August 4, 2019, by Lee Mei Kee
Tropical Medicine and Beyond (TMAB) Personal Experience
Wei Kit, a participant from UNM, shared his experience in TMAB Summer School in this article.
Tropical Medicine and Beyond (TMAB) is a pilot module aimed at educating Health Sciences students about all sorts of health and healthcare issues that exists in the tropics with introduction to some complementary and traditional medicine.
This truly beautiful module started its first day on the 8th of July 2019 and I am sure it was a unique experience for many. For the visiting students from the UK: travelling by your own for the first time, immersing yourself into a foreign culture, and living with mosquitoes and cockroaches for the first time ever were topics that constantly echoed within the walls of our classroom. I guess it is safe to say that it had challenged everyone, including myself, in more than one aspect of life!
TMAB has been easily the top 10 best things in my life that I have invested time and energy into. The skills developed here – hard skills or soft – are precisely what employers want to see in their prime candidates; and also, what you would want to hone in order to mature and grow. Firstly, ‘How to Deal with Stress’ is the main skill developed, from having to complete the module within 2 weeks and its final exam 3 days after the last class, having to prepare a presentation on an alien topic in only 3 days with strangers who you have just met a week ago, and to top it all off, doing all these while travelling around with your new friends. This brings me to the second skill, ‘Work-Life Balance’. Besides that, ‘People and Social Skills’ also earned its place in the top 3. Throughout the module, I have been immersed fully into a class of 37 with only one other Malaysian student. Sounds scary? That’s how I know I need to do this for myself, and it played out so beautifully in the end too.
It was honestly such a pleasure bringing the visiting students around, being a tourist myself and seeing new things in new perspectives. Ultimately through all the fun and games, chats and laughter, I have been blessed enough to have made quality friendships that I am sure would continue in the UK when I transfer over in September 2019. Better yet, a great friendship bloomed amongst the Malaysia Campus lot as well. I have managed to make two best friends, Amna and Denise, while just being mere acquaintances for 2 years.
This module has meant so much to me in so many ways. I am happy to say that I have definitely grown as a person and as a student after these 2 weeks, learning different cultures and also from each other. To conclude, TMAB is the place to:
Live: Travel, New Experiences.
Learn: Module Topics, From Yourself, From Others.
Love and Befriend: New Friends, New Culture.
and ultimately, be a Global Citizen.
Wei Kit posing with participants from the UK campus.
Article by: Wong Wei Kit (MPharm Year 2 student)
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