Reflective Report
Minggu Mesra Mahasiswa is an orientation program organised by Universiti Teknologi Malaysia every year to celebrate the admission of new students and give them a slight exposure of the campus life in UTM. And every year, Kelab Fotokreatif (KFK) is appointed as the media crew for the event as they are the official photographer for UTM. As a member of the club, I was given an opportunity participate in a crew when the high committee of the event announced that they will be recruiting for session 2019/2020 program. The interview calls for crew selection was announced in May 2019 as the event will be held after the semester break starting June till August 2019. Therefore, the selection must be done early as in August there will be a preparation camp for all crews including those from Majlis Perwakilan Pelajar (MPP) and college committee (JKM). However, the selection for media crews from KFK were limited to only the club members as it required experienced photography skills. When I heard that KFK was recruiting, I decided to give it a try. I submitted the form for the interview and got a call from the high committee a week later. Even though the selection was limited to only the club members, there were a few terms set for us to pass in order to join the program. So, during the interview, I was asked to list the programs I joined for as long I had joined the club since 2018. I was one of the active members as I never missed any of the program organised by the club since then. I was very confident I would be selected. Other than that, the interview was just the basics on why I wanted to join the program and so on so forth.
A few weeks later, I was informed that I was recruited for the program and needed to be present for the first meeting. It was held a day after they announced the crews selected for the program. During that meeting, there were a total of 25 crews recruited and most of them were my friends from the club for sure. Everyone was briefed with the details of the program along with our job scopes. As we were just a small committee for the event, there were not many roles needed for the media crew which includes the photographer and videographer for every college, along with editors. We were also required to sign an agreement form for our commitment towards the program. By then, the meeting ended as there were not many things to be discussed because the program was still months away and everyone was busy with their finals at that time. Fast forward to the end of August, after our long semester break, we were required to return to the campus a little bit early than the others for the preparation camp held my UTM that includes all other crews from MPP and JKM. The camp was held for three days at Savannah Hill Camp, Ulu Tiram, Johor which was one hour away from the campus. By the time we reached there, I was shocked as there were so many crews from other committee and suddenly it made me nervous and anxious at the same time. For as long I joined all the program organised by my club, I just mingled around my friends and seniors from the club. But this time, I needed to get along well everyone which was approximately almost 200 crews as we would be working together for the whole program during the event day. At that time, it crossed my mind that this is the time I have to come out of my comfort zone and finally work with a bigger organisation other than my club. I took it as a challenge for myself and I believe everyone was not as intimidating as they seemed to. Plus, the organiser did a great job during the ice-breaking session with some games and group activities so that everyone can be comfortable around each other.
The first day of the camp was filled with a lot talks and briefings by management team from UTM for every units and their job scopes. By the evening, everyone was released to their own units to discuss with each other. As I got back to my unit, our high committees were assigning roles to everyone and I was assigned as the photographer for Kolej Tun Dr. Ismail (KTDI). To be honest, I was very thrilled to get the event started since I had been home throughout the semester break and I needed a release. Plus, during my first year, when I was freshman, I used to be amazed by the photographers from KFK during my orientation week as their job looked so cool and fun. As the meeting ended, everyone was dismissed to get ready for the night talk. The next day, everyone gathered and we were told that we would be doing a community service at nearby school, SK Sungai Tiram. The school was very close to the camp so we just walked by ourselves to the school. The activity did not take long, as everyone was divided to different groups to do different services. By the afternoon, a closing ceremony was held and everyone walked back to the camp and settle in. At night, an activity called Night Walk was held. This activity was my least favourite part of the camp as we needed to walk alone in woods, one by one so that everyone did not cheat. However, the activity was actually fun as I helped a get over my fear of dark and being alone. Although it was terrifying walking alone at night by only holding onto a rope, I managed to reach the end with ease. On the last day, the closing ceremony for the camp was held and everyone was released to go back to UTM and get ready for the event. A day before the event, our high committees held a few classes like photography, videography along with editing just for everyone to recall their knowledge on them. By the end of the day, we had a last meeting to receive all the necessities for the event and do equipment checking.
Figure 1: Crew Tag
The day of the event finally came and everyone was required to get ready early so that we would not miss any moments during the new students’ registration. A lot of them were very early and watching them while taking pictures making me feel a little bit nostalgic because I was reminded of day I registered in UTM in 2018. Some of them looked very excited but they were also some of them looked afraid and demotivated. But all I can I say is that all the parents looked very proud of their kids and seemed kind of sad to let them go. It was very fun walking by and taking their pictures but also tiring as it was a hot day by the afternoon. At night, all the new students were gathered at Dewan Sultan Ismail for their first talk session with the Deputy vice-chancellor of UTM. The first day ended by 10 and all of the students went back to their college for further documents checking. That night before every crew was dismissed, a post-mortem was held to discuss any problem happened during the day and every photographers and videographers transferred their pictures to their assigned editor for further editing. The routine went on for as long the event going on for a week from 3rd of September 2019 until 6th of September 2019.
Figure 2: Last day of MMM 2019
In a nutshell, it was a whole hectic week starting from the preparation camp till the last day of the event. I was restless through the whole week as every day we would wake up very early to prepare for the event and by the night we would wrap up late after the post-mortem and had to do equipment checking to avoid any equipment problem the next day. However, there were a lot of good things that I got to learn throughout my participation during the program. One of them is surely time management. I got to improve my time management skills by keeping aside unnecessary things and focus only for the event as everyone was responsible to allocate their full commitment and time. Plus, I learned that I have to respect other people’s time as the event was very packed, if any of us was late, it would affect the whole team. Other than that, I also get to improve my photography skills and learn a lot from my other friends and also teach them as some of us were still lacking in it. Cooperation among crew members is very important and we should help each other so that nobody is left behind and feel outcasted. With that, any problem occurs during the event can be solved together without so much mess happen in between. Lastly, if there is one thing that I can improve if I were to join this program again is on how I deal with hectic environment and reboot my mood whenever I feel tired in the middle of the event. But when I thought about that, I honestly feel that I should be more considerate to everyone else too as I was not the only one who was tired. So, being understanding and considerate in important when we work as a team so that everyone can be comfortable with each other and the work became more fun and memorable.
**Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTYOYA2WdRo&feature=youtu.be