USM PENANG, 18 October 2021 – The Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) Student Development Affairs and Alumni Division (BHEPA) recently held a session with newly-registered first-year students at the main campus and virtually via Facebook.

The event was held at the Dewan Persidangan Siswa 1, Kompleks Cahaya (KOMCA) to welcome the new students to USM and to share information about the university itself, which is presently under strict standard operating procedure (SOP) guidelines.

In her welcoming speech, USM Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic and International), Professor Dato’ Dr. Narimah Samat congratulated all the new students who had been offered a place to study at USM and its branch campuses in Kubang Kerian, Kelantan (Health Campus), Transkrian, Penang (Engineering Campus), USM Bertam (Advanced Medical and Dental Institute, IPPT), USM Kuala Lumpur and USM-KLE (Karnataka, India).

“In USM, we are here to nurture and to share our experience in order to ensure that students can achieve their career growth in the future; whereby we want students to excel in their future career choices that they will make in the next few years, either as an entrepreneur or an employee,” she said.

“Our desired outcome as educators, academicians, lecturers and administrators in USM is that, we want our students to become agile, adaptive and resilient in accordance with the 21st century skills that involve foundational literacies, competencies and character qualities; and as HEBAT graduates, we encourage students to become entrepreneurs or job creators,” she added.

According to Narimah, in facing the COVID-19 challenges while still living in the new normal, students need to adapt with the blended style of teaching and learning; and USM will continue to ensure that students will be provided with the best learning experiences.

In addition, she introduced the ‘Mobility Programme’, which is an opportunity for students who are interested in the student exchange programme, internship programme, short term or summer programme and research attachment programme with USM’s partner institutions located in many different countries.

Narimah also emphasizes on the concept of ‘Internationalization at Home’ whereby USM allows the international students on campus to become a buddy or ‘KAWAN’; and this provides an opportunity for local students to learn the cultural aspects and to experience working with international students.

Meanwhile, USM Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Student Development Affairs and Alumni), Professor Dr. Aldrin Abdullah highlighted the available facilities and the recognition of the university as a research institution and the only APEX university in Malaysia, to the new students.

“In USM, our main goals are to offer students a vibrant on-campus experience, to provide a platform to acquire knowledge and to give students an opportunity to meet people and friends; and we hope that at the end of the journey, students would have developed their potential,” he said.

Aldrin introduced the HEBAT (Holistic, Entrepreneurial, Balanced, Articulate, Thinking) agenda to the students, with the aim of ensuring that graduates would be able to secure good jobs and to generate their own income in the future.

“The HEBAT agenda is an opportunity for students in enhancing their skills that would make them more marketable in the job market, and we will continuously improve the quality of our academic programmes to make our graduates more relevant in the future,” he added.

In addition, Aldrin further stressed on the special programme named JORAN, which is a platform for students who come from B40 families to get a job on campus while studying, which will be organised by BHEPA and students who are interested may acquire the information from the department.

Also present at the session were Senior Deputy Registrar BHEPA USM, Mohamad Abdullah and other administrative officials.

Text: Nur Farrah Ezlin Mohd Suhaimi/Editing: Mazlan Hanafi Basharudin/Photo: Shahnizam Ab Rahim