SINGAPORE – The turning point in Mr Aman Singh Rahman’s life came in 2015, when he was caught by the police at a music festival with enough marijuana to smoke a joint, just months before enlisting in national service.
Only 18 years old at the time, he realised he wanted to change.
This year, the 25-year-old graduated from Republic Polytechnic, and he was among a record 782 students who received the Sinda Excellence Awards on Saturday.
But the road to graduation was long and hard for Mr Aman, who had dropped out of the Institute of Technical Education a year before his skirmish with the law, after skipping classes and exams to play computer games.
Hanging out with friends he met online also introduced him to the addiction that led to his arrest.
Resolving to stay clean while awaiting his sentence, Mr Aman volunteered for as many duties as possible after enlisting in the Singapore Civil Defence Force.
“I knew I had to do something because at any moment I could go to prison, so I tried to prove my worth,” he said.
His superiors noticed his behaviour and wrote letters of recommendation to the court, which led to his sentence being dropped to probation for two years and compulsory community service.
“I jumped for joy because I thought my life was over. It felt like God just told me that was my last chance and that made me really want to wake up,” said Mr Aman, describing himself as an uncontrollable child with a history of getting into fights and even…