Students should not only hold good paper qualifications,
but they should also have the strong leadership
skills to give them the edge in the real world
Dr. Mok is happy to see many local and international
students of different cultures, ethnicities and
races in his Faculty
Dr. Mok in a group photo with his students who
won an award from National Instruments
By Nandini Sundran of UCSI Frontiers.
Click
here for the original article on the UCSI Frontiers
website.
UCSI University’s Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and
Built Environment is one of the largest and more popular
faculties among its students. Many local and international
students are enrolled in these programmes which range from
foundation to the latest Masters programmes. Faculty Dean,
Dr. Jimmy Mok Vee Hoong said that even though there were
not many activities during the short semester, the faculty
does have interesting events throughout the year, where
students are encouraged to participate in competitions and
events.
“Students should not only hold good paper qualifications,
but they should also have strong leadership skills to give
them the edge in the real world,” said Dr. Mok when met
for an interview. He told Frontiers that they have introduced
the ‘Zilog Workshop,’ where the staff chooses a certain
group of senior students to train and instill in them leadership
skills. These senior students will then mentor the juniors
in both academic and extra-curricular activities. Dr. Mok,
however, told us that the case is different with the Architecture
students.
“By nature they are very different. All their projects are
in the form of presentations. Therefore, their leadership
and communicative skills are being trained even when they
are still learning basic theories,” noted Dr. Mok.
Even though there is a subject, Technical Communication
for the engineering students, to boost their leadership
skills, Dr. Mok acknowledges the importance of students’
participation in extra-curricular activities to improve
their communication skills. Therefore, Dr. Mok is all for
introducing the ‘Junior Chamber International’ programme
to provide more avenues to help students inculcate these
necessary skills.
“I must say that this programme is not popular among Malaysians,
and was actually started by the African students. In this
programme, students are encouraged to organise events and
learn how to work as a team. Membership is open to all UCSI
University students,” he said. “By joining this programme,
students get the chance to learn how to blend in a multiracial
community. This will be very helpful when they meet different
kinds of people once they step in the working world,” he
added.
When asked about the specialty of the Faculty, Dr. Mok said
he is very happy to see many local and international students
enrolled in this programme where students are exposed to
different cultures, ethnicities and races before they venture
out into the world.
“Our students will be able to blend, communicate and adapt
to any kind of work environment in the future and that,
is one of the specialties I am proud of at the Faculty of
Engineering, Architecture and Built Environment,” he added.
