Transformative Journal (Rosshenie, U2003162 - Team A)

     Hello everyone! My name is Rosshenie A/P Vijayanthiran and I am a first-year accounting student at Universiti Malaya. As I am writing this on June 8th, 2021, I am currently in my 2nd semester and I have taken up the Social Engagement course as part of my subjects for this semester. The following entry will tell you all about my overall experience throughout the span of the course and also about all the highs and lows that I experienced as well.

Pre-Event:

    In the beginning, truth be told, I was clueless as to what the Social Engagement course would be about. In fact, I was under the impression (judging by the name of the course) that we would be given lectures regarding social skills or at least something along those lines. However, this course turned out to be beyond what I expected it to be - in a good way of course ;)

    With that being said, during the first few weeks of my current semester, my life was hectic! I was a PR member for an annual club event and coincidentally, the day of the club event happened to fall exactly on the day of the first-ever Social Engagement course briefing. However, fortunately, I had a coursemate who was kind enough to send me a link to the recording and also, the slides that were shared during the briefing. After going through the materials, I began to understand what the course entailed. However, in all honesty, I was a tad bit nervous at the idea of organizing my very own program from scratch. My stress was fueled by the fact that this semester happened to be a pretty jam-packed semester as well. However, regardless of what I felt, it is what is it, right? I pushed forward and reminded myself that nothing good ever comes from doing things that did not push my boundaries anyway.

    Not long after that, we had our first meeting with our supervisor, Dr. Zalfa. When Dr. Zalfa mentioned that we had to divide into smaller groups of 5 to carry out our projects with, I immediately knew that I was going to have to be really careful about who I chose as my group members. This was ultimately because I was aware that this course was not going to be easy and the last thing I needed were members who refuse to put in the hard work that was needed. In the end, I ended up with pretty awesome group members who each had strengths of their own. 

    After dividing ourselves into groups of 5, we began brainstorming project ideas. During the first meeting with just the 5 of us, we went back and forth about what we could potentially do. There were many ideas I had in mind but one of the biggest factors we needed to consider was, time. We needed to choose a project that would not consume our time entirely but at the same time, would still be sufficient to make an impact in the community. After discussing for quite a bit, we came up with "Road To The Future: Is Accounting the Right Choice For You?", a webinar that was meant to give more exposure to high school students and SPM leavers to the ins and outs of the accounting field. 

    On a personal level, I loved our project idea very much because back when I was in secondary school, I used to always wish that I had the opportunity to engage with university students before making major decisions related to my education. I wish we had more exposure to different fields rather than being expected to just decide on a course right after SPM. Hence, it goes without saying that I loved the idea and so did the rest.

    However, coming up with a project idea was only the start. We had to also decide on the project flow, decide on the kind of sessions we wanted to include etc. As people with minimal experience in organizing events, trying to create a comprehensive tentative was a struggle. Despite it all, thankfully, all my groupmates were active and contributed a lot of ideas during our discussions. I was worried we would not be able to create a tentative that would be considered beneficial enough for the participants but in the end, I must say that the overall flow of the program turned out better than I expected it to be.

    Once our proposal was approved, we had to immediately begin searching for participants. During this period, I realized how difficult it really was to attract participants. Since our target group was inclusive of secondary school students, I decided to immediately contact my school counsellor from my ex-secondary school. The counsellor was incredibly accommodating and she forwarded our poster to various school group chats which consisted of a large sum of school students. I was very thankful to her as she helped me out without an ounce of hesitance. Plus, thanks to her, a large sum of the participants who joined us were students from my very own ex-secondary school, SMK Datuk Onn Butterworth. This particular experience showed me how vital it was to keep in touch with people that you cross paths with. You just never know who's help you may need someday. So we should always be kind, stay in contact and never forget the importance of having a wide network.

    Up until the day of the event, we would have meetings every now and then, to review our progress and discuss anything that needs to be addressed. With that being said, I would like to give a special shout out to our team captain, Zhao Wei, who made our meeting sessions as efficient as possible by always coming to the meetings with a plan in mind. He would always go the extra mile to outline the vital aspects that needed to be prioritized and discussed beforehand. 

    Moving on, besides the long-list of tasks that came with organizing this event, one of my main duties was to moderate the sharing session with an accounting professional.  It was my first time taking on such a role and naturally, I wanted to give my best but was afraid that my lack of experience would deter the overall flow of the session. So, in true "Rosshenie" fashion, I spent a large portion of my time watching videos that involved moderators. The videos definitely allowed me to get a gist of a moderator's role. However, I still found it hard to shake off the thought that I was going to do a terrible job and end up destroying the session. Nevertheless, I tried my best to prepare as much as I could and was determined to do well. 

    Time flew by and soon came our rehearsal day. During our first rehearsal, we were understandably all over the place but things picked up once everyone was familiar with the flow and knew their respective duties. Hence, we spent the last few days leading up to the event perfecting every last detail of the event, sending the pre-evaluation form to participants, making sure all the participants who registered had joined the group chat, sending them reminder messages regarding the event and lots more.

During Event:

    It is the day of the event! I barely slept the night before because of how anxious I was. My anxiety did not stem from the fact that we were unprepared. In fact, we were beyond prepared. We even managed to sneak in a final rehearsal, a day before the event day. However, the idea of conducting the entire event ourselves for the first time was definitely a pretty intimidating thought. All firsts are hard and this was no exception.

