Transformative Journal (Tan San Yee U2003081)

 GIG 1005 Social Engagement

 

Name	TAN SAN YEE
Matric Number	U2003081/1

Transformative Journal

Before

 

First of all, I am very grateful to be called a student of University of Malaya who is involved in a subject called GIG 1005 Social Engagement, which provides us a golden opportunity to engage with the society. Social engagement is an compulsory course at University of Malaya that assists in enhancing soft skills among students. After registering for this course, we have been informed that there will be a meeting on 19 March 2021 with our coordinator, Dr. Dallilawati Zainal. During the meeting, Dr. Dallilawati Zainal briefed us about the course requirements. We have been informed to do the project online due to the outbreaks of the COVID-19 pandemic in our country. In addition, we also have been informed that Dr. Ong Lin Dar is our supervisor. After meeting with the coordinator, our supervisor, Dr. Ong has held a meeting to brief us about the format of the proposal and the overall flow of our program. During the meeting, Dr. Ong has divided us into our respective groups of 5 per group. After that, during the first meeting with my group members, we chose the group leader and discussed the potential project that could be carried out. I have been chosen to become the leader of our group. I would like to thank my group members for giving me such a good opportunity to become a group leader. Besides, we had decided on our theme and overall program flow. Each group member has their tasks and everyone is cooperating with each other. Before the program started, we finalized our proposal and handed in to our supervisor, Dr Ong. Fortunately, our proposal has been approved. We are very happy and looking forward to implementing our project even though it is carried out online.

 

During

 

During the implementation of our project, which is starting from 12^th April 2021, I have been in charge of designing the poster to be posted on our blog. Thus, I have learned the poster designing skills after exploring for many ways to create an attractive poster. I realized that everything needs our persistence and effort, when we do not know something, we have to learn. Besides, my group members and I also recorded two asynchronous videos that will be posted on our YouTube Channel. Every group members are well-prepared before and during our asynchronous videos recording sessions. Fortunately, our videos about the corporate governance and ethics have been posted to our YouTube channel successfully. In addition, we also held a synchronous live class for our 50 targeted accounting students all around Malaysia. Even though we are very nervous during the live session, but we are able to finish it successfully and we even get a lot of good feedback from our participants. Although we have faced some challenges during the implementation of our projects, we are grateful that we are cooperating well with each other and held the project successfully with the efforts of all of the group members. For example, since everyone is busy with their own assignments and works, we have gone through hardships on deciding the synchronous live class date and time, but gratefully at last we will able to decide for it.

 

After

 

Overall, the implementation of our project is smooth and we are very happy with it. In my honest opinion, this course has given us so many advantages and benefits. Besides enhancing our soft skills, it also helps us to improve our communication skills here we got to engage with people around us, even though it is virtually. Besides, this project has given me a valuable opportunity to give back to the society. By implementing this project, we are promoting the importance of corporate governance and ethics to the society. In addition, we get to enhance our adaptability skills. It is because our project still went smoothly as we originally planned despite the project has to be implemented virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We know that implemented a project online is not easy, since we already adapt to the physical project. Most people would prefer to join the physical project because we can interact physically with our friends. So, I am very appreciated for having the cooperation of our group members and the joining of all of our participants to make this project a big success. As a group leader of our group, my leadership skills have been improved a lot since I know that once I have taken on the responsibility to be a group leader, I have to try my best. I have learned to foster a fun atmosphere in our group and chill up my group members when we are going through some hardships. In my opinion, the most unforgettable activity throughout this project is the synchronous live class. It is because during the live session, we can interact with the participants and this can help us to enhance our communication skills. Furthermore, I would like to thank our coordinator, Dr. Dallilawati Zainal and our supervisor, Dr. Ong Lin Dar for giving us this opportunity to conduct this project and not to forget, my group members which I believe without them, this project would not have been possible. If possible, I wish I can still take part in this project, which can benefits the society as well as bringing many advantages for us.

 

 

 

Transformative Journal (Vijayatharushini Murthy U2003197/1)

 GIG 1005 Social Engagement

Name	Vijayatharushini Murthy
Matric Number	U2003197/1

Transformative Journal 

Before

As a student at University Malaya, I really appreciate getting an opportunity to be involved in such a beneficial and meaningful social engagement project. We were informed to conduct an event virtually due to the pandemic. Our coordinator, Dr. Dallilawati Zainal explained the theme of the project where the project must be related to our field of study. Initially, we proposed and planned to organize a volunteering project for the Matriculation students where we wanted to teach them the syllabus in their studies. However, we realized that we need to change our plan as the matriculation students were about to sit for their exams and we did not want to disturb them during their study week. Then, we came up with the idea of teaching participants the fundamental ethics in the Accounting profession. Dr. Ong Lin Dar, our supervisor corrected us that we must choose a topic with broad contents and suggested corporate governance and ethics topics in our very first meeting. Dr added that this topic would be suitable for a virtual event. After the discussion among our group members, we agreed with the plan as we believe that the participants would be beneficial from this project as the topic is something new and important in the accounting field. I was once excited but nervous in the planning process. Excitement is due to the plan that is going to be carried out throughout this semester and nervous as there may be unforeseen obstacles and challenges in the implementation.

