Name: BOON ZHEN HERN
Matrix Number: SIB150004
Finally it's my turn to write reflection about this Social Engagement course offered by University of Malaya (actually not, everyone is compulsory to take this course). I am Boon Zhen Hern, SIB150004, first year Materials Science student, known as faci Boon or Big Boss in this course.Matrix Number: SIB150004
This is me, ugly me which is being squeezed, polished, crushed by the pressure and stress in order to shine brightly in this world. Stay tuned.
After the first meeting, I was told by the coordinator of this course from Physics department, Dr. Selvi that we were going to carry out this course in big group so the department is separated into two groups, which is one Physics group and one Materials Science group and I was in the Materials Science group with my coursemates and some of the Physics friends join us too to balance the number of members in the two groups. I feel that it is good compared to groups with 5 or 6 members each because we are all carry out the same project and work together and this will enhance our relationship and the bonding between us coursemates will be stronger and this will be useful in the future where all of us graduated and we will still be contacting each other even though the status of coursemate is gone but with that we become friends, good friends. If the grouping is as the latter case, only some of the coursemates will have greater bonding than others and there will be "gang" among the coursemates and the relationship between coursemates will not be so close and so good.
After few meetings with our coordinator and meetings among our group members, we have a few plans in our mind. Firstly is the Malaysian Blind Association, second is another school in KL area and third is MRSM Pendang which is the plan that we carry out at last since the for the first two plan the authorities are still pending so we just carry on with the third plan. From that I was given the position of Head of Programme Bureau and some members in the bureau. And since then I start the planning of programme of the 2-days camp in MRSM Pendang. I have so many porblems during the preparations but luckily all the members are so helpful and my problems were solved easily. During the preparation of tentative for the camp, I was not on the track because at that time I have dance practice everyday after class and I was sick. And this had made the submission of proposal to MRSM late. I felt terribly sorry and I quickly completed it and sent to our secretary to compile the proposal. From this I found that I am not resourceful that I didn't request help from the member of program bureau. One of the workshop day I was overslept due to sickness and I am late. Other member actually waited me for the tentative and all the program things for almost 4 hours, but they also did helped me by arranging the faci for each group and the station game flow. Thank you for that.
After few meetings with our coordinator and meetings among our group members, we have a few plans in our mind. Firstly is the Malaysian Blind Association, second is another school in KL area and third is MRSM Pendang which is the plan that we carry out at last since the for the first two plan the authorities are still pending so we just carry on with the third plan. From that I was given the position of Head of Programme Bureau and some members in the bureau. And since then I start the planning of programme of the 2-days camp in MRSM Pendang. I have so many porblems during the preparations but luckily all the members are so helpful and my problems were solved easily. During the preparation of tentative for the camp, I was not on the track because at that time I have dance practice everyday after class and I was sick. And this had made the submission of proposal to MRSM late. I felt terribly sorry and I quickly completed it and sent to our secretary to compile the proposal. From this I found that I am not resourceful that I didn't request help from the member of program bureau. One of the workshop day I was overslept due to sickness and I am late. Other member actually waited me for the tentative and all the program things for almost 4 hours, but they also did helped me by arranging the faci for each group and the station game flow. Thank you for that.
Few days before the camp were workshops for us to get to know the flow of the camp, all the details of activities and the dances. The attendance were not so good but we carried on anyhow since all members have their own other activities to do. Luckily some of the members are so good and so supportive. On the day where we should depart to MRSM, we gather at the bus stop in UM and loaded our things onto the bus and depart. We reached there a lot earlier that what I expected. We reached the homestay and that night we gathered and have a last briefing for the members to refresh about the activities for the next day. Initially, what they say was some of us can go to MRSM on that night for the "surveying" of the place for activities, but due to some reason (I also don't know what is the reason) we didn't managed to go there.
On the first day of the camp, we reached MRSM early in the morning and I started to look for all the positions of the stations and games while the rest of the members were preparing for the registration of the students (campers). After the registration is the opening ceremony and Ice-Breaking session. During Ice-Breaking session, I was paired up with Sue (Faci Dinda) and we were in group 3. She did a great job handling the group and every camper in the group started to join in sportingly, except one who was more shy than others. His name is Boon, which is surprisingly same as mine, and that is the reason why I change my name to Big Boss for my group. I found that he was totally me when I was in Form 2, I can see that his personality is exactly same as mine. In Form 2, I was very shy and I didn't like these kinds of activity at all, that's why I didn't join any uniform bodies when I am in secondary school. He was shy, quiet and didn't give much respond to the question we asked to the group, but his voice is loud so we gave him the position as commander for the group cheers. After that was LDK(Activitiy in group) session 1, in which we do 2 questions of transferring water that relates to math ability and critical thinking. Surprisingly, all of the campers in my group are so active and they wanted to solve the questions, and then 2 of the campers were surprisingly clever and they even completed the questions in one shot which the questions had me 30 minutes to solve them and then we played some UM Traditional Games (logic game), the same guys which solved the questions got the logic after a short while, in which I only get to understand the logic after 2 hours of thinking the question repeatedly. From that i know that even a Form 2 student have clearer mind than me. It doesn't mean that you are a university student you will sure smarter or cleverer. The world is big and there are unlimited possibility out there, so I should never stop learning and gaining new knowledge to prevent get rid by the fast pace of the change of the society in this modernized era. After lunch was station game, there are 9 stations and the members in charge, I was the general manager of the station game. During the game, some of the station master release the students too early and the time of each station became not synchronized and the flow of the game became so blurred. There was one group that went to the wrong station but the station master still let them carry out the task, in which leaded to the last group on the same station with no chance to carry out the task. I feel that it's my fault since I planned the flow and I didn't made a backup plan for such case.
That night was talent night, each of the group are given a topic to perform and 40 minutes to prepare for the performance. At that time, I can see the teamwork showed in most of the groups in preparation. There are one group that make me notice them, they were playing around with the props they did for the performance and not preparing at all during that time, but when performing, they WOW-ed me, the performance was so flawless that didn't seemed like unprepared. I, again are so amazed that such potential in a group of Form 2 students. Wow, simply wow.
The second day of the camp started with senamrobik session in the morning, but I was not able to join them because I found that the props for The Grand Chase game is not enough so I prepared all of them. This made the program delayed a little but it was still on time to be finished and I forgot to have my breakfast that day! The Grand Chase game had 2 parts, one was real part, doing real job and get less money, and another one was fake part, doing fake job and get easy money but the money won't be calculated in the final result. From there I can see some of the students were doing fake jobs because they wanted the money but some of them are just curious about the job like robbery and smuggling. After some time, they know what it was and they stopped doing that. One of the groups actually reject my offer for them to scold one of the faci for RM100, because they said that it was not good to scold people. One time I throw a lot of money from the second floor for the students to pick up, they indeed picked them up, but they gave back to me and said "Faci you drop something," because of that i gave them real money while the money i throw is fake money. I found that Form 2 students are still quite "naive" and their mind are still not polluted by the reality of this world yet. The Grand Chase was meant to teach them about that but I don't think they get much message from the game, they just enjoyed the process of the game. At that age, I would also be like that, I just want to have fun and don't want to have any pressure in my life. But when I am more adult and adult, I found that there are many aspects that I can't overlook. I can't be just like a child and just want to have fun already. I have reached the age for me to actually grow up and have responsibility toward other peoples, family, friends and the society.
The second day of the camp started with senamrobik session in the morning, but I was not able to join them because I found that the props for The Grand Chase game is not enough so I prepared all of them. This made the program delayed a little but it was still on time to be finished and I forgot to have my breakfast that day! The Grand Chase game had 2 parts, one was real part, doing real job and get less money, and another one was fake part, doing fake job and get easy money but the money won't be calculated in the final result. From there I can see some of the students were doing fake jobs because they wanted the money but some of them are just curious about the job like robbery and smuggling. After some time, they know what it was and they stopped doing that. One of the groups actually reject my offer for them to scold one of the faci for RM100, because they said that it was not good to scold people. One time I throw a lot of money from the second floor for the students to pick up, they indeed picked them up, but they gave back to me and said "Faci you drop something," because of that i gave them real money while the money i throw is fake money. I found that Form 2 students are still quite "naive" and their mind are still not polluted by the reality of this world yet. The Grand Chase was meant to teach them about that but I don't think they get much message from the game, they just enjoyed the process of the game. At that age, I would also be like that, I just want to have fun and don't want to have any pressure in my life. But when I am more adult and adult, I found that there are many aspects that I can't overlook. I can't be just like a child and just want to have fun already. I have reached the age for me to actually grow up and have responsibility toward other peoples, family, friends and the society.
Ok,done with the camp part, now it's real part. Actually, I am not the kind that like to do volunteer work like cleaning up orphanage, community service at old folks home, yes most of us teenagers do not like volunteering work, but what I like is this kind of social work in which I get to plan and carry out my plans in the form of education or motivation thingy. Before the camp I was not so close with all the coursemates and I don't know how to approach them to become closer, but after the social engagement project which have us travel 7 hours and spend 3 days together to give education, motivation or inspire the aspire as what our project theme is. The project is meant to inspire and educate the MRSM Form 2 student of what we could teach them. I know we are only just first year university student and we are only 20 or 21 years old, there are still a hell long route to go through and to experience, but we are doing this as what we have and what we could give to them, the society, which is the meaning of social engagement. We are not as rich as millionaire, but we are giving what we could give, even though it is not in terms of money, we are not as knowledgeable as PhD's and Masters, but we are telling them about what we know, even though that may not be so useful, we are not as experienced as the adult out there, but this is what we know and we went through and we are giving them guidance to it, even though that is not enough for them. For example, Physics. They actually learnt the main branch of science, which is Physics and Biology as chemistry is not emphasized in education until Form 4, but when we tell them about Physics, they look at us like "what are they talking about?" Maybe some of them know about physics, but most of the Form 2 students, including me when I was that age, wouldn't know about the difference between physics, chemistry and biology. What we do in this camp is that we actually exposed to them about the difference between branches of science and this will, maybe, have them to think of their future. Whether they choose Physics as their future subject to further study, that is not the thing that we can control since everyone have their own interests, or else the world will not be as diverse as now. I also feel that the objective of social engagement is not archieved by 100% but at least we do our part, that is educating those Form 2 students about higher educations in Malaysia. And this is what they need, and what they will need it in their future. I learnt many things in this social engagement, including first time being a facilitator and Head of program bureau and I realize that it is not easy to handle an event even though it is small event, as there will be external factor that will affect the smoothness of flow.
The most important is that we survived and we will be surviving the rest of our live and shine bright like a diamond with all the pressure and stress in this hectic university life. Without those pressure and stress, we are just not more than a black, ugly carbon that this realistic world wouldn't appreciate.
“The important thing is to not stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day."
― Albert Einstein
The most important is that we survived and we will be surviving the rest of our live and shine bright like a diamond with all the pressure and stress in this hectic university life. Without those pressure and stress, we are just not more than a black, ugly carbon that this realistic world wouldn't appreciate.
― Albert Einstein