Swinburne Sarawak

Hello everyone,

I am Jenice. I have just started my internship in Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak Campus last Tuesday. Well, working in a real industry is totally something fresh to me and of course, I am excited to be an OL (office lady)!

Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak Campus is the only international branch campus of Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia. It is located in Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia.

I am extremely glad that Swinburne Sarawak is willing to accept my application and yes, I am officially a PR trainee under Business Development and Communications Department, specifically Communications and Public Relations Unit. There are four persons in this unit – Nadeha (assistant manager), Sheryl (web management), David (PR executive) and Veronica (communications officer).

My first week in Swinburne Sarawak is pretty interesting. However, I have to say that I am not doing much for this week, probably because everything is still new to me and they prefer to handle those “heavy” major works by themselves.

The first day I came here, David brought me around the campus and introduced me to some colleagues from other departments. From here, I noticed that Swinburne Sarawak emphasizes on good internal communication. It is better to know others from different departments since all departments work collaboratively.

Besides, Nadeha briefed me on the role that PR plays in Swinburne Sarawak. She said it is important to maintain good relations with the press and government. She stressed on the budget management since our unit is also in charge of advertising. As mentioned earlier, internal communication is pivotal. Not to mention the importance of teamwork and ability of multi-tasking.

Here is the summary of my work for the first week:

Normally, the first thing I do when I reach the office is reading newspaper. Swinburne Sarawak has a comprehensive collection of media clippings. What they are collecting is not just news related to Swinburne, but anything that can potentially provide opportunity for Swinburne to gain publicity. Besides, news that is relevant to higher education is another aspect that we are looking at. As a foreign university branch campus, Swinburne Sarawak is keeping its track to the Malaysia’s higher education standard.

Reading newspaper and analysing the relevant news can take me more than an hour every morning (don’t get shocked! :P ). This is because I am not only reading English papers, but also Mandarin and Malay newspapers. Knowing multi-languages can be an advantage in this instance. Veronica is ‘previously’ the only person who understands Mandarin in this unit. Since I join in, I can help to share her workloads by covering the Mandarin newspapers.

After going through the papers, David and Veronica will assign some works for me and most of them are writing. To date, I had written a thank you letter and a complaint letter. Besides, I also helped to draft a 150 words short article to describe our institution. The description is used to enter The Star Education Fair 2010 that will be held on 9th and 10th January 2010 in Kuala Lumpur.

Another thing that I do is translation (English to Mandarin). Doing translation can be a tough task. I have to translate English sentences into Mandarin, maintaining its original meaning with good grammar and vocabulary. Sounds hard, right? But I love doing it as it is challenging and something that I have never expected. I had helped Veronica to translate two English media release and one advertorial into Mandarin version. Since I am the new blood here, they always like to have my opinion (as a third party/‘outsider’ view) on both their English and Mandarin advertisements. Chinese community occupies more than half of the populations in Kuching and this is the reason why Swinburne Sarawak is focusing on Chinese media, not only English and Malay media.

Swinburne Sarawak is currently busy with the preparation for campus’s open day on 12 December. I had been invited to attend their staff meeting during my first day here. It provided a good opportunity for me to learn and understand how much hard works have to be done for an open day event like this. Additionally, I had been given a chance to brainstorm the news angle and a catchy title for the advertorial that will be published few days in advance to the actual open day. With regards to this, I had come out with a few paragraphs to elaborate the news angle (I do hope my little idea can be useful for them). Besides, I helped David to update the content of relevant media release. They have a standard template for both advertorial and media release. What I did was just going through and trying to improve or update the information.

On Friday morning, Nadeha told me that she had just received a last minute notification a day ago to prepare for the visit by delegates of ‘Leadership Adventure Program’ to Swinburne Sarawak. From here, I was amazed by her high efficiency in handling an event within such a short time. She said, “Being a PR person, we should always expect for the ‘unexpected’!”

This program was organised by Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE) and University Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS). About 80 university students from all over Malaysia had joined this program. The head of delegation was Professor Datin Napsiah Mahfoz.

Swinburne Sarawak had arranged a campus tour for them and briefed them on some unique features of Swinburne Sarawak. Nadeha had tagged me along with her for the rehearsal and actual event in that morning. Thanks Nadeha for giving me such an opportunity to participate and learn.

My thoughts:
I may be too new for my senior colleagues and I may not be as capable as them. Nevertheless, I am willing to learn and looking forward to work more and perform better for Swinburne Sarawak in the following weeks.


Jenice
Curtin Bentley