During

Covid-19 has hindered our plan as all forms of activities that involve mass gatherings are prohibited. So, we had to conduct the event virtually without meeting the attendees. We had a small meeting with our group members only to discuss the dates of the events and types of activity that we are going to carry out for this project. We respect each and everyone’s decisions and decided a suitable date for the synchronous live class. Our leader, Tan San Yee came up with a tentative about our project which includes the types and pattern of activities and the relative due dates for each activity. This pandemic really hit us hard where we could not meet each other since our very first semester. Through this project, the strangers became friends and we helped each other whenever we had doubts about a task. In order to promote our project, we also utilized social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram by publishing attractive posters designed by San Yee and Chin Yee through Canva which suggested by our supervisor. We also had a person who has better skills in editing videos and that is our friend, Kuan You. Editing video is very important in our project as the project is conducted virtually and the only way to attract attendees is through creative videos. Not forgetting Xin Thung and myself where we prepared the slides and scripts of the activities. The challenging part was to make attractive and informative slides to avoid the participants from getting bored. All the team members had put in a great deal of cooperation to ensure that the implementation of this project runs smoothly.

After

Through this project, I have improved my soft skills including effective communication skills, problem-solving skills, and teamwork which are critical in helping me form relationships with people and create trust and dependability. Besides, I have also learned how to overcome unforeseen obstacles by keeping a positive mindset in running projects. I really appreciate our supervisor, Dr. Ong for her words of guidance and encouragement, and also for being such a good advisor throughout this project. This project has been a great success as all the participants willingly attended our synchronous live class and exposed to the real world of accounting in organizations. Their lesson about basic management accounting terminology, strategy, decision support, and organizational management from an accounting point of view would help them to be more qualified accountants in the future. In the end, we have successfully completed this project by working together. The project really gives me a new experience and a lot of sweet memories with my friends. I am thankful to my group mates to accomplish the success of this project even during this pandemic because this project would not have been possible without my group mates. In a nutshell, this project is actually a good beginning for us to start doing something that could give back to society. I hope that this project will benefit all the communities and individuals.

Transformative Journal (TAN XIN THUNG U2003090/1)

 GIG 1005 Social Engagement

Name	TAN XIN THUNG
Matric Number	U2003090/1

 

Transformative Journal

Before

Before I register for this course, which is GIG1005 Social Engagement, I had heard about this course from my senior. Seniors told us that this course is very interesting but since we will run this course online so it may very regret. They also show us some photos when they run the activity physically. It is quite regretted us but I still looking forward to taking this course. At first, we were told to run the activity with a related topic to our course which is accounting. I appreciate our coordinator, Dr Dalilawati Zainal and our supervisor, Dr Ong Lin Dar for giving us further information about this course, guide and give us some opinion related to the topic chosen. We need to decide on our topic and targeted community. Since our topic should be related to accounting, I think it is quite an informative activity for our targeted community. It is beneficial for them to know more about accounting related information. To complete this course, our main jobs is to prepare two poster/infographic, one awareness video, two asynchronous videos and conduct an asynchronous live class. When I received this information, my first thought is teamwork is important for us to conduct those activities. Before running any activities, we have to come out with one proposal and be accepted by our supervisor.

 

During

To start our activities, my groupmates and I had meetings to discuss this. At last, we have decided to choose ‘Corporate Governance and Ethics’ and agreed by all members. We started to work on our proposal. We divided our jobs and completed them before the dateline given. Our supervisor, Dr Ong Lin Dar approved our proposal and we have been told to start our activities. I feel quite excited and think we should prepare these to make sure our targeted community will feel our activities is useful and beneficial for them. I have asked to prepare for script and content for awareness video and video asynchronous 1 with one of my group members. After completed for all scripts, we proceed to record videos. We were very cooperative in summiting scripts and videos. All of us summited videos at the time we have decided. No one summited the videos late. I feel grateful to have groupmates like them. For asynchronous video, we gather in Microsoft teams to record videos. We only use about 1 hour to complete two videos with only about 1 or 2 take for each video. We are having good corporation in taking videos. Lastly, for synchronous video, we set the date on 30 April 2021. For the targeted community, we share a google form for them to fill and join us. We prepared the scripts and have been divided for different jobs. I have been asked to act as an emcee in the synchronous class because I have experience of doing an emcee but, I am quite worried about this because this will just be my second time being an emcee. I prepared my scripts for the emcee and practised for it. During our rehearsal for the synchronous class, we test for our duration for the whole synchronous class. For the next day is the actual event day, we make sure all the materials are prepared well. I have done my jobs as an emcee although it is not done perfectly with some small pauses, I think I have gained great experience from these activities.

