NG ZHI YUN (MIC180025)
GIG 1005 SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT
REFLECTIVE ESSAY
NG ZHI YUN MIC180025 DATE: 30 MARCH 2020
Social Engagement is one of the university courses which is compulsory for all University Malaya students to take during their years of study. First thing that came to my mind about Social Engagement was that we are going to visit orphanages or the old folks’ home. However, things didn’t turn out that way. We were not going to those places I expected but a secondary school nearby.
When I was still in the first semester of my second year, our coordinator for this course, Dr Puah, called my course mates and I up for a short briefing about it. Basically, the first meeting went off with Dr Puah guiding us about the contents, outcomes and objective of the course. I was on cloud nine when we were told that we will be sharing the knowledges we learnt in the university to the secondary school students. I thought it might be an awesome activity for us as the saying goes sharing is caring. Different from the previous years’ seniors, this time we were collaborating with our first-year juniors to carry out the activities. So, we were asked to assigned ourselves into 4 groups, 2 groups for the first-year, meanwhile another 2 groups for the second-year. I was in Group 2 of the second-year.
As we all know things won’t turn out to be perfect if we start our works at the eleventh hour, therefore we started to prepare for this activity earlier which was during the semester one’s break. Every group had to come up with a presentation slides with respective topics given and questionnaires for the secondary school students about their opinions towards our activity with them. Our group got the topic – DNA fingerprinting. The slides must include main points for the topics and lastly have to add in some quizzes in order to prevent the students to feel mundane during the activity. Nevertheless, we had to think about the gifts for the teachers in the school and of course the students too. Thus, it was great that we got something to finish up and would not just be a couch potato in the home during our semester break.
When we got back to the university after our semester break, we joined the workshop (ways to extract our own DNA) which was conducted by Dr Puah and a few delegated postgraduates. They explained to us step by step while we were extracting our own DNA. It was a cool experience and all of us were over the moon as we got the chance to try hands-on activities during the workshop. After that, we had a short meeting among our group members to talk about the flow of the activity at the secondary school. Each of us were assigned with jobs like emcees, photographers, videographers, and facilitators for the day.
The day had finally arrived. On 28th of February 2020, after having our lunch at the faculty, we departed to Sekolah Menengah Kebangasaan (Perempuan) Sri Aman by grab car. We reached the school at about 12:30 noon. When the clock stroked one, the students came inside the hall and had a sit in front of the stage. Once all students arrived, the emcees kicked start by introducing Biomedical Science. Next, they moved on to talked about DNA to the fellow students. During that period, I witnessed the students were quite concentrate to the talk and they jotted down some vital points about DNA. After the explanation ended, there came the photography session. All of us in the hall include year 2 students, the coordinators, the teachers and students of the school joined in for pictures. We knew a picture may bring back
thousand memories and we believed that a journey to this school will be an unforgettable memory that will be etched in our hearts.
For the practical session, every one of us moved to the biology laboratory. As a facilitator of the day, my partner Xinmin and I went to our respective group. The students were excited while they were goggling to extract the DNA from their cheek cells. They were stunned and shocked when they saw their own DNA for the first time in their lives. Meanwhile, some of them were curious about some questions and we tried our very best to provide them with understandable explanations. Next, they also got the chance to extract DNA from the fruits. Our group got bananas. They smashed it and on the same time, Xinmin and I grabbed the opportunity to chitchat with them to get to know more about them. Chatting with them caused me to reminisce about the good old times I had in my secondary school, the moment which I was stress-free.
After cleaning up, we had our quiz session with them. They gave full commitment and kept on raising their hands to answer the questions. Those who answered correctly were rewarded with the gifts we prepared. From today’s activity, I could see that they were quite enjoyed. Feedback forms were given to them to fill before they went back home. From our coordinator, we received good feedbacks from them. This definitely made us warmed and happy. After our activity ends, our second-year students had our group photos together at that school. Then, we went back to UM with heavy hearts.
From this programme, I was glad and grateful that I could share the knowledges I learnt from my lecturers to the secondary school students. I hope that after our visit, the students will realise the fun parts of sciences. In a nutshell, I would like to thank Dr Puah, our Social Engagement course coordinator for giving us a chance to involve in this meaningful and enjoyable project. I think that Social Engagement course is beneficial to the society and thus should be encouraged among all the university students in Malaysia.
(972 words)
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