The thought of studying abroad may have come across students’ minds – the excitement of learning a different culture, adapting to a new environment and stepping out of one’s comfort zone are a few but many of the benefits of studying abroad. However, how many students actually manage to put the thought into reality and live the dream?
Participants of the 2012 UTM-Harvard Global Outreach Programme (GOP) have proven that it is good to dream of studying abroad, but it would be even more meaningful if the dream were to be translated into actual study abroad experiences, with a bit of hard work and determination.
Mary Ritter Beard, an American historian and archivist summarised the participants’ responses aptly by saying, “Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.”
The 2012 UTM-Harvard GOP enters the third year of implementation with Adawiyah Berawi, Siti Nur Fadhilah Zulkaply, Jason Teo and Dr. Shamsul Anuar Sulaiman (also known as Dr Sam) selected to follow the programme from 26 June to 10 August 2012.
The four UTM talents were identified after a rigorous screening process conducted by the university. Participants were sent abroad for seven weeks of academic courses, travelling opportunities and experiences to develop themselves academically and socially in Harvard University, a renowned American higher education institution which is a global academic and research partner of UTM.
When contacted, each of the participants was eager to share different stories of their experiences with other UTM students who might still be contemplating on the decision to study abroad, with the hope of motivating them to make the first move in realising their decisions.
For Adawiyah Berawi, a final year TESL major from Faculty of Education, it was her first experience studying abroad. She was inspired to submit her application after Nur Hidayah Abd Shukor, a participant in the 2011 edition shared her experience in class. She was grateful for the opportunity albeit the short duration as it enabled her to have a brief glance of how it feels like to study in a foreign higher education institution.
Adawiyah related her experience in Harvard with her final year undergraduate project. She took “Adolescent Literature” and “Detective Fiction”, two subjects that were reading-based and required a lot of preparation prior to every lecture. Her experiences in the lectures have given her insights on her current project, which aims to investigate reading habits of students requiring language assistance in her own faculty. She was also mesmerised with the culture of reading in Harvard – people almost always have a book with them and will spend every available time reading, even during meal times or when they they are commuting on trains.
Adawiyah described her experience as a journey of self-discovery. It was during the programme that she noted a heightened awareness of understanding herself, her identity and the societal beliefs and norms that differentiate her with others. As the programme coincided with the fasting month, she found herself being frequently asked of the practice of fasting and the reasoning behind fasting. She also had to constantly explain her choice of wearing a headscarf to her fellow classmates and her selection of attire in the hot summer, queries which she would never come across in Malaysia. Adawiyah is also appreciative of living in Malaysia as she observed the widening gap between the rich and the poor in Cambridge, Massachusetts, seen through the large number of homeless people on the street.
For Siti Nur Fadhilah, it was the intense learning experience that wowed her. Fadhilah is currently a second year TESL student who took part in the programme in her first year of undergraduate studies. Being the youngest of the lot, she was touched with the encouragement and motivation given to her throughout the programme. She was surprised with her experience in “Expository Writing” lectures – although what she learned in the lectures were similar to that of “Effective Writing” subject taken prior to her departure, the approaches undertaken by the instructor and the resources used in the lectures differ greatly. The classes were small and each student had the opportunity to have weekly discussions with the instructor on a one-to-one basis. The students were also required to rely on a variety of resources for research instead of waiting for their instructor’s reading references. Weeks into the programme, she also became more participative in lectures as each student had to share their opinion with fellow students and the instructor.
During her stay in Harvard, Fadhilah managed to visit other universities within the vicinity such as the Berklee College of Music and Massachusettes Institute of Technology, besides participating in special visiting programmes organised for students of the Harvard Summer School programme. Both Adawiyah and Fadhilah visited a number of tourist attractions with fellow classmates, one of them being the Canobie Lake Park in New Hampshire. She advised first year undergraduates to take a leap of faith and apply for the programme in the coming intake, as the experience would greatly help in developing themselves in the remaining years of their studies in UTM. Although the application and preparation for the programme required a lot of effort and investment from individual participants, it will be well worth the effort in the end. She also advised future participants to make the most out of their Harvard experience by doing ground research prior to their trip, as they should try to do things that might not be available in Malaysia, such as the local food.
For Jason Teo, a third year mechanical aeronautics undergraduate from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, he was impressed with the intense amount of staff-student interaction in the university. The academic staff was very eager to engage students in discussions and places great emphasis on enabling participation of each student in lectures. Instead of a one-way communication, the academic staff used the Socratic method of teaching, launching into each lesson with questions such as “What do you know of…” and “What do you think of…” that encouraged students to not only have prior preparation before class, but also enabled students to relate their experiences with the topics on discussion. Jason signed up for “International Marketing” and “Crossborder Innovation”, additional subjects outside of his field of study. These subjects enhanced his knowledge on trade and global business and provided insights into innovation management and identification of “white spaces”, avenues with untapped potential that provides possibilities for innovation.
Dr. Shamsul Anuar Sulaiman or Dr Sam as he is fondly known, is an experienced practitioner on corporate responsibility who is in his final semester of Masters in Business Administration (Healthcare) at the International Business School in the UTM Kuala Lumpur campus. He currently sits as the Managing Director of Ihsan Perdana, a subsidiary of Yayasan IMDB championing corporate responsibility initiatives under the Prime Minister’s Office. Despite his vast working experience, the programme showed him that there would never be an end point in learning and one has to optimise the diversity in world cultures, identities and organisational functions in enhancing one’s knowledge. He noted the customer-centric orientation of services and connections made by the university in the initial stages of his preparation for the programme. After completing his enrolment in the selected lectures, he received personalised emails from the Registrar’s office and his professor respectively welcoming him into the university. Although they were simple gestures, he felt valued and believed that the university is very committed in creating a welcoming environment for the diverse student population, who came from different parts of the world to brush up on their management skills.
Dr Sam took up two lectures related to his field of work i.e. “Marketing Management” and “Applied Corporate Responsibility”. The former strengthens his grasp on the fundamentals of marketing management while the latter puts into perspective corporate responsibility as a strategy to improve products, profits and brand positioning of an organization. Corporate responsibility, if planned well, can be a powerful marketing tool for an organisation and create greater value in terms of the organization’s relevance and networking with the global community. He is grateful for the effort placed by Professor Allen, his professor in connecting the class with leaders in corporate responsibility, such as Dr. Samuel Miller, Kathrin Winkler (Vice President Sustainability EMC Corporation), Mark Weisflog (President KW Management) and Tim Mohin (Director of Corporate Responsibility AMD cum Author, Changing Business from the Inside Out).
Dr Sam also shared his views on UTM’s motivation behind organising the programme. According to him, the Harvard-GOP is part of knowledge management process of the university that aims to link individual and social dimensions of learning to knowledge creation as a whole. Universities should develop an ecosystem conducive in stimulating greater knowledge creation among its communities. For example, Harvard Square is the only location in the USA with the highest density of bookstore per square kilometre, and the Harvard library is the largest repository of scholarly resources in the world. On a macro level, he also observed that the Massachusetts city itself is an ideal location for knowledge creation and application – a point that should be taken by countries building their capacity in knowledge economy such as Malaysia.
In the upcoming 2013 intake, another group of students from diverse background will be sent abroad for similar experiences. Students interested in the programme may contact the Office of International Affairs for more information regarding the programme.