergraduate years, this go-getter with a thirst for learning undertook a whopping seven internships! Thanks to her drive for creating learning opportunities for herself, she became proficient in a plethora of skillsets, such as marketing, graphic design, front-end web design and Search Engine Optimisation.
Aingeal advises current undergraduates to be open about participating in new experiences, as one never knows where they may lead. Case in point: her regional marketing internship at L’Oreal in 2023 actually came about when she stumbled upon an open call for the global case competition L’Oréal Brandstorm 2022, and her team became the National Champions. “Back then, my exposure to marketing was very limited and I wanted to know what a real life business case would be like in order to fill my knowledge gaps in this area,” she reflects. “One thing led to another and doors started to open for me after this win. The L’Oréal internship I got fast-tracked to also paved the way for me to be where I am today at Dyson.”
Aingeal’s (first from left, second row) experience at L’Oréal Brandstorm 2022 opened the door for her current career.
Aingeal is quick to acknowledge that while interning was also a way to support herself financially, her financial burden was eased thanks to the aid she received as a 2019 Hochstadt Scholar in the Humanities recipient as well as a bursary holder.
Open hearts, open doors
As a people-oriented introvert, Aingeal has also always been motivated by her desire to help others. While still in junior college, she took up a volunteering stint with the National Council of Social Services’ Early Learners Programme, where she tutored underprivileged children to prepare them for primary school. This experience cemented her desire to mentor and empower people, as she realised these children simply needed guidance or a mentor to uplift them and help them realise their potential. Citing empathy as her key driver behind wanting to extend a helping hand, Aingeal muses, “I feel compelled to give back to people so that they won’t feel as much anxiety as I did when I was put in new situations. To me, mentoring is about finding a solution that works for the other person.”
Witnessing the struggles that her juniors face when job-hunting, Aingeal is well aware of the anxieties undergraduates may have when entering the workforce for the first time, and is eager to alleviate their concerns.
