'Abe' A Hit At Pre-Employment Program 2013

Tronoh, 24th February - “Do not be shy to ask and maximize your network”, were among the wise words shared at the Pre-Employment Program (PEP) held in D1 recently. Among the things shared with the lucky participants that day were a quick view on career world, how to impress the boss and ways to win over an interviewer.

The event kicked-off at 9.30 a.m. with a talk by Mr Nor Idham (Manager, Career Advisory and Alumni), or fondly known as Abe among the students. Students were fed information on finding and keeping a job, writing an impressive curricular vitae (CV) and the importance of attitude over academic results in one’s career. Students were also taught on how to write a proper and precise e-mails requesting for internship placements. 

Later at noon, ending his session with a wish of luck to the students, Mr Idham invited his friend, Mr Yazid Misnan (Senior HR Manager, Motorola Solutions) to proceed him. Mr Yazid’s humorous approach made sure that the students gave full attention to everything he was sharing. “Be comfortable with yourself, find your strength and grab the opportunity”, was one of the many memorable lines from Mr Yazid on being interviewed successfully. Also, he gave some useful tips on grooming for an interview.

Mr Yazid during his turn on the floor.

Grooming for men:

• Solid colour, conservative suit

• White, long-sleeved T-shirt

• Conservative tie

• Dark socks, professional shoes

• Very limited jewellery

• Neat and professional hairstyle

• Go easy on the aftershave

• Neatly trimmed nails

• Portfolio or briefcase

Grooming for women:

• Suit/ baju kurung

• Shoes

• Limited jewellery (non-distracting)

• Simple make-up (non-distracting)

• Neat hairstyle/scarf

• Portfolio or briefcase

It was an interesting and beneficial day indeed for the students that attended the event, especially those in their final semesters, who will be joining the ranks of alumni soon.   

By Munir Juman, PE

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TSER Away Day 2013

Tronoh, 22nd Feb – Getting to know each other PETRONAS scholars was the main objective of the Talent Sourcing and Employee Relations Department in PETRONAS when they came to UTP for their away day. They started their program of 2 days with an ice-breaking session and Key Performance Indicator session in the morning before the start of their outdoor activities in the oval park. Both PETRONAS scholars and TSERD employees actively participated in all activities for the day.

The second day was all about giving back to the community so TSERD divided to two teams for two locations: Rumah Nur Kaseh orphanage and Masjed Nasirah. TSERD employees bought some school supplies for the orphans and did cleaning and painting work in Masjed Nasriah. When the head of TSERD Mrs. Norhaliza Ibrahim was asked about her opinion of this event she said that since she is the new head of TSERD she was looking for this event to interact with her department employees and to bulid a good relationship with PETRONAS scholars. She said that they are looking do this more frequently other places too.

1)Interview with Sir Halim. 2)Sports Event with all the participants. 3)Fun fun fun. 4)Cheerleaders. 5)Project Manager.

1)Orphan Home located in Bota.

2)Volunteer painting the wall of the home.

3)Say Cheese!

4)Briefing.

5)Financial contribution to orphan home from PETRONAS staff.

By Rannad Hamadah, PE

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Sept ’11 Fundraising Futsal Tournament

UTP, 22 February- The UTP Open Futsal tournament that was held in V5 Futsal Court was indeed a successful event organized by the September '11 batch.

A total of fifteen teams participated in the tournament, comprising 12 male teams and 3 female teams. The tournament went on for two consecutive days. The Project Manager for this event was Priveen Raj Santa Moorthy while the referees of this tournament were Priveen Raj Santa Moorthy and Arun Raj Latchumanan.

For the Male category, Mowkaleen FC (left) emerged as champion, defeating team Hanizam FC in a one-sided final with a score of 5-1. According to the captain of the winning team, Ahmed Adel Elsharkawy, the key to their success was the unity amongst his team members.

For the female category, Team Wakalaka FC emerged as the champion team. The team captain, Nur Syazana Bt. Ahmad Tajuddin complimented the organizers for being friendly and supportive throughout the event. The winning teams received a hamper and a certificate each. According to the Assistant Project Manager, Liyana Rosely, the purpose of the event was to raise funds for their September Batch Dinner.

