Focus
A tale of two campuses
Chin Chin
I completed my Bachelor of Computing at Monash’s Caulfield campus. To me, a Bachelor degree is not merely a means to an end; rather, it signifies the beginning of a journey to find out where my real interests lie. I was fortunate to obtain a scholarship from Monash University Malaysia to be the first student from the Malaysian campus to go on a postgraduate exchange program. For my first semester of Master of I.T. (Minor Thesis), I was to study at Caulfield again, continuing my second and third semesters at the Malaysian campus.
Studying at two different campuses required some adjustments. For a start there were more electives at Caulfield. In Malaysia all the M.I.T. subjects are compulsory. I found myself studying subjects I was not interested in – which is de-motivating. I also found myself comparing the resources available at the two campuses. Sad to say, the library resources at the Malaysian campus are much poorer than Caulfield. And at Caulfield I was be able to borrow 30 books for a period of one month each; whereas 15 books for two weeks was all that was allowed in Malaysia.
Although the Malaysian campus tries to minimise the effects of studying across two campuses as much as possible, I found that I missed my days with the School of Information Management Systems (SIMS) at Caulfield.
On top of these issues, I used to work as a teaching assistant at the Malaysian campus and often found myself having to adjust content in assignments. For example, the Year One Professional Communication subject requires students to head to the library to find a particular book using the common library Web portal. However, the students in Malaysia access a different portal altogether, and the same book was not available on the Malaysian campus.
I also found myself sandwiched between the School of I.T. and Business, as SIMS was not available on the Malaysian campus. The lecturers in the School of I.T. did not completely approve of my research as they claimed that it was not ‘technical’.
Nevertheless, my thesis supervisor has done a great job guiding me along the way. I acknowledge the enthusiasm shown by him in every detail of my work. His passion for research was contagious while his feedback was exceptionally detailed and insightful. I was grateful for his encouragement and advice that motivated and guided me throughout the course.
I left Monash to work for British Telecom (Asian Research Centre) for more than a year before I enrolled as a part-time PhD candidate at the Malaysian campus. I chose Monash in spite of my previous experiences as I strongly believe that the Malaysian campus is doing its best to keep up with other campuses in Australia.
