S’porean Turned Down 3 University Offers To Be A Bus Driver — 4 Years Later, He’s A Top Uni Grad

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Four years ago, Singaporean Matthew Tay made headlines for turning down university offers to become a bus captain and pursue his passion for buses.

Matthew had already accepted a place to study Business Administration at NUS in 2020 and also received offers from NTU and SMU.

It wasn't the most conventional decision, and Matthew remembers people questioning how far he could go without a degree.

Well, four years later, things have worked out pretty nicely for the now-27-year-old.

Matthew has graduated with a Bachelor of Business from RMIT University — and in a full-circle moment, his degree was sponsored by Tower Transit Singapore, the bus company he chose to work for.

Speaking to 8days.sg, Matthew says delaying university was never about giving up on education. He simply didn't want to go straight to university because it was the conventional next step.

Thankfully, his parents didn't try to talk him out of it.

"My parents had always been quite supportive of my decisions. They could see that I had thought carefully about what I wanted to do,” he tells us.

"Looking back now, that decision gave me experiences that I would never have gained in a classroom. And eventually, I still found my way back to university,” he added.

That opportunity came through Tower Transit's Future Leaders Programme, which included a company-sponsored bachelor's degree.

"When the offer was made to me, I didn't have to think twice," Matthew recalls.

For him, there was something particularly satisfying about how it all came together.

"I didn't have to choose between my career and going back to school. Instead, university became part of the career path I had already chosen,” he says.

Still, returning to student life after five years away took some getting used to.

"The hardest part was adjusting to being a student again and adapting to the university teaching style," Matthew says.

His years in the workforce, however, gave him an advantage.

By then, Matthew had experience as both a bus captain and in interchange operations, while the company's job scheme had also exposed him to different areas of the business.

Instead of learning management concepts purely from textbooks, he could relate them to situations he had encountered on the job.

During his final semester, Matthew even returned to work part-time as a bus captain while studying full-time.

Some days, he would head straight to class after finishing a work shift.

The hard work paid off: Matthew received an award for being one of the top students in his graduating cohort.

Graduation was especially meaningful as he also became the first person in his family to earn a university degree.

Matthew has since returned to Tower Transit as a management trainee, working in service performance and the planning side of bus operations.

While he no longer drives on a fixed schedule, he still gets behind the wheel occasionally.

"It allows me to stay connected with frontline operations," he explains.

And five years in the industry haven't diminished his childhood obsession with buses either. Whenever he travels overseas, bus spotting is still part of the itinerary.

Looking back, Matthew doesn't spend much time wondering what might have happened had he chosen NUS, NTU or SMU back then.

Interestingly, he ended up graduating around the same time as many of his male polytechnic classmates anyway.

While they completed NS and went straight to university, Matthew completed NS, worked for around two years, then returned to school.

Now, he hopes his experience can encourage others who feel pressured to follow the familiar school-to-university-to-office-job route.

"I would make the same decision again. I have no regrets," Matthew tells 8days.sg when we ask if he ever regretted turning down university back then.

"There isn't one correct pathway that everyone has to follow. If you have thought through your decision and understand the risks involved, don't be afraid to carve your own path," he says.

"Taking a different route doesn't necessarily mean closing doors. Sometimes, it just means reaching the same destination differently."

Photos: idrivebus/IG, idrivebus/TikTok