workshop

Under the coordination of our colleagues, Muhammad Ehsan Rana, Kamalanathan, Palvinderjit Kaur and Vijayaraj from the School of Computing & Technology (SoCT), a Salesforce Trailhead Superbadge workshop was conducted for a group of our students, in order to familiarize themselves with the latest programming knowledge and equip them with necessary technical skills.
 
45 of our students attained the “Superbadge” credential after the completion of the 8-hours workshop and the necessary modules; this becomes an added advantage for them to enrich their resume and to be exposed to more career opportunities in the future.

Salesforce is the innovative company behind the world’s #1 cloud-based Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform – with the knowledge sharing session being conducted by Salesforce experts, students broadened their knowledge in the fields of cloud computing and programming. These are necessary skills for them to secure good career opportunities as they graduate as IT Professionals of the future.

This summer has never been so amazing as we heard about our students’ experiences in the recently concluded The Great Lab (TGL) Summer Workshop, that was organized by CREST, a not-for-profit entity that was initiated to create a platform that promotes the industry, academia, and government to work together on research, design and development activities.

Participation in the workshop was on a selection basis; 49 of our APU students submitted a proposal to be qualified for the workshop, in which, 10 of them were selected for the event. The students embarked on a 4-days journey of knowledge and discovery; as they learned more about the relevant technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT), which are useful towards their ideation processes.

In addition, throughout the 4 days, students were trained on structured thinking, problem solving and pitching presentations, as they were given a task of developing an idea that was pitched to industry judges of the workshop. Our Diploma in Information & Communications Technology with a specialism in Software Engineering graduate, Summer Kho Zhi-Yuen, worked together with her team mates from other universities and eventually emerged as the 1st Prize winner at the pitching session!

In overall, it was an exciting experience for the students who attended the workshop. With better industry-ready skills, we look forward to seeing them excel in their future careers!

The monthly APU Student Workshop organised by Asia Pacific Language Centre (APLC) was held on 31st July, 2015 in Asia Pacific Language Centre (APLC) @ South City Plaza (SCP) from 2:30pm to 4:30 p.m. The workshop entitled “Effective Public Speaking – It’s not as hard as you think” aimed at building participants’ confidence and fluency in speaking in public. In addition, participants were introduced to different types of presentation skills, presentation methods and presentation language. It was attended by both APLC and APU Degree students.

The workshop started off with an ice-breaking session where participants introduced themselves to the group. It then moved on to a discussion session on selected topics. In one session, a participant was overcome with emotions while presenting, and this created empathy among the others.  The next session’s main activity which was designed to help improve impromptu speaking skill was the main highlight of the day. During this session, each group member had to collaborate with each other to maintain the flow of conversation using selected vocabulary. From this session, it was obvious that some participants have a natural born talent to speak in public while others were picking up the skills at an amazing speed while enjoying the laughter and funny banter.

In the end, the participants were taken through a series of slides and explanation on how to organise their presentation and pitfalls to avoid in making a public speech. Through written feedback, most who attended have requested more speaking sessions such as this to be held, and of course APLC strives to make sure this is done.

A talk entitled “Flying Through Crisis MH370: Lessons in Crisis Communications” was held on the 17th June 2015 (Wednesday) from 10.45am – 12.45pm in the FBM @ Mines campus for Tourism, Media and Communications students. A total of 110 students and lecturers attended the event.  The speaker was Mr Krishanamoorthy Muthaly, a full time journalist for the past 25 years. He is currently freelancing for CNN, German, Australian TV networks and newspapers in Malaysia. The talk was an enlightening view from the media perspective on how the MH370 crisis was handled. He shared interactive professional insights on how to project a better corporate image at a global level. He also promoted his new book co-written with Mr David Kirkham, who is a fellow crisis communication trainer. The book titled Flying Through Crisis MH370: Lessons in Crisis Communication touches on lack of practice, preparation and planning in facing the media and suggestions on how to overcome these issues.

Overall, it was an inspiring talk which dealt with issues of real-life media experience from a professional point of view.

A student workshop entitled “Stress Management” organised by Asia Pacific Language Centre (APLC) for APU and APLC students was held on 15th June 2015 (Monday), from 4.30p.m. – 6.00pm. The event which took place in APU Main campus was not only attended by APU and APLC students, but lecturers as well. The presenter was Mr Kenny Cheah Soon Lee, a full-time lecturer from the Faculty of Business & Management. The workshop focused on creating awareness on how to identify stress level, depression and the effective methods of managing them. Mr. Cheah, who was insightful and motivating throughout the whole session, shared various techniques which filled the participants with useful guides. As a bonus, participants were taken through a soul-searching session at the end.

Overall, it was an inspirational session which highlighted the importance managing stress positively and effectively.