CAMPUS WATCH: The Lancaster experience
jehan@nst.com.my2011/05/08
A new summer cultural exchange programme between Sunway University in Malaysia and Lancaster University in the United Kingdom offers participating students international exposure and insights into a completely different way of life, writes NURJEHAN MOHAMED
And this is exactly what a group of Sunway University students learnt when they recently visited Lancaster University (LU) in the United Kingdom as part of a new summer cultural exchange programme.
Six students — including two Chancellors Scholars (see accompanying story) — were exposed to English hospitality and Lancaster student life and acted as the pioneer batch of this endeavour.
Sunway will host the same number of students from Lancaster in September this year in a reciprocal arrangement.
LU pro vice chancellor Steve Bradley sees the programme as part of an initiative to boost the internationalisation of the university.
“We want to internationalise the British student experience at Lancaster by making them go to parts of the world they might not contemplate going to.
“And we want to foster some kind of continuous engagement in terms of getting societies to talk to one another and organise projects collaboratively,” he says.
The six Sunway student leaders — Kishenjeet Nelson Dhillon, Sonia Lim Suanli, Nicholas Goh Teik Lee, Candy Lee Ker Ching, Vanessa Ong Shu Yu and Aruna Puspalingam — made the trip to hash out details of the itinerary and objectives with their LU counterparts.
During their two-week stint, the Accounting and Finance and Psychology students engaged in a whirl of activities including meetings with Bradley and representatives from the LU Students’ Union (LUSU) and Students in Free Enterprise Lancaster; a live interview on LU’s student-run Bailrigg FM; sightseeing trips to neighbouring Lake District and Manchester; as well as volunteering activities with LUSU Involve, the volunteering arm of LUSU.
“We noticed how big the students are on volunteering and community work,” says Kishenjeet, an Accounting and Finance student.
The activities they did with LUSU Involve included working with young schoolchildren, helping out during UK’s Science and Engineering Week and pitching in with Green Lancaster.
Kishenjeet and fellow Accounting and Finance students Lim, Goh and Lee, as well as Psychology students Ong and Aruna came away from the trip with plenty of ideas that they want to put in place back home.
“But we need a holistic approach and students need to create a positive impact on society through outside activities,” says Kishenjeet.
Lim concurs: “By highlighting the importance of voluntary work, you also raise students’ awareness of the issues involved.” One of the reasons for LU’s strong sense of community and involvement could be because of its collegiate system.
New students are placed in one of the nine residential colleges, which have their own committees that LUSU oversees.
LUSU Involve Opportunities director Ben Matthews says the advantage of this system is that even in a large institution, newcomers have a place to call their own and a smaller “family” to ease them into university life.
Integration among students of different colleges is also encouraged through inter-college games and events.
“The volunteering spirit here is something that we’ve developed over time.
“We are very clear that our volunteering is about developing not only the community but also our students,” says Matthews.
Students not only gain something that looks good on paper but also highly-valued soft skills in the process of doing community work.
Motivating Sunway students to feel the same way may involve more than what the six student leaders can handle but Lim believes that there are other elements they could adopt.
“We could get different groups to work together on projects to foster interaction among students,” she says.
Having done mission work with her father in the interiors of Sarawak and northern Thailand, she found the LU practice of “safeguarding” — a term which means taking safety measures when dealing with children — interesting as well.
“These steps should be taken more seriously in Malaysia because children are fragile and we need to handle them with care,” says Lim.
Goh was interested in the synchronised database of students where simply keying in a student’s identification number would reveal whatever information the university has of him, including his extra-curricular involvement.
“As Sunway is a growing university, installing this system now would help associations run more efficiently in the future,” he says.
Aruna admits that she, like many of her peers, is more focused on her studies.
“Going to Lancaster was an eye-opening experience because almost everyone we met is involved in some sort of volunteer or community work.
“It is the environment that encourages them to do so as they have fewer contact hours than us and the numerous causes make it easy to take part,” she says.
Ong thinks that it is a challenge to get Sunway students to be active in club activities because of the heavy workload and the geography.
“But Lancaster also faces similar problems of maintaining that level of motivation among all its members,” she says.
Among the solutions to this might be to create a system of incentives — as simple as having something to put on a student’s curriculum vitae or making community work part of a course’s credit requirement.
Since returning to Malaysia, the group has been preparing to host the Lancaster students in September.
Lee hopes that the programme will open the eyes of participants and that they will take back the good practices of both sides.
