OWADIOOO… Now what? 🤔
After plucking out your 4 wisdom teeth for a painful “2 weeks holiday”, buying your favourite camp canteen food one last time, and of course, flexing your “0 days to ORD” on your ORD counter app to your understudy, you’ve finally reached it!
You collect your plague for completing your 2 years of NS, say your goodbyes, leave your camp and never look back. Then you think to yourself, now what?
2 years is a long time, and 2 years being in the army or whichever service you’ve served in would certainly change the way we think and perceive life.
Some of us might not even remember what life was like before we entered NS.
With how regimental life in NS can be compared to our usual lives, some of us may be confused about how we should use our deserved, newfound freedom.
Perhaps you’ve read our old Civilian Conversion Course Guide, but we hope today’s updated Civilian Conversion Course guide can help you decide on how you’ll spend your time in this newfound freedom. 🥳
Rest and Recuperate – Embrace Your Freedom
You’ve done your part, and after 2 gruelling years, now it’s time for you to rest.
No more reveille timing, no more lights out timing! Can you imagine that going out to eat breakfast or lunch at your nearby coffee shop doesn’t require you to walk and swing your arms in sync with a bunch of other people?
With this newfound freedom after ORD, go ahead and do what lets you rest and relax.
Wanna hibernate for a whole week? Your comfy bed awaits. 🛏️
You have a backlog of games on Steam to complete from previous sales but never had the time to play them? Launch your game now! 🎮
You’d like to go overseas with your friends and/or family? Book a plane ticket now! ✈️
One of the things many NSmen who have recently ORDed is to get out of this country and relax.
Remember the days in the past 2 years when you’d look up in the sky and see an airliner plane then think to yourself, “Wish that was me”?
Well, now it’s your turn! Call your friends or ask your family, then plan a trip somewhere.
Some of the popular destinations that many NSmen go to for their ORD trip with their friends include Taiwan, Bali, Thailand, and Vietnam.
But all in all, your wallet is the limit, if you’d like to go somewhere further away, go ahead! Now is the time when you’re free from worrying about work and school.
Now’s probably the best time for you to travel before you move on to your next stage in life. So whether it’s crossing the causeway to JB for some good and affordable food or escaping the horrendous Singaporean weather by going to Europe, go ahead and enjoy your free time now.
Prepare For Your Future – Fill Up Your Resume
After finishing your NS, you’ve probably learnt many things that you can add to your resume.
Skills such as leadership, working under pressure, and even some unique skills that the few fortunate people learn throughout NS may be looked at by future employers.
Even though we do learn things in NS that can help us with work, unfortunately, not all employers pay much attention to our 2 years of sacrifice, dismissing it as something that “every Singaporean man goes through anyways.”
This can be especially true for servicemen who intend to work in administrative roles and office jobs but served in combat units or units that require mostly physical action.
Especially for those intending to go study in university, once you’ve graduated, the presence of an additional internship or work experience after ORD in your resume would surely nudge potential employers. 📈
Not only does this show that you are hardworking to your future employers, but job experience in a relevant field will also give you a preview into the field you aim to work in.
This will help you determine if this field really is for you and gauge how much preparation you’ll need to reach the top of the field.
Clear That NS Brainrot!
NS brain rot is a phenomenon anecdotally approved by many NSFs, where the heavy reliance on orders and having many restrictions make many of us no longer used to “using our brains”.
Combined with the lack of academic activity, many NSFs fall victim to this phenomenon after ORD-ing, and fixing this will be crucial for those who intend to enter university.
Of course, the ideal way to prevent this would be to use our free time in NS to continue studying or learning new things on our own.
However, with how physically and mentally taxing NS can be, that might not be easy for everyone who serves NS.
So if it’s already too late, what can we do? Well, to clear this NS brain rot, we’ll have to restart the gears in our brains. 🧠
Learning a new skill, a new language, or even reading up course materials that you’ll go through in uni will all help with re-activating your brain.
Whether you’d like to learn programming, a third language for a country you’d like to work in someday, or read lecture notes from friends already in uni, it’s good to clear the brain rot early before we enter university and have to activate 200% of our brain.
The Grind Never Stops 💪
Yes, throughout NS you’ll probably have gone through many dozens of PT sessions, so go ahead and take it slow if you’d like.
However, being fit is always a good thing and it’s probably one of the few good habits we should keep even after NS.
It’s always good to keep in shape and stay healthy as we need to be in good health to continue being able to do the things we enjoy, don’t we?
Of course, now that you don’t have a conducting officer to follow, feel free to plan out your own exercise regime, customising it to your abilities and preferences as you see fit.
Out of all the SAF core values, “Safety” is definitely one of the few that truly matters, so be sure to stay safe while exercising even though there’s no safety officer! 🚨
Remember, even though we’re free now, for PES-fit people, we still have our annual IPPT to complete, but this time, the money for getting the awards is even more!
Your yearly $500 💸 awaits you! So go for a run, do some callisthenics, or even hit the gym and be rewarded with not only your IPPT money but more importantly, also good health!
Game Developer, Comic Artist, or Business Owner? Follow your passion!
Now that you have free time, what are some time-consuming things that you’d like to do? If there ever is a right time for them, then this time after ORD is surely the right time!
Do you aspire to be a game developer in the future? Perhaps now would be the time for you to start your project in Unity or whichever game engine of your choice. 🎮
Is software development a passion of yours? Then you could try building a simple productivity app that you can later put up for public use or just your personal use.
Or perhaps you have a business idea that you wish to bring to fruition. Now may be the time.
All in all, your time is yours and while you should enjoy your freedom, it’s best not to waste it.
Once you’ve checked your travel bucket list and cleared your backlog of computer games, it may be good to ramp up your productivity in preparation for what is to come.
After all, now that NS is over for us, we are not only Operationally Ready for reservist, but now is when we need to be ready to take charge of our own lives, be it going to university or joining the workforce.
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