The latest graduate employment statistics released by four autonomous universities on Monday showed fresh graduates of information and digital technologies courses commanded the highest starting pay among their peers at $5,625 in 2022, up from $5,000 in 2021. The poll by NUS, NTU, SMU and SUSS also found that degree courses in information and digital technologies had the highest proportion of graduates in full-time, permanent work at 93.5 per cent, compared with the overall rate of 87.5 per cent. SMU alumna Shafeeka Rahama Zakafar Raffik clinched a full-time role as a technology analyst in Citibank at the end of an internship with the bank. She said the recent layoffs in the sector have reinforced the importance of being versatile and having diverse skills. “In that sense, SMU taught us how to have a broader generalised set of skills and still be able to specialise in certain areas at the same time,” said Shafeeka. “For example, if demand for software development is low, I could move into artificial intelligence or machine learning. I could job hop within the industry.”