Open Doors

Tell us a bit about yourself!
Hi, I’m Iqbal, an undergrad in SMU currently pursuing a degree in psychology and decolonised thinking as part of our new college, the College of Integrative Studies.

That’s not a very common major! How did you decide to pursue this?
It is the intersection of my figuring out how to make use of my natural born talent of speaking to people, alongside the natural problems in the world I want to solve, so the combination of psychology and decolonised thinking was the perfect choice in my pursuit of helping out the Malay community at large.

How do you see yourself achieving this goal?
I would like to have my own practice as a clinical psychologist and have people come to me to talk about their problems, so that I can help them in whatever way that I can.

Outside of school and this professional pursuit of yours, what do you enjoy doing?
I read and I write a whole lot. I’m just a big book nerd. I’m currently reading Farid ud-Din Attar’s The Canticle of the Birds, or The Conference of the Birds, which is a long poem about the journey of the human soul in finding God, and realising that God is everywhere.

In wanting to be a clinical psychologist, do you find yourself analysing your own thoughts a lot?
Not really. Though I do acknowledge that there’s this occupational hazard of navel-gazing, where you look at yourself too inwardly.

So one way I ground myself is by talking to my friends about my problems, and talking about their problems with me. That way, I prevent myself from entering this spiral of self-examination to no end, because self-examination with no consequent action is just rumination. You’re eating yourself from the inside.

If you could change one thing about Singapore, what would it be?
I think we can be more honest with each other and tell each other that we love one another. I think we are kind people, but we don’t know how to express it outwardly, so I think the smallest change I would like to see is having people smile at each other more.

It’s something that I personally do a lot, and hence this interview, baby (laughs)!