    Our event was scheduled to begin at 10.00 a.m. but to prepare for the arrival of participants, my groupmates and I met at 9.00 a.m. instead. We double-checked our materials, audio, camera and spent the extra time we had to revise our respective parts.

    As for the first major session, Part A: Introduction to Accounting, everything went along smoothly and the participants actively participated in the Kahoot session that we conducted as well. However, instead of having 2 Kahoot sessions as we originally planned, we ended up only conducting one since we lacked time as a result of starting the event later than expected since there was a delay in waiting for more participants to join us before we officially began. That was a bit of a bummer for me especially when I saw how much the participants enjoyed the session but we had to proceed in order to ensure the rest of the program flow would not be disrupted. Overall, Amirah and Zhao Wei did an impeccable job at handling the session despite the unexpected changes that we had to make. 

          Another hurdle came up during Part B: Debunking Common Misconceptions About Accounting. Towards the end of this session, we conducted a brief Q&A session. Initially, we did not expect to receive any questions at all. But in reality, we received a long list of questions instead. Unfortunately, since we did not anticipate receiving that many questions, we did not allocate much time for the Q&A session. Nevertheless, we still managed to answer a lot of their questions but would have still loved to answer more of their questions. Note to self: Never underestimate the audience when it comes to asking questions. Overall, I believe Ruuby and Sam gave their absolute best and the session was a success thanks to their immense efforts. 

        Next up was Part C: Interactive Session with UM accounting undergraduates. This was one of my favourite sessions as it involved one-on-one interaction with a smaller group of participants. We had 3 different breakout rooms for the participants and we assigned them accordingly to each room. Zhao Wei and I were in charge of the same room whereby we took the opportunity to share with the participants regarding our respective matriculation experiences. We also received many questions from the participants in the room as well. 

       I personally enjoyed answering their questions as well as sharing my experiences and thoughts with them. It was clear that they had many questions in mind regarding their future and their next step in life. In a way, they reminded me of myself when I was at their age mainly because I know what it feels like to be a student who is bound to sit for SPM very soon and yet feel absolutely clueless about what to expect or what direction to work towards once SPM was over with. Since I was the oldest child in my family and did not have many older friends either, I did not have many to turn to for advice. The sense of cluelessness can be pretty overwhelming once you realize that your secondary school life was about to end very soon and you still did not have a plan in place. Therefore, I was very happy to have gotten the chance to be the 'older figure' to the participants in this session by helping them to clarify their queries and doubts especially with regards to their upcoming pre-university life.

        Lastly, we conducted Part D: Sharing session with an Accounting Professional. As mentioned earlier, I was the moderator for this session and I was very nervous about it especially since it was my very first time doing anything like this. However, since Dr. Adwa, our guest speaker herself was very friendly and professional, the burden of moderating the sessions felt somewhat lighter. All the videos I watched helped as well! As the session progressed, I felt a lot more confident and at ease. All in all, it was a great first-time experience being a moderator and I was grateful that the session panned out well. It was indeed a pleasant way to wrap up our entire program.

     On the whole, although there were several inevitable obstacles, I believe we remained resilient and managed to pull through and execute a successful program. In the end, looking back, we could not have done it without the guidance of our program supervisor, Dr. Zalfa, who was always willing to help us out and be there for us throughout the span of the course despite having to take up her weekends or holidays. I believe she definitely went above and beyond to ensure we were able to conduct a successful program.

Post-Event:

     The ultimate highlight for me was all the positive feedback that we received from the participants. My team and I went through a lot together to ensure we could give our best and execute a successful program. Trying to juggle our tasks between all the other workload was truly not an easy task. It was very overwhelming and draining to say the very least. However, amidst the struggles, there was a silver lining in the end. 

    The feedback we received was incredibly heartwarming as many of the participants mentioned how happy they were about the program since they managed to learn a lot and gain a clearer perspective on their future. There was even a particular participant who wrote about her personal life in the feedback whereby she said that earlier this year, she made the choice to drop the science stream and chose to pursue accounting instead. However, she mentioned that she was initially very unsure about her choice and was worried if she made the wrong move. Consequently, she mentioned how our program helped her clear her doubts and give her a lot more clarity as she now feels a lot more confident about choosing to pursue accounting. This specific feedback grabbed my attention as I, too, am someone who doubted a lot of my choices in the past. Hence, it felt as if I was able to resonate with her and how she felt. It was a warm feeling to know that I played a part in allowing her to feel confident and at peace with the decision that she made.

    All in all, reading through the feedbacks truly made me feel like our efforts did not go to waste. There is always space for improvement, and I will definitely be able to leverage this experience for future events. Despite the shortcomings, I am still proud of what we managed to accomplish together within just a couple of months. 

   In conclusion, I solemnly believe that the experience gained through this course, from the beginning till the very end is something that I will all be able to cherish for a long time. In the beginning of the course, organizing a program from scratch felt like an impossible idea but now that it has been done, I have a new sense of motivation to go beyond my limits and achieve so much more in the years to come. Lastly, I am wholeheartedly grateful for the extensive experiences, skills, memories, and knowledge that I have gained through this course. It would not have been possible without my fellow groupmates and Dr. Zalfa. Thank you, everyone!