14

International Relations (IR)? I looked quizzically at my parents while mouthing “Apa tu?”

This was me back then, trying to decide which undergraduate degree to pursue. My parents had suggested that I take up IR. While it would have been easier for me to just take my parents’ suggestion, and end the search for the best option, I decided to continue researching a little further. After all, it’s my future we’re discussing. I’m sure that at some point in life, many of us would have gone through the same tough decision. I, for one, knew that I wanted something that will challenge my written and spoken proficiencies.

I kept scrolling through official websites of prospective universities, hoping that a course would jump out at me. But the answer obviously didn’t come so easily. So I decided to try another approach. Prospectus after prospectus, one campus tour after another, and discussions with counsellors, I settled for a branch campus of an Australian university in Malaysia.

The way the courses are structured, you’re allowed to pick subjects that are outside of your school or faculty.  It would be safe for me to say that I like to keep my options open, although there’s something about words that draws me in the way nothing else could. The university course that I enrolled in worked in my favour in this aspect as most of the assignments were writing-based. However, I didn’t expect to be bombarded with so many theories and concepts in class! God, what did I get myself into?

On the first day of my second semester, I encountered another hurdle: an Australian lecturer who had an accent that made half the class go “Huh?” Thankfully, he was much clearer during tutorials and one-on-one consultation that I eventually fell for his accent!

Okay, accents aside, came year two. Upon realising that I needed to balance life as a student, I signed up for the university’s Toastmasters Club. It was during that time that I got to know other university students from different courses and backgrounds. I had the pleasure of being Grammarian. I definitely enjoyed having to pick the Word of the Evening and listening for and correcting grammatical errors in speeches.

I realised that by the end of the third year, I was even more polished as a person. I started to have a deeper appreciation of not just about Communications and Media Studies, the course that I ended up doing, but of the world. Having international students (and students on exchange programmes) in the classroom surely enriched my university experience.  Once, as part of the assessment for a certain unit, I got to do a group oral presentation with two Australian students and one other Malaysian student. As a result of brainstorming with them, I realised the importance of critical thought. The fact that I’m penning this down shows how much I remember that particular moment.

While most of the subjects were abstract, it was at university that I learnt to be more sensitive to the perspectives of others. It was through the friendships fostered with international and exchange students that I also learnt to articulate my ideas clearly. These, I believe, are skills that will be useful to handle any situation in life.

I thought I knew what the expectations at university were like. I thought I knew what I was going to learn. I was wrong. I had gained so much more! I certainly cannot believe I had turned from a clueless, frustrated first-year to a more well-informed individual.