wise otter hq 🦦

if you want to learn, AI is a fabulous tool if you don't want to learn, AI is a fabulous tool

whoever does the work does the learning

👆almost 400 responses ~80% chose blue but if you chose red, you’ll survive no matter what we’ll all choose red if we were rational people 😅

Everyone in the world has to take a private vote by pressing a red or blue button. If more than 50% of people press the blue button, everyone survives. If less than 50% of people press the blue button, only people who pressed the red button survive. Which button would you press?

i was asking myself how i’d treat school in this AI age because honestly… are we all cooked? ai can write essays, explain concepts, solve math, summarise notes so what exactly are we supposed to learn now? i think the answer is this: education matters more than ever not education as in memorising facts education as in learning how to think, because your edge is no longer just memorising answers your edge is: asking the right questions spotting weak logic telling when an answer is shallow, wrong, or just nonsense dressed up nicely everyone will have ai but some people will let ai run their life, while others will make ai work for them who will you be? reading, writing and solving hard problems still matter because they're reps for your brain using ai to do all your thinking now is like driving a car for exercise you may get somewhere but your mind gets weak reasoning is cheap now, but clear thinking is not

hey, it's been awhile. how's everyone? life has been cray this year, i'm sure school has been too i started working a corporate job this year. building my own apps couldn't pay the bills haha, but it was an awesome chapter i'm working in a new field and it's been fun so far. it's funny because almost all my previous jobs were not related to what i learnt in school and uni.. ha learning how to learn is still the core skill to hone. and at least the crazy singapore curriculum teaches that to some extent it's even more important than ever... AI is moving so fast now, i bet jobs 5 years from now will look very different i hope school's been chill so far. i'll continue posting more regularly on study hacks, mindset and motivation so stay tuned :)

it's been a minute, almost 20% of 2026 has past, but I just wanna say... HAPPY HOLIDAYS!! 🎊

expectations are tricky sometimes they come from other people. parents, teachers, society but sometimes the expectations ARE yours. you set the bar high. you wanted it. gave everything. and you still fell short i used to think if i set low expectations i won't be disappointed i realised that was just fear talking we're trained in sg that "failing" is bad recently i re-defined failure as not trying really hard. and if i don't fall short sometimes, i'm not aiming high enough i can live with falling short. it's much harder to live with "what if i actually tried" if you're disappointed in your results, that means you actually gave a damn you tried, you've grown

i honestly don't remember receiving my o level results i don't even remember the grade for each subject what i remember is feeling my whole life depended on what i got know that you're allowed to feel whatever you feel today celebrate and go crazy if you did well. you seriously earned it. years of hard work paid off if you didn't do well, it's okay to feel like shit. you don't need to fake being okay you're the same person before and after opening that envelope the grades don't change who you are. they don't change your curiosity or how hard you're willing to fight your path will look different from your friends'. that's not a problem, that's just life today is intense. let yourself feel it. then keep going 💪

happy new year everyone! i love the start of the year new goals, and new chances to become who you want to be everything feels possible again here's to a great 2026 🎉✨

real talk since 2025 is ending many of you know about the wise otter — the app I built to help students learn better. it grew from a reddit post to thousands of sign-ups honest truth? i failed you learn about opportunity cost in school. mine was more than $100k in lost salary because I wasn’t working a corporate job i was working 7 days a week to build features like flashcards, essay feedback, study plans… most of the features didn’t stick maybe they added to your already insane workload, or maybe they just weren't helpful enough. that’s all on me. i made so many mistakes on hindsight singapore’s version of success is money, status and face. and i had none of this in 2025 so why take the risk? why build when there’s no certainty of it actually helping students? why give up a fixed salary to do this? because the metric I was optimising for was not money, prestige or power. it is to minimise regret in life i was more afraid of not trying than i was afraid of failing. i didn't want to look back in 10 years and wonder "what if" i always wanted to build something useful, something that makes people’s life just a little better did I do this? probably not, but at least I gave it my absolute all why am I telling you this? many of you also gave exams your absolute all. if you did, maybe you can hold your head high regardless of your grades or if you did not give it your all and you regret now, at least you know to seize the next opportunity you get many of you are also at life’s crossroads. what subject combi to take? should I go to JC or poly? which uni course to choose? you’re probably feeling the pressure to pick the "safe" path. the path that gives you the best future prospects. the path your parents want. or the path your friends are all chasing it’s natural to think like this. and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with any of this but the alternative to all of this is — what do you ACTUALLY FIND FUN? have you even explored different fields? what feels like play to you but feels like work to others? here’s a scary thought: what if the 'safe' path is actually the most dangerous one? not because you’ll starve, but because you might wake up in 10 years realising you lived someone else’s life my point here is not throw away logic and just do what you love. that’s a bad take. instead, it’s to question what the default path in singapore is and ask yourself whether you’re better off deviating from it at least then, you choose life with eyes wide open. so you live with no regrets deviating is scary and it takes courage, but it’s often where you’ll find your purpose and grow. at least that’s been my experience here’s to a meaningful 2026 🥂

