Assistant Professor Ng Weiyi (Dept of Strategy & Policy) has one of the most unusual academic backgrounds among the NUS Business School faculty. Weiyi has two Bachelor’s in Physics and History, Philosophy & Social Studies Science from the University of Chicago before his Master’s of Science and PhD in Business Administration from Haas School of Business.

Weiyi’s academic journey may raise some eyebrows, but his scientific background has been a massive help in his research area of studying entrepreneurship. In addition, as he shared with BIZBeat, being a faculty has been a rewarding career where he gained new experiences and insights from his students.

BIZBeat speaks with Weiyi about his journey and teaching at NUS.

Q: How did you go from being a physicist to a business professor?

This is an interesting question if you’d asked me when I was a fresh undergrad where I would be in 10 years, the answer “business professor” wouldn’t have crossed my mind.

In my first days as a computational physicist, I quickly realised that the progress of Science is highly dependent on the social structures around them: the people, policies, and politics. Given that I have always harboured an interest in research and the “life of the mind”, I thought understanding these social structures would be a good pursuit for my academic journey.

Q: Can you elaborate on your research focus?

I study careers of entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs: my main stream of research examines the drivers that make people leave their jobs to start companies. I do so by examining over 30 million public resumes. This involves looking at both the career passages of individuals and how they reflect on these passages to form their professional identities.

Q: It must have been a massive jump in career focus for you?

I love a saying: “all research is me-search.” People look at my career and go, wow, these are very different things. But I disagree as at its core it relies on very similar skill sets. I went from being a computational physicist to a computational sociologist. The skills are sort of the same. It’s the subject matter that has changed. There’s no way to manually read 30 million resumes, so the code and algorithms required to process such big data are rather similar.

Also, there’s that quality of curiosity and openness that physics has instilled in me, which is also immensely relevant.

Q: It looks like you enjoy the teaching side of being a faculty. Tell us more about your teaching philosophy.

I think one of the most enjoyable parts of being at NUS is the calibre of its students: I think of myself less of a “teacher” but rather a “facilitator” that enables discussion and through that, a learning experience. As such, I heavily adopt the case method: a class is best conducted if students are allowed a chance to speak, give their opinions and converse with their classmates and instructors. This makes for impactful, dynamic and memorable lessons.

And again, reflecting on my own experience and research, I like to tell my students everyone should be able to read, write, count and think. However, the “how” is often way more important than the “what.” And if you can master these soft skills, well, you can adapt to whatever subject matter at hand or whatever job at hand.

Q: So, what did you get from the discussions?

Because of how I teach, I find myself learning a lot from my students. We have brilliant students from very diverse backgrounds and interests. They have different ideas of what kind of companies they want to start, how they would like to contribute to the start-up ecosystem and so on. The stories and perspectives they bring have been amazing, enlightening and often quite surprising in a good way.

Another thing great about the teaching aspect of this job is that the relationship does not end there when the course ends. Some of them become your friends, and it’s been great to see how their careers progressed and continue to be involved in their endeavours. I became an advisor, for instance, to an NUS MBA alumnus Ivan Voloshyn, who is co-founder of an e-commerce SaaS start-up Omcom and it’s been a very fulfilling experience. And this is a full-cycle moment where it’s nice to know that I’m making an impact personally.