The tournament, which featured both local and international students among the participants managed to foster a bond between them and enhance unity amongst the participants. Despite the complaints about the lack of publicity and poor management on the part of the organizers, the audience was extremely pleased with the co-operation of the teams and the organizers, who created a platform that promotes cooperation and integrity between those of different races and nationalities. This two-day event raised approximately RM 550 in funds.

By Muhammad Anwar Ibrahim, ME

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“Employees look for CGPAs and CVs” - Career Talk 2013

UTP, 20th February 2013 – “Your curriculum vitae (CV) or résumé is your employer’s first impression of you,” said Dr. Suriati Sufian, Acting HOD of Chemical Engineering Department of Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP). “There is no second chance in making first impressions,” said AP Dr Ku Zilati Ku Shaari Advisor of American Institute of Chemical Engineers UTP Student Chapter.

Making a great first impression on your employee is important to secure a job during an interview session. Appropriate dress code, self-confidence and punctuality are essential for a successful interview.  Apart from your Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA), your extra co-curricular activity can help you stand out amongst tons of other candidates.

Mr. Nor Idham who works in Counseling & Career Guidance unit in UTP says that he had successfully helped a student with a CGPA of 1.67 to acquire a job placement in a company in the Oil & Gas industry- one that is known for its selectivity when it comes to fresh graduates or interns. Mr. Idham says that CVs and cover letters play a huge role in helping you to land a job.





Project Manager Ahmed Kamal Saad Fathallah Abulinain (EE, 3rd year 1st semester) tells us that the purpose of the event was to inform UTP's students about the importance of planning their career before graduation in terms of how to find a job or internship placement, how to write a good CV and how to pass an interview successfully. Ahmad Kamal also attributed the disappointing number of participants to ongoing tests.

It is unclear whether or not the event will return next year.

By Ciam Cheah Jun, PG

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Corporate Grooming Model Casting [PHOTOS]

Below are photographs from the event:

Photographs by Lyana Husni, BIS

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KEM PENGHAYATAN ISLAM 2013

Tronoh, 2^nd February - Over 74 foundation students had participated in the Kem Penghayatan Islam recently, on the 1st and 2nd of February 2013. This event was organized by Rakan Masjid University Teknologi Petronas (RMUTP) with the cooperation of the mosque administration unit.

                                                                                                                                                                     

The main objective of the program was to strengthen bonds and provide an understanding of how Islam can be applied through every angle in our lives, because Islam is the holistic deen. It was an opportunity to raise awareness of their responsibility as Muslim students and their compulsory duty to da’wah. In this event, it was explained that preaching is not only on giving tazkirah, but also to be the qudwah hasanah (a good role model).

The event started on the evening of 1st February with a briefing on how the event will be conducted. The next morning, they attended Qiamulail together at Masjid An-Nur. The Saturday morning was welcomed by the Dhuha Session which gave the students exposure to one of the encouraged sunnah prayer, as mentioned in the Sahih Bukhari.

Then, the program continued with a peer talk given by Hazeem Mahayadin with the topic entitled, “Islam is the way of life.” He mentioned the beautiful ruling in Islam, and what makes the akhlak of Prophet Muhammad S.A.W admirable. According to Hazeem, from the very small matters, to the very huge matters such as ruling a country, Islam has already shown its know-how over the centuries.

Next, in conjunction with the theme, the Qudwah Hasanah Module was inserted which gives further exposure on how the ‘da’wah’ is applicable to every single action in our lives. Participants were given the mission of capturing 3 three pictures that show the deeds of what is meant by Qudwah Hasanah. Each group was given half an hour to complete the mission. After performing zuhur prayer and lunch hour, each group had to present the pictures that they took earlier. The participants were seen to grasp the actual meaning of Qudwah Hasanah.

The participants had a slot with Tuan Haji Abdul Jalil Bin Abdullah entitled “Sang Pahlawan Ilmu.” He explained that all of us must have a target in our life. He asked the participants to write their goals within 5 years.

