At long last, the academic year has come to an end, it has been a great journey indeed but man am I happy that it’s all over. The past few weeks had been gruesome and was one of the busiest time of my life. But as of now, I have no more assignments, exams, or even lectures to worry about! And above all, I can finally get the beauty sleep that I had longed for. Obviously, this was the case for every other student as well. However, this hectic period didn’t stop most of us from participating in school events, many of which I participated in when I should have been studying instead.
The first event I participated in was the Soton Cup. This was the first ever sports event hosted by USMC, or the badminton association to be more specific (or so I’m told）. But unlike the Numed Games, this event only centered on badminton and it was open to the general public as well, which made it much more interesting.
Being the badminton enthusiast I was, I participated in both categories – men’s doubles and mixed doubles. It was a tough and tiring battle ahead but I along with every other participant gave it our all. In the end, the outsiders (non-students) dominated the competition for both categories and seized the title of champions . On the other hand, the participants from USMC didn’t fall short as four of the pairs managed to battle their way into the semi-finals and some achieved the runner-up and second runner-up placings.
After the badminton competition came the Free Market Project, which was a charity event held for the poor in Kampung Ladang. Initially, I wasn’t planning to join due to my busy schedule, so I had skipped through most of the planning and collection stages (the hard parts) and only turned up to help out during the final day of the project, whereby we distributed the goods to the poor (Sorry guys…) During the execution of the project, the volunteers from the foundation year batch would go around the area and collect items which are to be donated to the poor. The collection period lasted for one whole month and at the end of that period, the team managed to obtain boxes upon boxes of clothes and books, more than 200kg of rice and so much more!
Even though I had only participated in this project for one day, I managed to create a stronger bond with my fellow classmates thanks to this project.
Finally, the last event of the academic year was the music festival. This event was basically an opportunity for the students to just let go of all the tension and stress that they have accumulated right before the exams, and for some people, to showcase their musical talents (who said engineers have a boring social life?)
To me, the music festival felt just like a real concert (but a lot less noisy) thanks to the group of talented individuals who had poured their heart and soul into their performance and it could even be considered to be the highlight of my year. Why??? FREE FOOD!!1! And on top of that, who can forget Prof. Neil Stephen’s impeccable performance on “Hotel USMC”?!
All in all, it has been an eventful year indeed, and despite all the ups and downs, my first year in USMC was certainly a great experience and one that I will never forget.
Images courtesy of Sean Ng and Nazmi Padli