Soul of Academia

To quote Clayton M. Christensen “the only way to do great work is to love what you do.”

This implies that having passion in what we do determines the work that we deliver. This quote resonates with how we are trying to find happiness in our career. As our work fills a large part of life, the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what we believe and what we love to do. The last module for BC4DCP 2021(Group 1) conducted by Prof Dr Rose Alinda Alias is about the Soul of Academia. This module is eye opening for me as it answers the question on the purpose of being an academia.

Being part of academia, is it by choice? is it by chance? The mentimeter activity conducted in class shows that there are participants that become lecturers in this field because they really love teaching and some declare fate that brought them there. I started my journey in academia after a few years working in the legal industry as a lawyer and legal executive. Having the idea that being an academic is only to teach and mark exam papers, my teaching style would be mimicking my law lecturers during my degree studies. My first term as a full-time lecturer was tough as I had 300 students in a mass lecture and had to mark hundreds of assignments and exam manuscripts. Fulfilling my dream to join UTM as a lecturer, I pursued my PhD from 2016-2019 and a few months after my viva, I was offered the position of senior lecturer in UTM. Alhamdulillah. I can say that being in academia is my choice. I love being in the university environment, a garden of knowledge where sharing and gaining knowledge is practiced and surely not for material success. Therefore, I always take the chance to improve myself to be good at teaching, conducting research, leading community-service programmes and others that are beneficial for the society. My friends, seeing me taking a different route from them, as they have become senior in legal practice, always support me in my career. My family is the backbone of my success.

In this short one-year experience in UTM, I can say that being a lecturer in UTM is a totally different experience for me. I have learnt that academic job scope is not totally on teaching as we have to fulfill other duties or we call it 7P. We have to put our soul into academia. I realized that I have to think about what kind of legacy that I want to leave behind? In my UTM journey, I plan to become an associate professor in 5 years and a professor at least 10 years from now. I believe that becoming a professor will give me the chance to shape someone and it is an opportunity for me to contribute more to society. In that journey, I will ensure that my leadership is guided by my academic soul. It is vital to shape our soul as the traits and behavior of a person comes from the soul. Additionally, my academia soul must be aligned with the university soul to reach the vision and mission of UTM. In performing my leadership in UTM, I must ensure that my academia soul leading my behaviors such as ready to collaborate with other staff, professional and passionate, has clear and vision and direction, sustainable and diversity focused, future and mission-oriented, responsible and effective, creative and resourceful, manages and resolve conflicts and be kind and respectful. Alhamdulillah for this opportunity to become part of UTM as academia. Inshallah I will use this platform to give back to society. Thank you Prof Dr Rose Alinda for the insightful lecture on Soul of Academia

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