Samuel Ashwin Augustine (Cohort of 2014), Chairman of Drama 2014, is studying Life Sciences in NUS.

Integrity

Integrity, in theory, is a pretty simple concept to grasp. It’s being honest in the most difficult situations, even if it is not the ‘easy way out’. For this reason, it’s the value that spoke to me the most from my days in ACS (Barker Road). I have always felt that without integrity, it’s impossible to be respectful, to be committed and as a result, achieve excellence.

Currently in University, an experience that reminds me fondly of integrity happened not too long ago when I was doing an experiment. It was a fairly complicated experiment, with many steps and intricacies which meant it demanded my utmost attention. After finishing the experiment, I realized that my results did not corroborate with the theoretical data. Astonished, I retraced my steps carefully, hoping that I would be able to find out where and when I had made the mistake in my procedure. However, I was unable to do so. Many of my friends had achieved the same ill-fitting results as me and resorted to changing their results such that it would fit the theoretical data. This led me into a massive dilemma. On one hand, I could fake my results such that it matched the theoretical data, or I could stick with the results I got and potentially plunge my grades. It certainly did not help that most of my friends were changing their results too. However, I stuck with mine. Many of my classmates were shocked to hear that I did – and frankly I was shocked too– because this experiment held a significant portion of our grade. Regardless, I knew I had to be true to the results I got, maintaining my scientific integrity. When the results were released, my score was one of the highest! I was extremely surprised and asked my Professor how I achieved those grades. He explained that he had engineered the experiment such that we would get results that did not fit the theory. He was trying to teach us that we have to be honest in our Lab reports and not fake results as that could cause serious consequences in our future scientific endeavours.

Truly, displaying integrity can be a difficult task at times, especially when everything in the world points to a different direction. Hence, I urge all who read this to continue being truthful, even when the easy way out seems to be an attractive option to take.

“Better to be poor and honest than to be dishonest and rich.”

Proverbs 28:6