Passion for life JUGGLING studies with extra-curricular activities may be a struggle for some but Candy Lee Ker Ching and Vanessa Ong Shu Yu make it seem easy.
The two Sunway University students are the latest recipients of the Chancellors Scholarship.
The scholarship, which covers full tuition fees and includes a trip to Lancaster University in the United Kingdom, is offered in the names of Tan Sri Dr Jeffrey Cheah, foundation chancellor of Sunway University, and Lancaster University chancellor Sir Chris Bonington.
It commemorates the affiliation between Sunway and Lancaster in joint degree programmes, currently in the areas of Business, Computer Technology, Hospitality and Psychology.
Recipients are high achievers who attain distinction in their academic as well as extra-curricular lives.
Lee, an Accounting and Finance student, was the Games and Sports Coordinator in the A-Level Student Council, one of Sunway’s most active student bodies, where one of her major projects was to be the A-Level representative for Sunway University College Inter-Programme Sports Carnival in 2007. A-Level emerged as first runner-up in the competition, which was a record for it. In addition, Lee also took time off from studies to take part in volunteering activities organised by Sunway such as Tarian Muhibah for the 50th National Women’s Day held in Dataran Merdeka. Being a Chancellors Scholar, Lee, 22, has to maintain an A average every semester, be active in extra-curricular activities and volunteer her time to the university for events.
Among others, she is currently the Attached Advisor to the recently established Students in Free Enterprise Sunway University.
“I am grateful and honoured to be a Chancellors Scholar. “Apart from having the privilege to pursue a prestigious degree from Sunway, affiliated with Lancaster University Management School, I am also provided with vast opportunities throughout my course of studies,” she says.
She enjoys the perks that come with the stint, including a fully-sponsored visit to Lancaster recently and attending a networking session with the Lancaster chancellor when he came to Malaysia last year. Her secret to success is to use the beginning of the semester to participate in extra-curricular activities and concentrate on her studies towards its end. She admits that such a balance requires self-motivation, determination and perseverance, and that it is challenging with many late nights, sacrificing a lot of her personal and social time.
The obligation of achieving excellent results also acts as a motivation that drives her to do well both academically and in her extra-curricular activities.
Ong, a Psychology student, had an “unintentional" gap year between A levels and university but had used the free time well.
Her weeks were packed with spending time with mental patients at Shal Home, Jalan Gasing, leading seventh to ninth graders at Alice Smith School in Christian Fellowship and teaching Methodist College students. She took Grade Eight piano exams and spent a lot of time practising and playing music at home, and playing at conferences and her church, something the interviewers noted.
The multi-talented musician — she achieved violin grade five, taught drums at Yamaha and plays the guitar as well — also performed for fun at various places as part of a band.
Ong, like Lee, maintains an A average and is active in extra-curricular activities.
These now revolve mostly around her faith — she teaches children during Sunday school, meets up to read the Bible with friends and takes part in Christian fellowship, among other church-related programmes.
She is also involved in youth camp work and attends workshops and conferences for her own learning.
For the 21-year-old, keeping in mind the goal of getting the Chancellors Scholarship is a great motivation.
She procrastinates “like everybody else” and studies when she needs to.
How much time she spends on her studies and assignments depends on what she has going on at church or in her life.
But when a subject interests her, she pays attention and reads up all she can about it.
“When I panic nearing exams, I tell myself it is not the end of the world if I don’t get the grade.
A rewarding experience for Sunway University’s trailblazers (clockwise from left) Sonia Lim Suanli, Kishenjeet Nelson Dhillon, Nicholas Goh Teik Lee, Aruna Puspalingam, Candy Lee Ker Ching and Vanessa Ong Shu Yu. Cover picture of Ong and Lee during the Science and Engineering Week courtesy of Lancaster University
THERE is no better way to learn another culture than to be immersed in it.
Some 30 students from Sunway will be heading for Lancaster next month to join a similar number of students from LU’s other partner universities — Comsats in Lahore, Pakistan and GD Goenka World Institute in Delhi, India — for the meet where they will learn about community, business and government and gain cultural understanding.
Currently, students from over 100 countries make up 32 per cent of the 12,000-strong student body on campus while 33 per cent of the faculty come from countries outside of the UK.
Community work is a large component of the new initiative and this is what he thinks differentiates it from other programmes that focus on just cultural exchange and academic development.
“The Malaysian education system is focused on the academic development of students.
No comments:
Post a Comment