Jun 24, 2025
KFUPM Explorers Lead Eye-Opening Journey to Singapore
Curios about a small city-state known worldwide for its precision and progress, a group of KFUPM students sought out their own international learning experience there. Singapore, with its perfect balance of innovation and heritage, offered a fitting canvas for these KFUPM Explorers to test their travel skills, as well as their tenacity.
From the start, the group operated like a well-run mission. Each student took on a specific role, from managing money and transportation to documentation and decision-making. Splitting duties ensured their trip unfolded smoothly. While they toured top institutions like the National University of Singapore and the Nanyang Technological University or explored landmarks, including the National Museum, the Saudi Embassy, and the Cloud Forest, the deeper lessons came during the moments in between. They learned how to navigate a new transit system together as a team, decode social cues, and remain flexible in the face of the unknown.
What stood out to them most wasn’t the gleaming skyline or the botanical wonders but the coexistence of differences. In Singapore, multiple languages, faiths, and customs thrive in close quarters, offering the students a living model of what mutual respect looks like on a national scale. There, they recognized how diverse perspectives, when united, could bring out more creative outcomes. This, the students remarked, went right along with KFUPM’s values of openness, diversity, and collaboration.
The trip, like all the other ones in the KFUPM Explorers series, was envisioned, planned, and executed by the students themselves. This continues to attest to the university’s emphasis on self-reliance as one of our students’ 7 habits. KFUPM’s support and complete trust give students the confidence to move through the world on their own terms.
As they landed back home, these KFUPM Explorers brought with them sharpened leadership skills, stronger communication, and a deeper appreciation for different ways of thinking. Perhaps most importantly, they learned that traveling is more about growing than going.
