USM, PENANG, 17 March 2016 – Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) has long been the choice of students from Indonesia to pursue their studies further. Currently there are close to 200 students from Indonesia who are doing their studies here at the undergraduate as well as the postgraduate level.

A student at the USM School of Communication, Muhammad Ilman, 19, who hails from Jakarta, admits that the uniqueness of USM as the sole university in Malaysia awarded the Accelerated Programme for Excellence (APEX) status was the motivating factor for him to do his studies here.

“USM is located in Penang, which is also known as a ‘food paradise’ was what attracted me to come, with the different varieties of food available, not to mention the friendly local students, all of which helped me to adapt while being away from my family,” said Muhammad Ilman, who is doing his second-year undergraduate degree in Communication.

Admitting that initially he was a bit apprehensive on socialising with the local students as they seemed keener on being amongst their own peers, he managed to mingle better with them once he had become more familiar with them.

He added that, USM has students of varied backgrounds, coming from different cultures and religions which allowed them to share and learn new things amongst themselves, language being one of them.

“I hope to improve my communication skills and would be able to converse in various languages as USM also provides courses for other languages to the students, enabling the graduates from USM to have greater career opportunities,” he explained.

Muhammad Ilman hoped that more students from his country could come to pursue their studies here, and even urging his friends there to make USM as their first choice to go for their education at the international level, with its reasonable tuition fees and its uniqueness as the “University in a Garden”.

Translation: Mazlan Hanafi Basharudin

Text: New Gaik Siew (USM Internship student) / Photo: Koshigan