SUSKOM'20

SUSKOM is an annual sports event organized by PERSAKA. Each computer science programme needs a representative for each game or sport. As I was not much of an athletic person, yet I still feel the need to contribute and represent Software Engineering students (SECJ), I decided to participate in the explorace. I thought of how I could learn a lot of things by participating in it. Since the explorace consist of a lot of mini games that we need to pass before advancing to the next checkpoint, I thought it was a great opportunity to sharpen some skills apart from finally being able to be active and sweat. Thus, I challenged myself to participate in the event as a SECJ representative with a group of 5.

• Communication Skills

Like any group activities, there will be a lot of communication. In this case, we had to discuss a lot on tricky questions or tasks in general before obtaining an absolute answer and idea. This really helped us to develop our communication skills as we had to make sure each of us understood what our role was in each activity.

• Thinking Skills

The explorace does not focus solely on our physical ability. It has mind games as well which requires us to think according to riddles and quizzes given. This has tremendously helped enhance our thinking skills as well since all the members had to brainstorm to get the perfect strategy and answer within a limited period of time.

• Leadership and Teamworking Skills

Each team has 5 members that are required to work together throughout the explorace. As each checkpoint has different games, every member had the chance to take the lead based on their own expertise and capability. This helped with our teamwork and leadership skills as working together was essential especially when there is a time limit for every game. Thus, an organized strategy is needed and distributing parts to each member did the job.

• Adaptability

We also managed to improve our adaptability while participating in the explorace. Some of the activities require our utmost consistency and focus, some challenged our trust for each other while some also require our stamina and energy. Therefore, to ensure we were able to pass every checkpoint, we had to be quick to adapt to the various change of activities.

The Explorace & Sukaneka SUSKOM’20 was held in the vicinity of the School of Computing building on the 7^th of March 2020. Each team consists of five members. It started off with assigning each team to different checkpoints and to be able to obtain a clue to the next venue, we were required to accomplish tasks. There were about 5 to 6 checkpoints with activities that challenge our fitness, knowledge and more. Solving problems and completing tasks within the assigned period of time would mean we will gain points. Teams that fail to complete the task will be able to skip by paying a penalty of one star. Each team was given some stars at the beginning of the race. By the end of the race, the number of stars left will be taken into account while counting the marks along with whoever arrives at the finish line first.

As someone who does not prefer physical activities, it was actually refreshing to be able to be active and sweat without actually feeling tired because of the fact that it did not solely focus on physical activities. The activities had helped me to further strengthen my skills in the graduate attributes. I was able to learn the importance of communication, thinking, teamwork, leadership, adaptability and more. There were indeed challenges while executing the tasks like how at some checkpoints, none of us had the capability to lead because of our lack of knowledge. However, it did not hinder us from getting second place in the race. We took it as an advantage to learn something new and worked together to understand the task carefully before trying our best to accomplish it. Because of our teamwork, we were able to complete every checkpoint without having to pay any penalty. In short, it was a great experience especially because I get to create memories with the members and gain a lot of valuable lessons which would benefit me in the future.