By Shaun Ng
I felt like I had grown up after visiting Sunway University. It is one of the biggest private universities I have ever visited in Malaysia.
I have often heard people saying that Sunway University always produces students with excellent grades. Indeed, a number of them have gone to the one and only Harvard University. Others have joined Oxford-Cambridge in the United Kingdom.
There is a big canteen with different varieties of food and an elevated bridge which allows students to walk around Sunway City and to Monash University.
The moment I arrived, I ran straight to the canteen to find food. I was starving before I got my very first university meal and it was called the tom yum noodles. It tasted like the average western noodles but with a twist, there was tom yum in it which gave it a rich sour taste.
The first stop was the library. The library is named after Tun Hussein Onn, once known as the prime minister of Malaysia. Here, they have thousands of books of different genres. A librarian told us that they recommend students in Sunway University to use e-books because they can locate them easily. For research purposes, it is also a lot easier as they can locate everything on their fingertips.
There were a lot of discussion rooms which they call ‘Collaborative Rooms.’ Some of the rooms are equipped with a television that can be connected to our own device to share the screen. I suddenly realize the importance of engaging in discussions with friends, because some day, when I work in the office, I would also need to attend meetings, where I am expected to either chair the meeting or contribute my suggestions as a participant.
After the Tun Hussein Onn Library, we saw what looks like an Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) from the outside but it is actually an Auditorium. How cool is that! It was named after Tan Sri Jeffrey Cheah, a businessman and the founder and the current chairman of Sunway University. It looked very impressive, quite cozy and students and teachers are able to use it for public lectures. When we reached there, there was a talk about business and our country’s economic growth over the past one year.
At about 3 o clock, we set foot into a lecture theatre that appears to me as incredibly big. The guide told us that university students have their classes in this lecture hall. It is very interesting as I have never sat in a lecture theatre before. We were told that university students are independent learners and that they would need to listen to their lecturers. That’s the difference between a teacher and a lecturer, as the latter would give an entire lecture to around 100 students in a lecture hall. Interestingly, I was told that being young adults, university students would not disrupt the class. If they are noisy, the lecturers can ask them to leave the lecture hall.
We sat down and listened to an aunty who was briefing us about pre-u programmes. She talked about diplomas, something about foundation, matriculation, A-levels but I was more interested in Year 11 IGCSE. After her briefing, it was time for Q&A. Someone asked how many A’s one must get to be offered a scholarship. Another student asked about entry requirements into Sunway University.
The campus tour ended at 5 o'clock sharp. By then, I was already exhausted. After that, I went straight back home to have a peaceful sleep.
This outing to visit Sunway University has give me a lot of exposure as to why I am learning to do research and participate in discussions during my creative writing class.
(Shaun Ng is 14 years old)