The peak of the programme was a forum on the topic of da’wah which featured former vice president of Rakan Masjid, Sister Maziah Bt Abu Mukhtar, Brother Arif and Alhamdulillah, with the special appearance by Chanice who had just join Rakan Masjid’s big family recently. First, Brother Arif mentioned the purposes of preaching in Islam. Next, Chanice shared her personal experience when embracing Islam. She said, “Muslim also has to search the hidayah, just like the non-Muslim.” It the other words, “don’t take Islam for granted.” The point under the keyword of the importance of da’wah was further elaborated by Sister Maziah. They also shared the challenges in da’wah especially at university level and also, how to balance between academic pursuits and preaching.

The programme sought to bring benefit to the participants by way of displaying the need to understand the role of not just being a student, but also as a Muslim student, and more importantly, on how to apply the deen in every aspect of life.

By, Basyirah binti Hibatur Rahman,CE & Adhwa Anuar, ICT

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VC: “No new campus on the way, trimester system being evaluated.”

Tronoh, 8^th February – Amidst growing talk of a new campus in the works at Putrajaya, Heart of Tronoh felt it would be best to correct any misinformation by seeking clarification on the matter from the Vice Chancellor himself. Speaking to us in his office at Chancellor Complex, the Datuk Ir (Dr) Abdul Rahim Hashim was quick to shoot down the rumour. Shaking his head, Datuk replied: “It was under consideration at one point, but we’ve set it aside for the moment. There is no new campus under construction.”  

According to recent whispers flourishing online, particularly through social media, a new campus is being built in Putrajaya to house the Petroleum Engineering and Petroleum Geoscience departments, and upon completion both faculties would migrate there, taking a sizeable amount of students along with them. Speculation somewhat reached a climax when it was posted to a popular Facebook page frequented by UTP students, further exciting the grapevine.  

Datuk Dr Abdul Rahim also expressed his personal opinion on the matter, saying that it wouldn’t be a good idea to split the undergraduate programs into separate campuses. “We don’t want two different cultures to form; Putrajaya is very different from Tronoh,” said the VC, who then added that if at all they were to set up a new facility elsewhere it would likely be for postgraduate research.

We sought a statement from Datuk Dr Abdul Rahim on  the trimester system, which was also subject to recent gossip, with some sources claiming that the system would be repealed in the near future in favour of its predecessor. “The trimester system is still under review. One of our professors is evaluating its pros and cons after 3 years of implementation. We will wait for his evaluation before proceeding with any changes. For now, nothing is confirmed.”

UTP currently has three semesters a year, each with its own intake of new students. A semester starts in January, May or September, with 14 weeks of studies per semester.

By Marc Raphael, PE

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Point of Salvation: Mahmoud Shehata

‘HOT Person of Interest’ is a feature article we hope to publish once a month, on a current or a former UTP student that stands out among us for something he/she has achieved or been trough.

Our first POI was a second year mechanical engineering student from Egypt, Mahmoud Shehata. He spoke to HOT at our general meeting, relating his experience surviving cancer.

His story started with him lying on a bed in Ipoh general hospital. Three doctors, one after the other approached him asking the same questions- smoking and drinking habits, illegal drug taking as well as sexual activities.

“You have leukemia, a form of blood cancer. 97 % of your blood cells are cancerous,” a hematologist broke it down to him two days later. A person with leukemia experiences an abnormal production of white blood cells caused by a defect in immature white blood cells or the bone marrow, the soft tissue inside bones, which produces the blood cells itself. Leukimia can be caused by smoking, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), family history, drug taking and genetic disorder though in Mahmoud’s case, an unknown reason.

Upon this discovery he couldn’t help but to think, “Is this where I meet my end?”.

“Ever since I was a child, I have always believed I was different from everyone else. When I was twelve, I had a dream of going to Japan, starting my own company there and defeating the Japanese at their own game. Everyone thought I was crazy- how could a twelve-year old boy who does not speak Japanese, not to mention even English (at the time), start a company in Japan?”