it's finally over all 2025 exams are done 🥳 seriously, huge congrats to all of you, especially if you did your O/N/A levels take a second to breathe think back on those late nights, the times you cried, the times you thought you'd crash and burn when you were 100% sure you wouldn't make it but you survived and now you can celebrate! go crazy, have the most fun ever but in a few weeks, things might feel a bit weird when the post-exam high wears off you might feel a bit lost like you no longer have a purpose because for the past year you only had one goal and now it's gone so you might just drift aimlessly. wake up late, do nothing. it feels good for a few weeks but it'll eventually feel empty don't let that scare you, instead use this time to find who you are school forces us to be the same. we're forced to study the same things, write the same answers. it kills our curiosity and makes us forget who we uniquely are so now's the time to find yourself again figure out what you actually like. go explore, dive deep into something get really good at a game, start cooking, painting, reading fiction, or obsesss over making the perfect matcha the whole point is to pick a goal that you choose, and "waste" time on things that actually make you happy this is one of the rare times in life that you get to be you, so go find out who that is

congrats if you'r having school holidays, or if ypu finished your A / O / N levels!!! if you've

if you're still having exams, you're in the home stretch your post exam celebration is waiting on the other side now lock in and finish strong

find aircon to mug because it's hard to focus when it's absolutely scorching 🥵

don't forget to schedule guilt free rest time if you feel exhausted rest is a huge part of exams too. you absolutely need it to perform your best

if you had a bad paper, grief or get angry for an hour then the best thing to do for yourself is to take control and move on you can still change your future but you no longer influence the past

it's so tempting to discuss answers after the exam but you can't change your answer, and the conversation will only result in one of two outcomes, both bad: 1) you realise you made a mistaken, and that destroys your confidence in the next paper 2) you think you did well, creating a false sense of security that makes you complacent instead of doing this give yourself one hour after leaving the hall to feel however you want about the paper (angry, happy, relieved) after the hour is up, the paper is dead. it no longer exists. your entire focus shifts to the next subject

the exam period is a time for stability your brain and body crave routine during periods of high stress so keep a consistent wake-up time, meal time, and have consistent study blocks don't start chugging coffee or energy drinks if you're not used to them stick to what your body knows

if you're in the midst of exams you're no longer in the learning phase. you're in the performance and consolidation phase the goal now is not to cram new information, but to secure what you already know and be in peak condition to perform under exam stress re-reading notes still remains the least effective way to revise, because you can't bring your notes with you to exams. you need to force active retrieval which exactly what you do during the exam take a blank sheet of paper, or just close your eyes, and start going through each chapter and dumping all that you know only look at your notes AFTER you brain dump to fill in your gaps don't do study marathons now. you need to actually peak during the exam itself and there's no use in burning your brain out a dress rehearsal works - where you do a paper end-to-end to simulate the exam experience the goal of this is to walk into the exam knowing exactly how you'll tackle the paper sacrificing sleep for an extra two hours of panicked revision will actively make you perform worse, so never do this in fact, you probably need more rest in between papers as you're giving your all for each one. so don't feel guilty if you're more tired than usual hang in there, because this is the last stretch before the holidays