Taylor's and MAD.TU
One of the reasons Taylor's University stands out for me is the stress they place on self-development. Academically they may not always be taking the lead, but being a Taylorian opens doors of opportunities for everyone who takes initiative and they encourage students to do so. After all, given 4 interviewees who have GPAs of over 3.5, do employers really care about the certificates you obtain from tertiary education institutions? Especially when you don't present yourself well? Last August they even set up a whole department dedicated to training and recognising student participation in extra-curricular activities called the SHINE Award centre. I love the amount of support they provide to student organisations. It's great because student bodies are the livelihood of the campus. Competition amongst clubs and societies to out do one another sets their members on a strive for reaching professionalism. The individual clubs offer their members chances to work with partnering organisations beyond campus, some even have their development tracks. It is awesome. I think students, because of club activities, also become much more driven to take initiative. Taylor's allocates a great deal of resources into developing students beyond the classroom. Perhaps it is due to the structure of the campus grounds itself also, there are a great many places where students can convene to hold events, that makes it easier for clubs to survive. Yesterday, I participated in a workshop called the Empowerment Series. It ran from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., the BOD and EXCO members of all clubs were invited to learn how to successfully run a student organisation. Facilitators spoke about everything from attitude to the paperwork. The second part is this Saturday and I think the fact we even have trainings like these are a testimony to the efforts TU management pours into developing their student leaders. During the workshop I got the opportunity to speak to a lot of students from different clubs. And I realised then, everyone is in their club because they champion a purpose. They all want to raise awareness regarding the themes of their organisation, they all want to make a difference. I was asked what makes MAD.TU different from other clubs, I've realised now it's because we're not championing issues, we are championing the Youth. We believe in collaboration as a key to integration and success. MAD.TU stands for Make A Difference at Taylor's University. Our vision is to build a community of students who care, about themselves, their people and societal issues. To help people realise they are part of something bigger than their own campus communities, they are part of Malaysia and the world. As university students, we are now at a phase when we should start exploration. Within ourselves and what role we want to play in the larger community. Making A Difference may sound intimidating, but our club is not about changing the world. We're set on our efforts to make even the slightest of difference in our members, even if it just means making people more aware of their surroundings. Because small steps need to be taken to lead to a larger change. For those who decide to leap, that's even better! As the founders of the club, we met during a conference where we realised the importance of awareness to our surroundings. Yes, we have a lot of hope and energy. Yes, we may not make a difference in the system. But during tertiary education is the time for us to discover. Now is the time to know, now is the time to channel our youthful energy and ideas into trying for a solution. Cause if not now, when? The very worst thing is to be ignorant. And we may feel frustrated and tired, but we can rest later when we enter the working world where people are tied down by obligations. I'd like to take the opportunity now to stress that we are not supporting any political organisations, nor do we agree or disagree with the society's systems. MAD.TU is a club focused on solutions, not lingering on fruitless arguments. One of our core values is respect and embracing openness, so we respect diversity in opinions. In fact, diversity is the most important aspects of collaboration and a key component in success. We are not going to enforce beliefs on our participants. We only want to bring knowledge into our events and let the audience judge for themselves. Although we are founders of the club, we won't claim to know everything. We barely do. We are still in the early stages of learning. We realise that there are tons of others just like us, that's why we are forming MAD.TU, to invite everyone to embark on the learning journey together with us.