The V2 meeting room was in silence as Mahmoud carried on, “I then received my first chemotherapy cycle and for ten whole days, my body temperature was between 38ᵒC and 40ᵒC- my immune system was shutting itself down. I can’t forget the moment I started fainting, I looked deep into my mother’s eyes. I told her that I think I am dying. I was asked by the nurse to say my last prayer. Once again it was the same question burning on my mind; is this it? How can this be the end when I have yet to achieve my dreams? When I have yet to change the world? When I have yet to fulfill my purpose? Those questions made me fight through the haziness and open my eyes again”.

In two years, Mahmoud had five chemotherapy cycles followed by a bone marrow transplant. 

Today, he is free from cancer.

Mahmoud hasn’t changed the world, neither did he fulfil his purpose yet. Mahmoud’s story is not about him; his story is about someone whose life was saved by his own sense of purpose in life.

The question remains; do you have a purpose in life? Do you have a cause? A reason that makes you wake up from bed every day and shape your actions in life? It does not matter what others think about it. What matters is your faith in it, from all your heart and that you are passionate about it.

Mahmoud gave his talk on the 16th of January 2013. If you would like to contact Mahmoud feel free to email him on m.shehata91@gmail.com or you can connect with him on twitter @iShe7ata.

If you or someone you know has been through a significant experience in your life, or who has accomplished something special in life and would like to share it with everyone to inspire them, please feel free to volunteer.  Contact us at heartoftronoh@gmail.com and help us write change.

From the brink of death.

By Mostafa Mohamed, EE

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Smart Group Explorace

Oval Park, 3rd February – An Explorace was held on this beautiful day by the Rakan Masjid Society. Many students participated in the event both, with the majority of them being students in their first semester of Foundation. The event started with an early morning briefing at 8am, followed by the task sheet being handed out to the participants. Two of our reporters followed the students to each checkpoint. Overall there were 6 checkpoints and each checkpoint had different tasks to be completed by participants. Among the tasks were to memorize hadiths in a given time period, perform a nasyid with the aid of musical instruments, and testing the participants’ general knowledge in Prophet Muhammad’s history. All in all, everybody had a good time and each group received a prize for participating, with the top 3 groups receiving special achievement gifts. For more event photographs, please click here.

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MMK January 2013

Tronoh, 2nd February – Minggu Mesra Kampus finally arrived for the January 2013 semester with beautified booths lined up to attract potential new recruits. With Pocket D decorated with colourful tents, arrows leading to booths, loud mixed music and the spirited clubs’ recruitment teams, the air was festive and lively, a far cry from the usual drab atmosphere of the academic complex. Recruitment teams could be seen hard at work attempting to draw the attentions of passers-by. A few of the bigger names like MEDTECH, Rakan Masjid (RM), Institute of Engineers Malaysia (IEM), SIFE were situated in the middle of pocket D while the other clubs like the Chess club, the English club, the ICheMe, the IChe, and Petrobots are situated all around stretching from block 19 to block 18. Heart of Tronoh’s (HOT) very own talent scouts were there as well (below), actively recruiting new members for the exciting semester ahead.

HOT released its recruitment statistics two days ago, citing an addition of 30 members to its growing team of reporters and photographers. Senior Editor at HOT Marc Raphael Parrikal (PE, 1st/2nd) believes the that the significant increase in manpower will allow HOT to accomplish a lot more this semester: "With all this fresh blood, there's no holding us back. We can implement all the exciting changes we've planned for HOT. It's been a highly encouraging recruitment." 

Another society that enjoyed a very successful recruitment drive was the Institute of Engineers Malaysia (IEM), with more than 200 sign-ups at their booth, according to their Human Resource Executive member, Muhammad Khairulsyamim bin Kamaruddin (EE, 1st/2nd).

HOT wishes the best of luck to all clubs and societies in carrying out their activities for the semester.

Pocket D buzzing with activity.