 

After

After all the activities ended, we have to prepare for our final report. In preparing for our report, we have to write down all the things we have done and the duration. I feel quite happy because the tentative set for all activities is followed strictly. We have done it within a month. It is quite efficient. I realised that teamwork is a very important reason for us in this course as it is an online course, and we need to remind each other of the submission dateline. I think we did it quite perfectly and I would like to thank our coordinator, Dr Dalilawati Zainal and our supervisor, Dr Ong Lin Dar for guiding us in this course. I have gained more knowledge after all the activities regarding ‘Corporate Governance and Ethics’. Corporate governance is a topic that I have not learned before but after this, I have some knowledge about this topic. It is a quite challenging topic for us as corporate governance is a new topic, and we need to have some research to make sure the knowledge we pass to our targeted community is correct and did not mislead them. I hope that they have gained something from us. This course gave a great experience for us to dedicate to the community and let them know the significance of corporate governance and also the impact of not following corporate governance and ethics. Overall, I feel very happy to have an opportunity to take this course and I will share my own experience in taking this course with my junior like how my senior share with me.

Transformative Journal (TAI CHIN YEE S2029310/1)

 GIG1005 Social Engagement

Name	TAI CHIN YEE
Matric Number	S2029310/1

 

Transformative Journal

First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude and appreciation to our supervisor, Dr. Ong Lin Dar who had guided us throughout this project. Also, I would like to thank my group members for giving support and aids to carry out this project. Without my supervisor and group members, this activity cannot be conducted and carried out successfully, and I would not experience this memorable activity.

Before

At the earlier stage of planning, we initially planned to conduct a webinar about business ethics for the community of Matriculation students in order to raise their awareness towards business ethics, which is beneficial for their future careers. After meeting with our supervisor, Dr. Ong Lin Dar, followed by careful planning of the activities involved, my group members and I ended up with add on the topic of corporate governance and change our community to all accounting students. For this, I personally would like to thank Dr. Ong for the suggestions that she gave us, which is to add on the topic of corporate governance because without it, this project would not run smoothly. From Dr. Ong, I have also learned that we need to have long-term thinking, and we should not let short-term thinking hurt long-term success. As my teammates and I keep thinking that business ethics is an easy topic but ignore the fact that business ethics is only a small topic, and it would not be sufficient for us to use that topic to conduct the whole project. In the planning phase, I have also impressed by my team leader, Tan San Yee. Her organization skills and time management are really well, and she always takes the first step to get things done, this spirit has led me to move forward throughout the process of planning this activity. I also believed that this would help me to adjust my attitude towards learning and work in the future.

Furthermore, while we are preparing for our live session, I also worried about the number of participants as our expected number of participants is 50 people. Therefore, in order to promote our event to more accounting students, except for using our blog, I have collaborated with my group members to use our own social media account to promote our activity, and thus the number of participants have reached our target and even exceed it with a total of 52 people that have registered for our events. By doing this, I have learned the importance of teamwork as everyone needs to pay their efforts in order to make this project successful. All in all, during this stage, I have learned the importance of work in groups and plan management.

During

During the implementation stage, we have designed 2 posters/infographics and took 1 awareness video as well as 2 pre-recorded videos prior to our live session. For me, I am the person in charge of designing the poster/infographics. Through this, I have also learned how to use Canva to design creative artworks as previously I only used Adobe Photoshop to design the artworks. This experience is very beneficial to me as I can utilize these soft skills in my future.

In addition, as our activities are revolved the professional knowledge, at that time, I am also quite worried that the unprofessional speaking and writing etiquette will affect our professionalism and cause the community to come under question about our contents. Therefore, I have also learned how to maintain my professionalism when I am communicating or writing an email to the participants as an organizer or a speaker throughout the activity. Moreover, in our training session, as I am the speaker in charge of the Q&A session, I am very grateful that most of the participants are very active in asking the questions. In my point of view, I think this is because the participants have paid their attention to listen to our content, thereby they have the queries. Not only that, in the process of conducting the Q&A sessions, I really learned how to give an effective presentation and become more comfortable when speaking in public. This definitely helps me to boost my self-confidence to present in front of people, which I think will be very beneficial for my future not only in the university but also in the workplace.

