Tranformative Journal by Phavinna Patmanathan(U2003098)

Transformative Journal 

Hi and a very good day to to our respective lecturers and my fellow classmates. My name is Phavinna Patmanathan and I'm currently taking  my first degree for Bachelor Of Accounting in University of Malaya. Currently I am in my second semester for this course and I took this Social Engagement course because this is a compulsory course for everyone to graduate from the university and also because my lecturer advised us that 2nd semester is the perfect time to take this course. So, I decided to take this course for this semester so confidently.

Before the event 

To be honest, I think this course is very interesting and easy because there are lectures to teach us everyday but only have meeting with our beloved lecturer to brief about the course and also give suggestion about the project that we chose. Besides lectures. we also does not have tutorial exercise or practices to finished by the given due date also a thing that loved the most in this course. All we have to focus is just our one main project and find  ways to make the project succeed. At first I was so nervous because basically I am a shy person, and it is very hard for me to communicate with a lot people at a time. Another thing that makes me more nervous is when my teammates chose me as their group leader. I know as a group leader, I have to be more responsible and a high level confidence level to make our project succeed. Most importantly, I have to work at least 50% more than my teammates. But luckily, I have a very humble and hardworking 4 teammates. One of them is from China and others are from Malaysia. Before we planned to start this project we are strangers except Roketah is from my previous matriculation college but we still does not know each other. This project is the main reason for us to get to know each other. I am glad at first because i am going to work together with a girl foreign country as well

Before this project starts as the first step of this project all of us decided to conduct a recorded program but after the consultation with our beloved lecturer we decided that live online seminar is the best way to succeed our project as we can clearly see all the updates and evaluation in a live mode. We also considered that recorded programs are very tough to engage with the students. So, we decided to organize a program entitled "Free Virtual Accounting Class" for Form 5 students. This was an initiative on our part to assist SPM candidates. Before we could organize a program, we had to arrange a lot of things. I had no prior experience writing proposals, but this course provided me with the opportunity to do so. So, from this event I am pretty sure that my soft skills that re so weak before before is now comes to a very good level. I was assigned to be a teacher for the virtual class. As I told before I am a very shy person and it is quite hard for me to communicate with a large amount of people. But thank God because I have experience to work as tutor for students. Actually teaching is not my problem, my problem is just the number of people but i know that this is going to be great experience for me.

I had to prepare a lot of materials for the students because I was assigned as a teacher, which made my teaching process more easier. This was a lot of fun to do. I developed presentations that would be easier for them to understand, and to make it more engaging, I used clip arts to make the slides more appealing. I was also asked to use Kahoot to prepare questions for the students. It was my first time using it, and I found it to be quite enjoyable and intriguing. I learned how to use software that I had never used before. I also had to train myself on how to educate the pupils multiple times, which was both enjoyable and frustrating. To increase the number of attendees, my team members promoted our event posters on numerous social media sites. So, at last we are managed to get 30 participants at the end.

During the event

On the day of the event, I was the second person to start my discussion for the Incomplete Records. I was concerned that the pupils would not comprehend what I was attempting to convey. But, to my astonishment, they grasped what I was teaching and enthusiastically participated in my conversation. When they grasped what I was teaching, I was overjoyed. This was, in my opinion, one of my most significant successes in this field i guess. Speaking in front of a group has never been easy for me, but the kids' comments encouraged me to give it my all during the debate. The student thanked me and offered several clarifying questions at the end of the discussion. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that I will never forget. 

During our event, we also had some internet issues. All the time my connection was so bad until  i have to reconnect to the meet for few times. Because of my connection, I was unable to open my camera during my presentation to the students. I was a bit worried of this quite some times because I could not engage with them face to face during the event but I was very sure I should be very attentive during the event by calling out the students name throughout the event to make sure they are paying attention to my discussion, All of the students were ecstatic about our event because it was so beneficial to them. We were ecstatic to be given the opportunity to assist students in better understanding the Accounting subject.

After the event

I felt quite delighted and relieved after our event comes to an end. I was also pleased with myself for stepping outside of my social circle. This event boosted my self-esteem and improved my interpersonal abilities for sure. I'd want to express my heartfelt gratitude to everyone of my team members for their hard work and contributions to the success of this event. My team members were also required to prepare other paper works such as reports after organizing the event. This is my first time doing a report and preparing the E-Sulam for a social event. I would say that I learnt so much especially on how to work as a team and get our things done. Besides that, I would like to thank to all my teammates because they does not give all the work load to me as a group leader but what they did was separating the works with everyone and put all the efforts to make this project succeed.

Last but not least, i would like thank our beloved and humble lecturer Dr.Zalfa because she spend a lot of time for us to give suggestions to  improve our project to this level. She is such a humble person because she always told a thing to change in our project very politely and it is easy for us to change anything in our project. She also understand our feelings as students and changed our due date for project report submission date a bit forward than our usual submission date. Besides that, she also praised all of us to succeed the program in our last presentation. Thus really cab boost a students` ability to do more social work in the future. For all of this thank you Dr.Zalfa. A lot of loves to you. Thank you everyone especially my teammates and our group leader See Zhao Wei for all of efforts. Stay home and stay safe everyone.