  By Hariz Roslan, CE

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The Classroom: Like The Good Old Days

Tronoh, 1st February – Candies of the 90’s lined up on one side with participants dolled up in school uniforms. The Classroom brings out the kid in them as they giggle and enjoy all the silly games most of us played as carefree children back in school.
The emcee began proceedings at The Classroom, held in Seminar Room 7, by commenting on how it was so reminiscent of our past back in school. Committee member and participant Kiruphakaran a/l Nadesen, (CV, Foundation 3rd) supported the statement with an enthusiastic cry from the crowd: “It’s awesome! Very, very nice. Really brings back memories.”

Best Dressed Female – Nurfarhana.

There was also an award for best costume among participants. Hariz Ridzuan, (PE, Foudnation 3rd) grabbed the spotlight as he won the Best Dressed Male award with his smart looking navy uniform. His interest in cosplay had cost him RM 250. Nevertheless, he found the event amusing and worth the money. As for the Best Dressed Female, Nurfarhana Aisya Binti Anuar, (PE, 1st/1st) walked up the hall to claim the prize in her Aikido beauty, the hakama.

Organisers also invited cosplayers from other states to fully showcase this unique and interesting bit of Japanese culture. Among the famous anime characters spotted at Seminar Room 7 that evening were Monkey D. Luffy (One Piece), Giant (Doraemon), Ren Suzugamori (Vanguard), Blacksmith (Ragnarok), Saber (Fate/Stay Night), and the vocaloid family: Meko, Kaito and Rin. They all strutted on the stage as the opening theme of Digimon was played.

Throughout the night participants were flocking to the cosplayers, posing for pictures with their favourite characters. Most guests also lined up to have their portrait drawn in anime style, while some enjoyed the karaoke, the dances, and the beloved eraser game. Perhaps the greatest attraction that day was the food. Organisers prepared a spread of old time favourites for guests, including an assortment of candy most visitors could associate to fond memories of their childhood.

Candies of the yesteryear.

HOT was fortunate enough to interview all three vocaloid characters, Miku (Afiqah from UTM, Melaka), Rin (Zhi Hui from USM, Ipoh) and Kaito (Khairina from KPTM, Cheras). They enjoyed the event, happy that so many enjoyed their little performance. All three of them decided to take on vocaloid characters because they have variation to the costumes and are easy to pose as. They thanked the committee profusely, hoping to be invited again for such events.

All participants and invitees showcased their talents admirably. This was in line with one of the targeted objectives indicated by Project Manager Eleena Aqmal Binti Ab Rahim, (ME), i.e. to organize a cultural where students could express themselves, their talent and passion in a healthy way and to make UTP a more interesting and attractive educational place to learn more about other countries than the typical engineering universities.

“On behalf of Road to Japan GEP members, I would like to thank anyone and everyone who came to support Blossom of Japan, whether a passer-by or a participant in our activities. It means a lot to us to see that UTP students and staff to accept a different concept of event based of the country, Japan.

My personal say in this is that I hope that our events have inspired UTP people to promote cultural differences in the world and also in terms of the fresh ideas that we used in our events, and how to execute them in a short time. I also hope that GEP would encourage more students to visit other countries around the globe and be able to organize an event which promotes that country in UTP. This will definitely give the UTP students and staff more exposure to other countries and to learn more about that specific country itself in hope to have a better understanding of one another, in the future. Insya-Allah,”

Line up of male cosplayers.

The eraser game – memories!

Line up of female cosplayers.

Best Dressed Male – Hariz Ridzuan.

By Adhwa Anuar, ICT.

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Inside Malaysia's Oil and Gas Industry - Dato' Wee Yiaw Hin

Tronoh, 1^st February – The era of “easy oil” has ended. Now, there is a need for research, analysis and exploration in much more depth. These were the sentiments expressed by Dato’ Wee Yiaw Hin, PETRONAS’s Executive Vice President (EVP) of Exploration and Production, during the one hour talk held in Seminar Room 7, Undercroft.

“I liked it, very much,” said Zaiddin Fikri bin Azmi (BIS, Final Year Final Sem). For someone who took a course unrelated to the topic, he was able to understand the talk fairly well thanks to the casual flow of presentation by Dato’ Wee, he added.

