Ong Wen Jie Dylan
Diploma in Accountancy (DAC)


Awards:
Tay Eng Soon Gold Medal


Accounting for Success

A typical night for Ong Wen Jie Dylan sees him waking from sleep and beginning his late-night analysis of the stock market. The Diploma in Accountancy graduand would meticulously observe the market’s movers and shakers and try to predict future trends and plan his tactics.

It was not all clear skies and rainbows for the Mayflower Secondary School alumnus in the beginning. He was not interested in his studies and would often play around. His ‘N’ Level results only qualified him to study at ITE, but it was here that he turned his life around. Dylan felt that people close to him were looking down upon him. The final straw was when his best friend said that he was a bad influence and cut off contact with him.

It was a wake-up call for him and Dylan put in the hours to study and discovered that he had a knack for working with numbers and making sure calculations were correctly computed and blemish-free. He did well enough to enrol at Singapore Polytechnic (SP) to study accountancy.

SP’s teaching environment was ideal for the Tay Eng Soon Gold Medal recipient as he took full advantage of the flipped classroom arrangement. Being able to visit the recorded lectures, he took the opportunity to understand the content at his own pace.

One of the highlights of Dylan’s time in SP was the opportunity to intern with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), where he experienced the ins and outs of the job of an auditor. He likens it to that of a detective who painstakingly conducts rigorous and thorough investigations but in this case, to examine a client’s records.

The internship was a meaningful experience that cemented his aspiration of becoming an auditor. It also made this impassioned night owl realise the harsh reality and fierce competition in the job market, which only worsened as the COVID-19 pandemic pushed companies to cut staff.

Nevertheless, Dylan remains optimistic and highlights the importance of furthering one’s education. He plans to accept the offer made by the Singapore Management University to study accountancy. After that, he aims to work at one of the big four accounting firms to start his career as an auditor.