SINGAPORE: A fresh graduate has sparked an online discussion after wondering aloud whether “upskilling after work” has quietly become the new normal in Singapore.
Posting on Reddit’s r/askSingapore forum, the woman, who has just stepped into her first job in the tech sector, said she felt taken aback by how readily her colleagues devoted their evenings to acquiring new skills and tinkering with projects beyond their daily job scope.
“I noticed a trend of my colleagues spending all their time after work upskilling and learning things on the side.”
“I’m already feeling exhausted after a full day of work, so I’m curious how these folks are grinding it out without seeming to need rest,” she wrote.
“Is this the norm in Singapore, where it’s basically night mugging after working? Or is my workplace the rare exception…”
On the surface, it reads like a simple workplace observation, but her question cuts to a far deeper anxiety simmering across today’s workforce: In an increasingly unforgiving job market, is doing your job well genuinely enough?
Could the threat of AI replacing certain roles be encouraging more workers to keep learning after hours? Or is the bigger motivation simply to become more layoff-proof?
Whatever the underlying driver, it appears a growing number of Singaporeans are willingly walking down this path.
In the comments section, one Redditor said: “It’s possible that the fast pace of AI advancements in the tech sector has your colleagues feeling nervous that their jobs may be on the chopping board, and they are trying to upskill in a bid to make themselves more marketable.”
Another commented, “It is actually the norm in certain industries that you have to continue studying and take exams even after you graduate. One easy example is actuaries, but of course they also earn big.”
Others, however, said they’re not doing it for career advancement at all, but simply for the sheer joy of it.
They explained that what a person learns after hours does not necessarily have to be related to their job.
The real goal, they said, is simply to keep the mind engaged and develop a lifelong habit of learning.
A 44-year-old Singaporean chimed in: “I’ve started learning Mandarin this year, completely unrelated to my job, but I think the principle is to do something that exercises your brain.”
His sentiment is backed by a growing body of research. Numerous studies have found that adults who regularly engage in cognitively demanding activities, such as learning to use a new app or picking up a foreign language, can significantly lower their risk of mental decline and enable them to function independently for longer.
A third commenter said: “I did it too, and believe it or not, it actually invigorates me more than it drains me, haha. I always look forward to it.”
A fourth commenter drew an imaginative analogy, comparing after-hours upskilling to stepping into a brand-new genre of video game.
“I think of it as playing a new video game in a different genre. Say a longtime first-person shooter is trying his hand at Star Wars RTS-style games. That’s what upskilling feels like to me. Trying new things.”/TISG
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