Alumni celebrating the auspicious year of 2020

UTAR Lion Dance Club presenting the blessed offerings to Tun Ling (standing, most right) and Prof Ewe (standing, most left)

With the aim to promote togetherness among alumni, classmates, friends and UTAR staff for a well-connected community, the Department of Alumni Relations and Placement (DARP) organised the Alumni Get Together and Chinese New Year Celebration 2020 on 11 January 2020 at UTAR Sungai Long Campus. Alumni from years back showed up at the event to support the current students and appreciate their alma mater.

Present at the celebration were UTAR Chancellor Tun Dr Ling Liong Sik and wife Toh Puan Ena Ling, President Ir Prof Dr Ewe Hong Tat, Vice President for Student Development and Alumni Relations Prof Dr Choong Chee Keong, Ir Academician Emeritus Prof Tan Sri Dato’ Dr Chuah Hean Teik, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences (FMHS) Dean Emeritus Prof Dr Cheong Soon Keng, FMHS Department of Population Medicine Emeritus Prof Dr Boo Nem Yun, UTAR Alumni Association President Koh Fook Huat, UTAR Registrar Yim Lin Heng, alumni and staff.

To liven up the event, the Department of International Student Services made an arrangement for 20 international students in UTAR to join the dinner and to experience the Chinese New Year celebration and culture in Malaysia.

Group photography among UTAR alumni, students, international students and guests

Prof Ewe expressing his thoughts on the importance of alumni networking

Prof Ewe said, “Through this alumni gathering, we have united again with colleagues, classmates, friends and staff of UTAR. Having you all join us today makes the event all the more meaningful. I am delighted to see our network growing wider. I believe our alumni play an important aspect of the university’s development. You have continued to carry the university’s good reputation and have commenced to contribute towards meeting the human resource needs of the country through your respective jobs and liaisons in the industry. We are proud of your achievements and we hope you will continue to establish strong ties with UTAR in order for our alumni network to expand further and connect with each other to exchange information for updates, improvements and progress.”

He added, “We try our best to ensure that you continue to be part of our UTAR family and we hope you will come back to Campus to contribute and provide advice to juniors as alumni of UTAR. We also hope you can continue to support UTAR in its initiatives especially our hospital project that will provide quality medical services to the community, much like how UTAR is providing affordable education to everyone. A charitable heart always starts from within and many of you have contributed to the fund, so I thank you for your support.”

Tun Ling gleefully welcomed the guest

Tun Ling greeted the crowd and said, “I’ll be very delighted whenever I get the chance to come to Sungai Long and Kampar Campuses and to see the progress of UTAR Hospital. It gives me tremendous satisfaction because this is the efforts of all our friends and supporters. I am thankful for the alumni association members who have put their feet on the ground to seek funding for the hospital. I hope all of you will enjoy tonight’s performances.”

The FMHS 10^th Year Celebration was also held in conjunction with the meaningful event. Prof Cheong expressed delightedly, “We hope that the medical school will continue to flourish and my advice to all students is to work hard in order to achieve your dream.”

From left: Yim, Koh, Tan Sri Chuah, Prof Ewe, Tun Ling, Prof Cheong, Prof Choong, Prof Boo and Toh Puan Ena Ling during the cake cutting ceremony to celebrate FMHS 10^th year

Fan reminiscing the yesteryears when he was a student at UTAR

Fan Ya Fu, who came back to UTAR after graduating ten years ago, shared his accomplishments in career and life. Fan was the founder of X Academy, a one-stop academy in Malaysia that offers performing arts and alternative education and was responsible for setting up the Tik Tok Official Agency in Malaysia. He expressed his gratitude and said, “UTAR is a place where you can grow with a lot of possibilities as you are exposed to so many activities that allow you to build soft skills and at the same time nurture your talent. I will continue to discover new possibilities as I live. Life is full of surprises as long as you are willing to explore.”

Dr Tong (standing, left) and Dr Abby Chan (standing, right) with the FMHS lecturers

Hulu Perak District Health Office Medical Officer Dr Tong Yung Hung said, “I’m more of an entrepreneurial kind of person, thus people skills are important. It’s important to know how to sell yourself in the industry. Be known for what you do because if you don’t market your skills, nobody knows what you’re good at. The technical skills I learnt at UTAR does help me in my job but at the same time, I’ve realised soft skills are as important as the technical skills.”

Dr Abby Chan Kai Ern who is currently a medical officer at the Ministry of Health Hospital Gerik, Perak commented, “What you can apply is not just books and information you read. Yes, you can be book smart but being a bookworm is not the best thing in the world. You are out in the working force and society, it is important to work smart rather than work hard. This is where people skills take place. It’s not about how many A’s you have but it’s about how a person deals with people around to make things work. Saying all these, I would not discount the importance of having good results per se.”

The night was filled with several exciting performances such as lion dance performance, singing, stand-up comedy and martial arts performances.

FMHS students clockwise from top left: Wynnie Voon Hui Yin, Chen Yit Hern, Kau Hui San, Lau Zhi Hao, Ronald Ong Jun Jia and Chin Wing Yuen performing “Memories” by Maroon 5 and “Love Yourself” by Justin Bieber