08/05/2026
“I was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. Social interaction and communication — the very things I’m doing right now — once felt impossible to me,” shares Sheila Khoo, valedictorian from Republic Polytechnic School of Infocomm - RP SOI.
Because of her condition, Sheila dropped out three times during her education journey, retreating from a world where she felt she didn’t belong. It was only after seeing her peers move forward in life that she decided to take a step of her own, enrolling in RP’s Diploma in Information Technology (DIT).
Even as she grappled with coding and network architecture, Sheila pushed herself to stay disciplined and self-motivated — often as the oldest student in her class.
A resilient problem-solver, she never settles for “good enough”. In one module, she went beyond the assignment brief to code a web-based interface that gave engineers real-time visibility into network operations, leaving a strong impression on her lecturers.
During her internship at Synapxe, she designed and streamlined firewall compliance auditing and statistics reporting, making the process far more user-friendly.
“RP transformed me from a fearful and quiet person into an initiative-driven leader who brings people together to achieve a shared goal, like during the DSTA Defence Science and Technology Agency Brainhack Competition,” she reflects.
Her resilience and dedication have earned her multiple Module Prizes, along with the Beta Werkz Scholarship and the Tan Sri (Dr) Tan Chin Tuan Scholarship.
Graduating at 31, Sheila is not your typical polytechnic graduate. She recently received the Wee Cho Yaw Future Leaders Award, and will be pursuing Computer Science with a Minor in Business at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
Congratulations, Sheila. We know you’ll go on to make wherever you are. ✨