MUHAMMAD ISKANDAR ZULQARNAIN BIN MOHD ISHAK

Along the journey being a student of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) Johor Bahru for 1 semester, it was a great experience I gained from the society and people around. When first registered here, I began to find new friends either in college or in class. Plus, I even got friends from different courses! - it was exciting.

Once the class began after our orientation week namely Minggu Mesra Mahasiswa (MMM), I managed to arrange my schedule on academic and outdoor classroom activity that I joined to enhance my ability and soft skills.

For academic, as I am a Network and Security students I learned a lot on computer things such as Digital Logic, Discrete Structure, Programming Technique I and Technology and Information System. This courses guided me on various knowledge about technology era. Plus, there were also elective courses like Graduate Success Attribute (GSA), Science and Technology Thinking (STT) and also Malaysian Dynamics (MD). Emphasizing on GSA this course taught us about professionalism and etiquette in academic as well as skills that were needed to be developed as a student. Difference with MD and STT, these course were more focusing on the history of humans and civilization that lead to the goods nowadays. STT wanted to achieve its objectives which is "Humanising people through technology thinking" and produce mankind full of ethics.

In a nutshell, there were so many input that I received during my time in UTM widely in all aspect of life. Not only academically but also about developing our personality. It is hoped that I will learn more things in the future by any means to achieve success and become a reliable scholar soon. 

My life as a university student went well until one day, a whole world was introduced by a new disease of novel Coronavirus that spread radically around the globe. This pandemic was officially declared by the World Health Organization (WHO) and issued certain procedures to be followed all over the time to inhibit the spread of virus. We began this semester on February 2020. However, by 18th March 2020 the government of Malaysia declared a Movement Control Order (MCO) as an early stage of preventive measures to ensure the disease is under control. 

Starting from this day, all of the students resuming their learning via online classes. This uncertain times somehow affect the student emotionally as we never experienced such things before. By time, I developed myself into a comfort zone by adapting lifestyle to survive university life through online learning. Thank God, my final exam results are better compared to the previous semester even had to learn in new normal.

New semester, new year, new resolution. Though everything seems okay few months after the pandemic started, my life as a student is still in new normal. Online classes, virtual meetings and online examinations were conducted throughout this new semester. This time around I personally felt super comfortable with the new style of learning as it was actually easing the method of mobility. No need to wake up in the early morning for showers, no need to iron clothes for classes and many more. For academic affairs, overall it went well for every subjects I took this semester as every team members show a good binding among us. Thus, we managed to complete our task efficiently via online discussions.

However, there was an incident that occurred at the end of the semester during the final exam. There were some students who cheated during the examination. Our lecturers found that there were questions related to the final examination posted on some websites where allowed people to answer the question. Due to this escapade, everyone's marks are jeopardized. But with the help of all experienced lecturers they managed to caught the students and only affect their marks. Thank God. 

Overall, I love this semester as I can finally adapt to the environment of learning.

This new semester is kind of the same with previous one. Online learning and virtual meetings were conducted in an ordinary way.  Yet of course, we need to adhere to the regulations of our government to curb this disease. In this semester, I learned more subjects that I found it very interesting. From the project development process covered in Software Engineering, until the developed working system build in Web Programming, along with coding skills in Object-Oriented Programming, these really gave me a deep impact. I develop so many competency in all aspects. The most unbelievable moment is when I managed to come out with a fully functional website written in JavaScript, HTML and PHP as the database management. Not to forget my major courses such as Computer Network and Computer Security, they exposed me with in depth apprehension in networking and security. Overall, I enjoyed this semester so much!

In just a wink of an eye, I already in my third year of study and I will be graduating soon! Though it may seems fun, the semester get even more challenging with new subjects introduced to meet our competency level. I studied on Artificial Intelligence (AI), application development, cryptography and internetwork technology. The fundamentals of core subjects that I learned previously are very helpful in some courses. Talking about application development, this course requires me to do self-exploration on selected build environment. It is hard yet me and my team managed to create a working apps namely CrowdFinder. Besides, elective subjects like Japanese language, English for communication and cocurricular also embedded in this semester.