EIP 2018 REFLECTIONS: ABANG ASH
"I think we achieved our objective; to nurture the love of Physics amongst students."
I
was a bit skeptical and unconvinced at the first place about this program. I
didn’t have any problem being in this group as I familiar and closed with some
of them. Frankly speaking, I didn’t prioritize this program at the beginning and
I took granted for that. And why am I skeptical with this group? Maybe because
of late group meeting, venue deciding and program planning. As compared to
other groups, we were a bit left behind. The pressure that we had to face was
no chill. But, everything started to go smoothly after we were brainwashed by
our Coordinator, Azman. He said that, we have to concentrate and devote our
time in this program as it is counted in our CGPA. I don’t want to get low grade
in this course anyway.
As time goes by, slowly I could see
the bond of our group getting stronger. A lot of opinions contributed to the
program. After receiving brilliant ideas, we decided to put our
project’s title as ‘Empowering Interest in Physics’. I was appointed to be in
the bureau of Protocol and Program together with Lingeswari for the first few
weeks. I found it really hard to work with her at first as we rarely have time
to meet and discuss about the tentative of the program. Then, I told Azman to
recruit some of our team member to assist us in the bureau after realizing that
this program won’t succeed without a good tentative. And also, I realized that
I chose the most important bureau in the program. Lingeswari and I was
delighted to have Harith and Juliana to help us in completing our tasks.
Tentative programs, slots, modules,
scripts for the emcees and guest of honors, all settled by us. Meeting after
meeting were held, I started to see the members being cooperative and
participative in completing their respective tasks. Opinions, ideas,
discussions, objections, all happened at once. We had to sacrifice our time from
doing; assignments, tutorials, college projects, other project meetings and
study, just to ensure that the program goes smoothly as planned.
After long preparations, the day has
reached. I still wasn’t sure whether we could make it or not. Because I felt we
need extra time to prepare a better program. When the first group of students
entered for the registration, I was so nervous to see their fresh faces but
excited to befriend with them at the same time. I was so overwhelmed to see the
amount of students registered. Even though they were lesser than expected, I am so thankful as the students were volunteering to join and willing to
sacrifice their weekends for our program. This boosted up my feeling to be the
best facilitator as I could.
I said to myself; BE FAKE! On a
positive angle, as I am not an extrovert and talkative kind of person (with
strangers). I couldn’t believe that I made it to be jovial and ‘happy go lucky’
facilitator to the students throughout the program. For the first activity, was
the Ice-breaking session. Lingeswari and I were appointed to handle a group of
7 students named Pascal. As usual, it was a bit awkward at the beginning. But, that’s
the objective of this activity; to break the ice (awkwardness)! After sharing
about their background stories, I could see that the students started to feel
comfortable to interact within their team. I was amazed to hear their
ambitions; engineer, architect, accountant, all that needs a hard work to excel. After that, Lingeswari and I introduced to them our cheers for the
group. It was so surprising to see the students were eager to do the cheers.
The hall was so noisy at that time. I believe that I had sparked their
excitement for the next activity. Indeed, it was a very long and tiring day for
all of us. But, for the sake of our CGPA, we had to endure it and do our
best.
For the slots; which was 'Physics
Showtime', I was assigned with Suvitha to the station of Optics and Light. The
experiment we demonstrated was diffraction grating, showed them type of lenses
and explained the wavelength of the lights. Honestly, we only test ran the
experiment few minutes before because all the apparatuses were provided by the
school’s lab. After all, it went smoothly as planned. I was so relieved. Next
was the 'Quantum Race', as usual I was with Lingeswari appointed to in charge for
the 'Tic Tac Toe' station. It was really fun seeing the students running around
to complete their tasks. My station was quite easy to play but hard to get
points as it needs critical thinking skills. I was impressed to see teamwork that has developed amongst the students. Next, the last one was 'Glory of a
Physicist'. I was assigned to give some exposure pertaining Blaise Pascal. At
first, I didn’t even know what was his contributions but after a quick research,
I realized that he had contributed lots of things related to Physics. All these
was then explained to the students and they were mind-blown with that. These slots happened for two days.
Of course, it was really exhausting
but we all enjoying the moment with the students at the same time. I left the
students with heavy-heartedly. This is one of the experiences that I don’t want
to forget for the rest of my life. Of all the pressure, of getting module
rejected, of all misunderstood, of all late-night practices, of all sudden
meetings, of all time scarification, it all paid off to see students enjoyed
and hard to let us go.
