When Philosophy Meets Tech: My NTU-Google Cert Experience
Written By: Boston Ang
At first glance, it may seem unusual for a philosophy student to pursue a program backed by Google and focused on professional technical skills. That thought crossed my mind too when I first received the invitation to apply for the NTU-Google Career Certificate Scholarship. With a background rooted in abstract reasoning and theoretical inquiry, I felt both curious and unsure. What could hands-on training in data analytics and project management offer to a humanities student like me?
Still, I saw the potential value in learning a new kind of thinking. I wanted to test whether the precision, structure, and efficiency of these disciplines could complement, and even strengthen, the open-ended inquiry I was trained in. Looking back, I am deeply grateful I took that step. The program became a turning point, expanding not just my technical skills but also my sense of what was possible at the intersection of thinking and doing.
Some of the specialisations under the NTU-Google Scholarship
My most surprising, and perhaps most profound, learning moment came during the Project Management specialisation. Project management, unlike philosophy, does not thrive on ambiguity. It is grounded in timelines, stakeholder expectations, and tangible deliverables. It speaks in acronyms like Agile and Scrum, not Socrates and Kant. At first, the transition felt jarring, like being asked to build a house while still debating what “structure” means.
But as I navigated the course’s simulations and assignments, I realised the gap was not as vast as I thought. The rigorous analytical thinking developed through philosophy became a strength. For example, stakeholder analysis required me to consider conflicting interests and long-term consequences, just as one would when navigating a moral dilemma or a thought experiment. In the capstone project, I was tasked with managing the rollout of a tablet-based ordering system for a fictional restaurant chain, Sauce & Spoon. Instead of immediately focusing on deadlines and deliverables, I paused to ask: What are the ethical trade-offs here? How might different stakeholders, like employees, customers or management, be impacted by this transition? What assumptions were embedded in the plan’s goals? It was a moment where my background in philosophical reasoning directly informed practical decision-making.
Screenshot of Sauce & Spoon’s Objectives and Key Results
The Advanced Data Analytics specialisation offered a different kind of challenge. Before this course, my relationship with data was largely theoretical, confined to questions about how knowledge is structured and used. But through hands-on training in Python, Jupyter notebooks, and statistical modelling libraries like Pandas and Scikit-learn, I learned to clean, analyse, and visualise complex data sets. The capstone project, set in the context of a fictional company called Salifort Motors, asked us to investigate employee attrition using real HR datasets. We were tasked with building predictive models to identify which employees might leave, and recommending strategies based on our findings.
What stood out most to me, however, was the ethical dimension of data. Analysing human behaviour through numerical patterns made me acutely aware of how easily data can be misinterpreted or misused. What if the model unfairly flagged certain demographic groups as “at risk”? What are the consequences of acting on a prediction without addressing underlying systemic issues? These questions reminded me that behind every data point is a person; and behind every algorithm, a set of value-laden assumptions. My background in philosophy, particularly ethics, helped me navigate these questions with greater care. This experience did not just deepen my technical skillset; it also sharpened my awareness of the responsibilities that come with interpreting data in high-stakes contexts.
Screenshot of a course assignment on Jupyter Notebook
Looking back, the most valuable outcome of the program was not any single skill, but the ability to integrate theoretical insight with technical application. I now feel equipped to contribute in roles that lie at the intersection of ethics, technology, and strategy. In fact, I have begun applying for internships in tech policy and AI ethics, which are fields I had never considered before this program.
Skills-wise, I emerged with hands-on experience in tools like Python, as well as Agile project management frameworks like Scrum, but more importantly, I gained the confidence to navigate ambiguity with structure, and to bring critical inquiry into spaces often dominated by execution speed and metrics.
To students from any discipline, especially those who, like me, may have doubted whether they “belong” in tech, I urge you to apply. The NTU-Google Career Certificate Scholarship Program is not just about industry recognition or technical skill-building. It is about learning to think differently, to collaborate across boundaries, and to find your voice in conversations you never thought you would be part of. In a world increasingly shaped by data and digital systems, there is a real need for thinkers who can ask: not just how, but why.