After

Ultimately, we had successfully completed the project even when faced with the ongoing pandemic that had caused plenty of difficulties for us to conduct an online activity. Although our live session was only two hours; however, I am very grateful that our plan has gone smoothly. Besides, I also feel grateful and appreciated my teammates' encouragement as they are willing to utilize my design of the awareness infographic, promotional poster, backdrop, and opening backdrop in this activity. To be honest, the results we achieved were commendable and impressive and made me incredibly proud as well as the content. By doing this project, it had exposed me to a broader business world and taught me the importance and the relationship between corporate governance and business ethics in an organization. I believe that this activity will help to advocate and promote the ethical standards by which corporate professionals must operate.

To conclude, the biggest lesson I gained from this activity is the professional knowledge about corporate governance and business ethics. In the future, I will also practice professional accountability and uphold their personal integrity to society when I get into the workplace. Besides, I have also learned how to overcome obstacles by keeping a positive mindset in running projects as we are all struggling with our assignments at that time, but none of us have complained about it. Thus, I hope the spirit and objectives of our project can continue to implement in the future in order to raise awareness of the community towards corporate governance and business ethics. For me, I will also involve and engage in these kinds of projects again in the future if I am given an opportunity to do so.

Transformative Journal (Teh Kuan You U2003293)

 GIG1005 Social Engagement

Name	TEH KUAN YOU
Matric Number	U2003293

Transformative Journal

Before

            To be honest, I had no idea about this course, Social Engagement when I was first knowing that it will be the compulsory university course to be taken in my Semester 2. There are a lot of questions in my mind but no information about this course until the beginning of semester. I wonder who will be my lecturer, which occurrence should I choose, what should I do and what would I gain from this course. Finally, I got my answer from our coordinator, Dr. Dalilawati Zainal in week 2 and further understanding on the project from our supervisor, Dr. Ong Lin Dar. I appreciate them for spending time to organize meeting, brief us the information and guide us step by step along the implementation of our project. Social Engagement provides every university student an opportunity to practice their communication, teamwork and leadership skill as well as contribute what they had earned to the community by organizing a project beneficial to a specific community. My first thought of the project was a chance to enlighten and inspire my accounting juniors just like what my senior had given to me. I hope that this contribution from a senior to his or her junior will be a non-stop tradition in our accounting course that never come to an end. However, as a quiet and introvert person, it would be a great challenge for me to speak out my opinion in the discussion when I’m not knowing them well. Fortunately, they gave me a very good first impression that had calm me down from a nervous as they are very friendly, talkative and smiling. Our meeting always conducted under a low pressure where everyone talk to each other like chatting with friends.

 

During

            We had decided to present “Corporate Governance and Ethics” as the topic of our project although none of us had read about the topic. The topic was suggested by Dr. Ong and chosen by us because it would be a very useful information and knowledge when we are connecting to the real world of accounting professions in the future. I had no complained or regret for our decision when we need to spend extra time to research and study on the topic because it is a rewarding process to us. Throughout the project, I would say that my main task was editing the video other than presenting and creating the slide. I had volunteered for the task as I am interested and intended to improve my video editing skill. Previous experience and knowledge do not satisfy my desire to make a better quality video because there is still a large space or opportunity for me to enhance myself. The greatest result I gained from this task is the varies resources to obtain difference kind of opening footage, font and music from the Internet. On the other hand, I think that our group leader, San Yee had performed the role model of leadership during the implementation stage. She had always prepared well before our meeting by stating the point to discuss, distributing task among members, reminding us our responsibilities and motivating us to succeed the project. Her hardworking brought us effective and efficient discussion and it was indispensable for the completing of our project. Moreover, the poster and infographic presented in our project had amazed me with the attractive design and plentitude information only on one picture. The posters had played a vital role in our promoting stage to attract the attention of participants included me. It encouraged me to grab the opportunity of studying and trying designing in the future.

 

After

            In overall, the most meaningful experience I had gained during the project was uploading video to the YouTube. I had edited several videos even before I had been matriculated by the university but this was my first experience to manage a YouTube channel. I faced few difficulties during the process such as copyright of music, over length of video and scheduling of time public. I managed to discover the solutions by spending own effort searching on the Internet and trying for several methods with hour by hour. Besides that, it is proved that soft skill is important for every group member in this project. The soft skill includes interpersonal skill, communication skill, personality traits, attitude and mindset of a person which help him or her to work and perform well in achieving a team goal. I feel that the experience of collaboration with others in this project increases my soft skill by having more communication and interaction with my team members no matter it is face-to-face or non-face-to-face. Another personal acquisition from this project is the confident to speak in front of people. The most terrible is not giving a public speaking to strangers but a self-denial on our capability that cause to unconfident. Moreover, I had found out my weakness such as pronunciation problem and careless through the implementation of project and try to correct as well as improve myself from the mistake. This project provides me a chance to practice time management by distributing time to maintain my academic at the same time conduct an event. After lots of advantages I received from the project, there is no argument that I would like to engage myself in community activities in the future. I would be apologetic for the coming year fresh blood if they have no opportunity to learn through the “Social Engagement” course.