An insight into the 3rd Down Under Camp 2016

The 3^rd Down Under Camp (DUC) was organised by the Malaysian Students' Council of Australia (MASCA). Its initiative was to prepare Malaysian students for the transition from being a local student to an international student in Australia. The 3rd DUC took place at Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) on the 23^rd & 24^th of January (during the weekends).

Registration of volunteers and participants and volunteers briefing were carried out on Friday, one day prior to the official commencement of the camp. One friend of mine, whom I was supposed to be sharing a room with, ditched me as she would only be coming on Saturday (23^rd Jan). It’s all good, I’m cool with it. I ended up sleeping over in another room. Well yeah, they invited me over, so I can’t possibly turn them down right? ;)

My tag throughout the camp

After registration, there were a few ice-breaking games, followed by a briefing session where I met up with my fellow DUC Open Day committees. DUC Open Day, which would only take place on Sunday (24^th Jan), was a segment of DUC and there was a separate committee in charge of it. We have had a few Skype meetings prior to the camp, but meeting everyone in person felt absolutely different from all those virtual meetings we had.

Felisa (left, Operations Convener UQMSA) and me, Huey Fang (right, Education Convener UQMSA) during briefing session.

The next day, DUC kicked start with opening speeches from representatives of sponsors, Education Malaysia, Deputy High Commissioner to Malaysia and few others. After all the formalities, participants were broken down into groups based on their destinations of study (e.g. Queensland, Victoria) for “Project X”, a Meet & Greet session between current and prospective students of the respective states. Next up was “Explore Race - Exploring Australia”. All participants got drenched, being attacked by water balloons from us checkpoints masters (we are so mean!).

The last session of the day was “From Footy to Football” (for non-Muslims) and “Fiqh Luar Negara” (for Muslims) where I attended the former. It was a free and easy QnA session with three MASCA alumni about their experience in Australia. The participants felt comfortable asking them questions as all three of them are very easy going and friendly.

Ashley A. (first row left, Social Convener UQMSA), myself, and a few UQ prospective students during the opening ceremony.

On 24^th Jan (Sunday), being overly focused on preparing for DUC Open Day, I missed out the morning forum “Aiming for Southern Star”. Although I only managed to participate in the forum for about 15 minutes or so, it was a rewarding experience. We had Johan Merican, CEO of TalentCorp, Patrick Ng, Assurance Partner of PWC, Danial Fahmi, our MASCA Alumni, and JayDee Lok as the moderator. The forum mainly focused on career advice (at least during that 15 minutes that I sat in for).

Then came the highlight of DUC – DUC Open Day. Basically the objective of Open Day was to encourage all participants to give back to the society. Our plan was to prepare food and distribute them to the homeless. We had a series of games for participants to play and collect points for ingredients bidding, where the ingredients would be used for sushi making later. I would say that everything turned out well for the Open Day, and I was just glad to see that all participants had fun.

Well okay, to be honest, there was a slight glitch. We estimated the ingredients for 200 participants, but only half of them turned up. Hence, after the closing ceremony of DUC, almost half of the committee stayed back to finish making the remaining sushi. I helped out as much as I could, but I left at 5pm that day because I had a train to catch. The distributing team stayed till 9pm and distributed the food around Chow Kit area.

The team that stayed back till late to distribute the food. So thankful for their effort

My reflections on this event would be, volunteering and giving out for something meaningful will never be a waste of time. It feels more rewarding to give than to accept. Not to mention, I got to meet an awesome bunch of people, which had been a pleasure to work with. Their enthusiasm have influence me to go the extra mile in doing anything, and never a dull moment with all the fun and amazing people.

3^rd Down Under Camp 2016 group photo: