I am a graduate of UPM.
Jul 22, 2006 in Diary-writer
Carina messaged me a little after office hours just yesterday, with a short alert.
'Claire, did you see the UPM scuffle video?'
I had not as I had been tied up with meeting after meeting and had only just got the time to do the usual mail-checking and etc, so she showed it to me. And I agreed with her description, 'It's very disturbing.'
Indeed, the video is so disturbing that several people had chosen to sensationalize the video, make it big, plaster it all over, question, 'What kind of university churns out students like this?'
For people like Carina and I, it's a little more than disturbing. Because both Carina and I went to Universiti Putra Malaysia.
Bad hats exist in every nook and corner of society, every community, every niche. In a university that boasts over 20 000 students, there will always be the bad students. But so will there be good students. There are students who excel in everything they do, they get brilliant grades in their papers, they represent the country in competitions, they contribute to the school in several avenues available, including the societies and occasional university functions that UPM is always very active in organizing. These are the good ones, but we don't really see the stories of that ex-UPM who won the Chevening scholarship to do his Post Graduate studies being circulated like wild fire around the Net, do we? Remember that Star Interview with TNB former CEO Ani Arope that was hotly circulated around the Net? How come nobody wanted to publicize the fact that Tan Sri Ani Arope is a proud graduate of Universiti Putra Malaysia, and still contributes to the development of this university via its Pusat Alumni UPM?
Instead every year we have to deal with newspaper articles questioning the credibility and qualifications of students who graduate from UPM. The numbers are telling, because many UPMers are unemployable graduates, and several employers openly question the quality of education that is available from local universities like UPM. These are but one of the bigger challenges that needs to be addressed by the university's administrators.
Now UPM has another bigger challenge to tackle. Hot on the heels of that controversial Ethnic Relations text, we have the circulation of a mob-video, apparently filmed in the grounds of Kolej 12, UPM (I recognized the cafeteria area, I used to stay there in my first semester). To add salt to the wound, we have someone who proudly holds the placard of 'Responsible Citizen, Sensointrovert', among many others, jumping up and down and posting updates after another, cut-outs after another of that unfortunate video. Not only that, our friend here is spreading his wings wide, hotlinking the exclusives that OTHER responsible citizens have chosen to redisplay, that repeat screening of something that is not meant to be sensationalized the way these people have chosen to. He is provoking people to speak and to speak up in the way he has spoken up.
This, I can accept. What I cannot accept is the way these bloggers, Sensointrovert in particular, has decided to instigate those of us who choose to be silent and continue to blog about personal issues, deemed insignificant and non-contributing to the 'country's better good'. They question the absence of the story in the mainstream papers, accusing the media of masking he things that matter. That the so-called huge-presses have opted to keep their mouths shut, and 'pretend' that all things are fine and dandy in bolehland, that the general public does not need to know about it.
They question our choices merely because they want to believe that responsible citizens should be molded in this cast. THEIR CAST.
Well, I'm sorry I didn't blog about it then because I have been rather busy with my work, and it took sometime before I was aware of the video. Perhaps, it is a fortunate thing that I don't trust the blogosphere as a reliable source of information, no thanks to the many irresponsible posting that is so widecast in this sphere.
What are you doing, my friend? In your quest to show the world just how awesome the students in UPM might turn out to be, you're also flushing down the drain, the list of good things that UPM has proven to produce. The brilliant, responsible students who choose not to exhibit their successes because they believe in humility, and they trust in patience and tolerance. SO MANY students go to Universiti Malaya, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Universiti Sains Malaysia and other local government-funded universities. So many of them have built their careers since graduating from university and these are not people to be frown upon, to have their diplomas and degrees mocked at. These are successful corporate figures, doctors, scientists, all having had their first taste of varsity life in what is now being widely instigated as a mob-producing university. No thanks to the blogosphere.
You know, you guys are no better yourself. Yes, the bunch of people bullying the sitting students in that video are a disgrace to UPM. They were jumping up and down, and singing hooligan chants that did more than disturb both Carina and me, and the scores of other UPM graduates and ex-graduates.
And yet at the same time, when I see the repeated pings to PPS questioning the integrity of this university by continuing to circulate that video, I am further saddened. This is almost like a mob, and who are you hurting? You're not really standing up to the bunch of hooligans who bullied the students. Instead you're damaging the reputation of an institution of higher learning that has been around for ages, that had produced batch after batch of successful graduates who still look back upon our years in this university with pride and reminiscence.
Local graduates leave our convocation ceremonies with more than a bated breath. From the moment we decided to pick up our degrees from a local university, we have to live with the widely accepted stigma that 'we will not be as good as our foreign university counterparts'. This is the kind of label that society has given unto us. We walk into university, highly doubting the credibility of our lecturers. We take exam papers that may seem like peanuts compared to what private universities and international world-reknown institutions require of their students. Yes, some of the courses in university may be questionable. Our education system has a lot of improving to do, and books like that Ethnic Relations text should have undergone more stringent editing.
Yes, I feel that that book was not necessary and uncalled for, but this is because I personally believe that societal integration starts from ourselves, not pseudo academic texts that places down articificial knowledge in a printed, bound copy. And that the rot started somewhere else, not with the government, nor did it start with the system.
It was human beings that built the system, and that rot stems within the human nature. You can have the best system in the world, tightened with the best screws and knots of a fair judicial system, but the underlying currents will always be there as long as we continue to fight each other because of our differences. The idea of peace is to keep the currents underneath, not to stir the murky waters and provoke an earthquake of tsunamic proportions, because there is no such thing as perfect filtration in this world. The fact is the muck will always exist, but it is in our duties as responsible citizens to keep the peace.
So here, I'd like fellow UPM-ers to speak up. Stand together against this other mob, this online mob that wants to tell the world that our alma mater is a lousy university, that the students who come out from that university learn nothing but bullying tactics. Give a voice to the students who are still pursuing their dreams in this university, share with them your confidence in the system (however weak), that it can still contribute to their education. Show them the importance of going beyond the books, of participating actively, of demonstrating integrity. If you want to talk about its shortcomings, go ahead, but be fair, tell the world about the good things, go beyond the idiotic curfews, and the silly courses that we had to do in school. Discuss the people you met in university, the ones who made a difference.
I'll start: UPM is the place where the dean of my faculty was kind enough to personally ensure that my application for a course transfer was approved in the shortest time possible. It is the place where I first joined AIESEC and met students from other universities like UM, UKM, USM, UUM and UTM. It has widened my social circles, introducing me to students who have inspired me in many ways, and who have carved their own names in the work that they have chosen to undertake.
I have had a mixed-bunch of lecturers during my time at university, not all good, but even the lesser qualified have had their impact in my pursuit of higher learning. UPM is the place where I first learnt how to write a good thesis, how to go out and market a product, how to conduct myself well in a job interview, how to write well, and how to keep learning as a priority focus throughout my life. It is the place that gave the friends who patiently helped me complete that stupid jigsaw puzzle for me to win back my boyfriend's heart. It is the place that has given me the friends that I hold most dearly to. And for all its shortcomings, I am very proud to be an alumni of UPM.
And to those of you who choose to delude yourselves in thinking that you pressured me into posting this, think again. I choose to post this because I say you are no better than that mob who bullied the silent protesters sitting at their tables giving out handouts. What you are saying here is not display of responsibility. Responsibility goes far deeper than sensationalizing issues that should not be sensationalized, it goes further than jumping on the bandwagon in order to get more hits, get the word around. Responsibility sometimes means that recognizing that undercurrents will always exist, will never be dispelled. It means you have to do what it takes to keep the underground water calm and prevent the event of a catastrophic volcanic eruption. And I will do whatever it takes to maintain that calm.
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