On 8 September 2019, the day where I truly started my degree life. On that day, I am still having this feeling of having a ‘holiday’. It is because I have been in a world of freedom as I finished my foundation on April, so that is around 5 months of holiday. It was really hard for me to stand up again and use my brain to something useful. At first, I was frustrated about my timetable for the course because my class mostly starts at 8 a.m. as I am not a morning person and I have been waking up late for 5 months. My first class was Discrete Structure class, I had no idea what the subject is about at first, but it was my most hated subject in Foundation before. My first impression was not good, and my mindset is telling me that it is going to be a bad degree life for me. I was not ready for this and not fully focus to continue my studies because I did not get my first choice in my UPU form. This is actually my sixth choice, and the other five that I put was to study in University Malaya because I was from Foundation in UM. Due to this reason, I have no friends and my mood was bad at the time. I keep telling myself that I will never have a friend but as soon as I get in the first class, I immediately have a friend, not just one but six friends. I used to be an introverted person, but I tried and talk more in class, and now I have more friends than I thought I would. When I was making friends, I can sense that communication is lesser, and people around do not talk that much anymore. Furthermore, I thought that my class will stay the same for every subject, but here in University Teknologi Malaysia, everything is different because of the number of international students in UTM. This is my first time having so many types of people from a different place all around the world in one class, it is so great to see such environment. The course that I am taking is Software Engineering. The reason I took this is because I like staying in front of a computer for a big amount of time. Other than that, the other reason is nowadays everything requires a program or a software which needs a programmer to do so. There are around 100 students for this course, and we have to separate to three different classes. And there are more than five international students for each class which I can say that it is a lot. I can see that my communication skills have improved due to the friendly international students.
For the first semester, every course is taking the same subject which have a total of seven subjects. The subjects are Discrete Structure, Digital Logic, Programming Technique 1, Graduate Success Attribute, Thinking of Science and Technology, Malaysian Dynamics and Technology and Information System. First, I am really grateful to have Dr. Roselina as my lecturer for Discrete Structure subject. This is because her teaching style is reminding me of school, she really cares for her students and I can sense the parenthood in her. However, as a student, nothing comes in handy and it is impossible to put 100% focus on listening to lecture. Up until now, I still cannot full focus on the lecture and always revise what I learn in my room. Discrete Structure is all about mathematics, this subject teaches me about sets. When I hear the word mathematics, all I can think of is numbers and operations. However, this subject totally changed my perspective on specific word. It is like learning English, it has predicate and subject and how to arrange them which is quite interesting. This subject is 3 credit hours and all the classes are at 8 a.m. and maybe this is the reason why it was a little hard for me to focus in the class. Since I am taking this course, this subject is really important because in programming, data plays a really big role in it. What I like the most about this course is less use of pen and paper, every assignment and work is using a laptop which is good for the future, less paper usage, less trees being cut down. Discrete Structure teaches me to look at mathematics in a different view, almost everything in life needs mathematics to solve certain problems. So far for now, this is the only subject that have tutorials given each week, and it is not individual work, we are told to do it in groups consist of three students. The tutorials were very difficult, no wonder why it was given as a group work and not individual.
Second, Digital Logic subject is handled by Dr. Firoz. For me, Dr. Firoz teaching is really simple, he gets in class, give lectures and class dismissed. I really like the way he give his lectures, even though I am not fully focus in class, but I can catch up to him quite fast. Besides, Digital Logic subject is about logic gates and true or false statement. It also uses two numbers which is 0 and 1. I thought I have gone crazy after looking at only number 0 and 1 for a long time. It sounds easy but it is actually quite hard. However, this subject is important because a machine cannot understand our English language, so 0 assign as false, 1 assign as true, a machine will be easier to understand. This subject is also 3 credit hours. Unlike Discrete Structure, Digital Logic have a laboratory experiment which uses breadboard, wires and electric components. This laboratory experiment is also need to do with partner, and my partner is my new friend. Before the experiment starts, we were told to read and prepare our knowledge, I thought my partner is the type of student who does not prepare anything, but I am glad I have him as my experiment partner, he gets serious when it comes to something important and our group is the first one to finish our experiment which is quite surprising. Playing with breadboard and wiring is fun. It even teaches us to be tidy and clean while doing our work, the lecturer wants to see not only our experiment works, but also tidy and cleanliness.
Third, the essential subject for this course is Programming Technique 1. This is because any software or program need a coding for them to work. Moreover, this is also one of the reasons why I choose this course, nowadays every technology needs a software for it to work which most of the work is for programmers. So, there will be many jobs for this in the future. For this subject, Dr. Adila is my lecturer and she is a great lecturer with a great background academics. She once told me that she was exposed to technology in a very young age as her mother is also majoring in this course. Because of that, she gives us a lecture with a very simple explanation but very effective for us to understand. As for this subject, we are learning in a computer lab with internet supplied to each computer. However, this computer lab is at fifth floor and there is only one elevator for everyone. Dr. Adila loves giving assessment, and the assessment she gave was not easy and for beginner like me, I need more than 2 hours for each assessment to finish. Programming seems easy but once your code has a very slight mistake, it is when the stressful moment comes. Personally, I like programming, my father always buys new technology when I was a kid, and I always go around the new technology and learn about it, this is where I started loving technology and slowly learning towards software. My hobby was always staying in front of a computer, no matter what I do on that computer. I just love the feeling of it, so there is no problem for me with this subject that needs to sit in front of a computer in a large amount of time. I am grateful that I have learned a bit about programming in my Foundation studies, for these beginning chapters, it was quite easy for me to catch up even though I did not focus in class. There is one time where an international student from Indonesia ask me to help him with his code, and he had no idea of what to do because that is the first time for him to learn programming, so I help him out with a lot of things and it is not only improving his technique, but also improving mine as well. I remember my high school teacher said that if we teach people, we earn more than those who learn.
