Driven to Excel: From UoL Graduate to UCL Master’s Student

For many university students, balancing academics with a single internship is enough to consume a full calendar. For one scholar, excellence required a far higher standard: maintaining a First Class Honours track, completing three high-impact corporate internships, and training daily as a national athlete preparing for the 2029 SEA Games.

Now heading to University College London (UCL) to pursue an MSc in Health Data Science with the support of the UoL-SIM Regional Centre Master's Scholarship, this track athlete and data strategist shares how a foundation at SIM-UoL paved the way for global success.

The SIM-UoL Advantage: Turning Raw Numbers into Enterprise Solutions

Jing Heng’s journey began with a simple realisation during junior college: programming is most powerful when used to solve real-world problems. The choice to pursue the Bachelor of Science in Data Science & Business Analytics with UoL at SIM, under the academic direction of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), was deliberate.

"I wanted to understand the fundamentals of how decisions are made without being trapped writing code all day," he explains. "The curriculum taught me how to look at raw numbers and extract value."

That classroom foundation quickly met the test of real-world corporate environments. Over the short span of two years, Jing Heng secured and completed three internships across global firms: TikTok, KPMG, and Allianz SE.

At KPMG’s Data Office, as a Data Engineer Intern, Jing Heng wrestled with messy, unstructured datasets that looked nothing like textbook examples. Later, as an AI Data Project Manager Intern at TikTok within Trust and Safety workflows, the stakes rose even higher: managing machine learning systems designed to filter out harmful content.

"You cannot manage machine learning systems if you do not understand the raw data infrastructure beneath them," he notes. "My degree taught me how to be analytical, but I forced myself into these high-pressure roles to learn how to turn abstract numbers into real enterprise solutions."

His outstanding performance during these attachments earned him the SIM Work-Integrated Learning for Life (WILL) Award, supported by the SIM Impact Fund, recognising his exemplary ability to bridge classroom theory with industry practice.

The Athlete’s Mindset: Uncompromising Consistency and Sacrifice

Balancing high-level national athletic training alongside upper-level data analytics coursework required discarding traditional ideas of work-life balance.

SCHOLAR'S DAILY WORKFLOW

• Weekdays: [ Morning Run ] ➔ [ Corporate Internship ] ➔ [ Evening Run ] ➔ [ Late Night Assignments ]
• Weekends: [ Intensive Studying ] ➔ [ Athletic Training ] ➔ ( Sacrificing Late Social Evenings )

As a 1500m runner, weekdays meant Jing Heng had training before and after internship hours, leaving only a brief window at night for academic coursework. Weekends were dedicated almost entirely to studying and training.

"People assume balance means doing a bit of everything every day. The reality is much different," Jing Heng reflects. "You sacrifice the normal social life, but to be exceptional, by definition, you have to do what most people are not willing to do."

This competitive background cultivated habits that directly translated into software project management and analytics:

• Discipline Over Motivation: Recognising that discipline is simply doing the work - especially when you do not feel like it.
• Volume of Effort: Training daily, sometimes twice a day, to build relentless consistency.
• Tactical Execution: Applying the same focus needed on the final lap of a race to debugging complex technical code.

Elevating the Profile: From SIM-UoL to offers from LSE & UCL

The combination of academic excellence - achieving First Class Honours and acing machine learning modules—alongside a national sports career and tier-one corporate experience caught the attention of top global universities, yielding offers from both LSE and UCL.

Receiving the UoL-SIM Regional Centre Master's Scholarship proved to be a pivotal milestone. Beyond providing vital financial backing, the scholarship relieves a significant burden, allowing full focus on upcoming postgraduate studies and athletic targets.

"Academically, SIM has provided a highly conducive environment for learning and excelling," Jing Heng shares. "This support gives me the freedom to dedicate myself fully to my health data science aspirations and my preparation to medal at the 2029 SEA Games."

Next Horizon: Healthcare Impact and the Tracks of London

At UCL, the goal shifts toward a sector where data science directly impacts human lives. Choosing the MSc in Health Data Science stems from a desire to apply analytics toward better medical treatments and improved patient outcomes.

"Instead of just crunching numbers, I want to work in the healthcare industry to help create better treatments," says Jing Heng. "It feels good knowing the work you do could eventually make a real difference in people's lives."

Alongside academic pursuits, London offers new athletic grounds. Jing Heng looks forward to joining UCL’s athletics and cross-country club, running through landmark spots like Parliament Hill and Regent's Park.

Words of Wisdom for Aspiring Scholars



For current SIM-UoL students striving to secure competitive internships, maintain academic top-tier performance, or step onto the world stage, Jing Heng offers straightforward advice:

1.    Embrace Discomfort: "Comfort is the enemy of progress. You must constantly seek out challenges and deliberately place yourself in uncomfortable situations to grow."
2.    Step Into Unknown Rooms: Put yourself in environments where you are the least experienced person, embrace the learning curve, and show up consistently.
3.    Reframe Failure: Treat setbacks not as blockades, but as feedback to adjust your strategy.
4.    Just Start: You do not need a perfect plan from day one—the gap between where you are and where you want to be will always look intimidating at the beginning.

"The people who ultimately succeed," Jing Heng concludes, "are simply the ones who never gave up."