My name is Goh Yong Qing, currently a mechanical engineering undergraduate in University of Malaya, holding a matric number of KIG180039. I was one of the members in organising the STEM DIHATIKU programme, but it in fact was not the original plan from us. We, 10 in a group from the mechanical department, were formed to complete the project in our social engagement subject. The group consists of members from different races and gender. Our ultimate mission was to carry out social activities for the course taken, not only to promote social engagement in our daily life for university students, but indirectly to influence the community outside the varsity.
Planning stage
At first, our thoughts were to either have some sort of seminars in secondary school to aid in boosting their knowledge especially in the field of science or to visit a certain orphanage home and hold a sports day for the orphans. But it didn’t turn out to be that due to the sudden and silent enemy- covid-19 virus that had wrecked the havoc of this country in the middle of March. The announcement of MCO by the prime minister after the outbreak of the pandemic in Malaysia had affected our original plan. Students were stunned, neither the lecturer nor us knew when will all the schools and classes resume to normal. Once it had been confirmed that all the mass gathering and physical outdoor activities were strictly prohibited throughout the MCO period, we had no choice but to wait for further announcement from the faculty. We ended up with a proposed idea in handling an online carnival called KARNIVAL STEM DIHATIKU. There were few competitions in the carnival and thanks to Mr. Nurhafizan, our group had voted successfully for one of them, namely Pertandingan Rekacipta Dan Inovasi STEM & Teknologi Hijau. We were all fresh, new and ignorant about this concept, a brand new competition which is fully online. However, we happened to go through every situation and after several times of meetings and discussions, we were able to distribute the job evenly.
Execution stage
The promotional posters and captions were able to attract some secondary schools to register their interest in sending participants for the competition. Among the schools participating in our competition were SASER, MRSM Parit, MRSM Tun Dr Ismail and etc. At this stage, I would like to stress on more of my role in this project. All I did for this social engagement project was little, but it played an important part like others in completing this project. I was assigned to make sure all the participants uploaded their product or outcome to the google drive which would be further gathered and compiled for judges to evaluate. Starting from creating a google drive, I actually did a tutorial video guide on how to upload files and documents to google drive, just to ensure every participant was able to upload their product without any issues. Besides, I did send some reminders to participants to have them sufficiently informed about the due date and other important information. I used to keep myself updated in our whatsapp group chat and always keeping tabs on our progress. I hardly faced issues in completing tasks, however it didn’t mean the same for my other group members. They were facing some obstacles initially, to recruit participants, to look for judges and to conduct the online closing ceremony was not something easy. Fortunately, everything was just fine with objectives achieved in a good ending. Even on the closing ceremony, there were technical issues at times, but the technical team was able to deal with the problems calmly and around 80 attendees were recorded in our online closing ceremony and also the prize giving session. In my opinion, it was a remarkable session and could be considered as a successful one for this very first online social engagement project.
Post-event stage
After the closing ceremony, our team had prepared a feedback form for the participants to collect ideas and thoughts from the public, so we could analyse our event and hopefully come out with recommendations for the next coming event, if any.
Conclusion
I would like to address my appreciation of every member that has been a part of this event. Social engagement projects are a great platform for students to learn, in the meanwhile helping out the community. I would mark my ending with a thank you to all the lecturers, who have been guiding us and always be with us under any up and down. I sincerely hope to see this kind of project in the coming future. Thank you!
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