The contents of the talk are summarised below:

The demand for petroleum today is 90 million barrels of oil per day. After comparing the oil prices in 2004 to those in 2008, he highlighted the few emerging technologies involved in furthering the advance of oil exploration.
Some of these include:

•          Enhanced Oil Recovery
•          Increase of oil extraction from the reservoir up to 50%
•          Oil exploration in the Artic continent
•          Start developing Biofuel from Algae
•          CCS  – carbon capture & storage

PETRONAS is also making moves at the global stage. Recently, it took over Progress Canada for 6 billion USD to acquire the technology to explore and produce shale gas.

The EVP also highlighted the “crew change”- the working population - of the industry in the past and now. There are too many fresh engineers, and between them and the senior engineers there is an extreme generation gap. The field of engineering now is such that 50% of the current engineers will retire in the next 7 to 10 years.

Current landscape of Exploration and Production (E&P) in Malaysia:

•         65-70% income of PETRONAS comes from E&P
•         Currently, Malaysia has 430 fields; 134 out of 430 fields are producing Oil & Gas.
•         Gas resources in Malaysia is around 15,000 billion (expected to deplete after 70 years)   while oil resources is around 5000 billion (will last for 30 years).
•        Over 250 billion ringgit has been spent in the Oil & Gas sector by PETRONAS.

PETRONAS is implementing its strategies in 3 areas:

•      Domestic - Driving Enhanced Oil Recovery aggressively, start re-exploring marginal fields, with aggressive exploration
•      International - Lots of venture between government
•      Capability - Enhance basic capability, E&P tech centre, Inter and Intra Business programme.

Dato’ Wee also included an overview of the current Oil & Gas industry and the exploration landscape. There were also a few words on leadership which he shared with the future engineers seated in front of him. It was an informative and enjoyable talk, worthwhile for all those planning to venture into the industry of Oil & Gas.

By Adhwa Anuar, ICT

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MYLDS – A Platform for Future Leaders

Universiti Malaya, January 25 : With “Impact Now!” as its theme, Malaysian Leadership Development Seminar (MyLDS) saw almost 60 delegates from Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP) consisting of both members and nonmembers of the International Association of Students in Economic and Commercial Sciences (AIESEC) participating actively in the Malaysian annual national conference in Universiti Malaya. The seminar gathers youth from local and abroad to allow them to discover and rediscover the leadership qualities they had in them besides urging them to create a positive impact to the society.

Among the highlights of the seminar was Malaysia Youth to Business forum (Y2B). It brought together top-notch businessmen from successful corporate companies such as MSC Malaysia, Microsoft Malaysia, Ernst & Young, Accenture, Danone Dumex, Standard Chartered and Proctor and Gamble (P&G) to engage with the participants in exploring topics such as innovation, entrepreneurship, leadership and corporate responsibility.

The Global Village on the other hand, was an event where one could ‘travel’ around various countries in a night. There were a lot of cultural interactions and showcasing of customs and traditions of other nations. Breaking the barriers of geographic boundaries, the assortment and multiplicity of numerous places were demonstrated through a variety of booths and cultural performances.

All in all, it was a memorable week for many as they were inspired and motivated to reach for the skies. MyLDS was a perfect platform to develop leadership skills, teamwork and confidence besides improving one’s networking. For those who missed it this year, look out for it next year!

UTP delegates performing a hyped up square dance which was the main stream of entertainment for all the delegates during the whole seminar.

Posing for a picture just before performing a power-packed bhangra performance which brought a thunderous round of applause from the audience during Global Village.

A ‘kolam’ using coloured rice and lighting oil lamps around the booth. Visitors were allowed to try the traditional Indian musical instruments displayed.

UTP delegates wearing the same t-shirt and enthusiastically participating in the square dances of other local committees. 

Caught in action while trying to promote UTP’s ‘Oppa AIESEC Style’ t-shirt to the other delegates.

By Charlene Fernandes, CE

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