Fourth, Thinking of Science and Technology subject. This subject is a replacement for the subject Islamic and Asian Civilisation Studies (TITAS). The content is almost similar, both teaches us about the changes in human way of thinking. As for easier understanding, it is like learning history. When I am in high school, history subject is my most hated subject and I never get a good grade for this subject. However, this has become my favourite subject for now. I started loving history since I play this one game called ‘Assassin’s Creed Origins’. This game is not just a game, the developer actually calls out a people who master in history and ask them to help out with the game. The game provides a an almost real maps of Egypt in the ancient times, it was fascinating, and I started digging more about the history of it on the internet. The lecturer for this subject is Dr. Wan. I like being in his class because the way he gives his lecturer makes me feel like I am in the time in the past. He is like giving a storytelling and plays a video for us and it is very peaceful. From what I learn about this subject is it is better when you make a research about a certain history by yourself.
These four subjects that I mentioned has a final exam, that is why there are not many assignments given to us from these four subjects. However, they have a test and all of them are difficult. For Discrete Structure, all the questions that appeared in the test is the one that I have never done before even the pattern of the question is unrecognizable. Moreover, Programming Technique 1 test is the hardest. I never a test can take up to three hours in duration. It is like a nightmare that I cannot wake up from.
Most importantly, Graduate Success Attributes subject is a subject that trains you to be better at achieving life goals. It is lectured by Dr. Hadi, he is a very hard-working man and a very neat person. Based on his slides for lecture, he listed out everything that needs to be done in the lecture and making sure that everything goes well. For this class, communication is everything, you speak louder, you win. There are around 35 students in this class includes international students. Dr. Hadi loves giving us a mini group projects that requires different types of people in the group. I love it when he gave us this chance of talking and interacting with other students. If I am not mistaken, there are already four groups that I have been into and all of them are different person every time. At first, I was a bit shy to talk, but I managed to talk little by little and now they have become my friends. It is crazy to think that I have an international student as a friend because I never had a friend like them before and it is a great experience. The purpose of this subject is to make student realize how important it is to have a common skill such as communication skills, thinking skills and reading skills to become a successful student. Student always thought that having a good grade is enough for them to have the title of a successful student, it is actually not. What if a student with a great attitude, hard-working but still does not get a good grade? They cannot be titled as not successful student. We can see that many parents only look at their children’s grade to compare with other children, this is why there are young kids who already committed suicide because they got scared when they did not get a good grade like their parent’s demand. Grades are not everything! Dr. Hadi opens up our eyes and makes us see the world from his perspective. In our last class, he gave us three minutes of public speaking and the purpose of it is to make us better in giving a speech in front of many people.
Additionally, Malaysian Dynamics subject is lectured by Dr. Hassan. This subject is almost similar to Thinking of Science and Technology, the difference is this subject only focus on Malaysia alone. We learn about how Malaysia is discovered the first time, and what Malaysia is happening now and predictions of what Malaysia would be in the future. I like Dr. Hassan as well because he teaches us by giving a storytelling which is my favourite type of learning style. I have a big respect for Dr. Hassan because of his updated knowledge, he is like Google as a person, he knows almost everything about what happens in the past and in the present. Until now, he only gave us one assignment to do which is a presentation. He also gave us one big project to do involving a society outside UTM. I still remember the first class, he told us to read more news and right after that I do read more news now and I am really proud of it.
Lastly, Technology and Information Systems subject is about learning the component of a technology such as motherboard and processor. Not only that, we also learn how to use applications such as Microsoft Powerpoint, Adobe Premiere Pro and Photoshop. This subject is handled by Dr. Haswadi. He is a really chill and calm lecturer. This subject have so many assignment especially writing a report because we visits many IT events. Recently we have an assignment about Design Thinking, it is a method of creating a product. We were told to make videos as report, it is one of the best moments in the first half-semester. I usually handle the camera part, but this time I get to act in a video for the very first time in my life. It was nice to be in front of a camera, but a little hard to act. From this assignment alone, I can see that teamwork is crucial, and if one person does not involve it will make everything fall apart.
For these three subjects, it does not have a final examination, which is why it seems to have many assignments given to us because that is how they are going to give us marks. As I mentioned, most of the assignments are done in a group, it really trains me to be part of something and feel responsible for it. I was once become a leader in a group and it was a great experience for me to handle big group even though it was a little stressful. I like being a leader because I can feel the responsibility to make things done quickly, and not just put away the work.
To put in a conclusion, the first semester already taught me a lot of things even though it was only four months. The main thing about getting to new places is attitude. I have been to many places alone since I was in kindergarten. I always move to new school, new house and always making new friends. The moment I get in UTM is the time I realize that God gave me this path for a greater reason. I was sad when I did not get my first choice to UM and I am confused because I did not know the reason why I did not get UM. However, I am only in six weeks in UTM and I can slowly see why I was sent here. I am more than grateful to be here. However, there challenges for me in UTM. First, my home is very near to UTM, I am the type who need to be very far from home to be able to disciple myself. Somehow, I managed to hold my grudge for not going home too frequently.
For the upcoming semesters, I hope I can be a better person and fully focus in class. Besides, I am also aiming to be more active in faculty activities and college activities. My friend always told me that if I want to be more active, I need to get out of my comfort zone.