IMU students conduct community service project at OUG

APPLIED Biotechniques and Community Health is a module offered in Semester 6 of IMU’s Medical Biotechnology (MB) programme, which includes a community service project.

For this year, our MB1/15 students were granted the opportunity to serve the young community (aged 8 to 11 years old) at the Talento Daycare Centre, Kuala Lumpur.

The objectives of this project was to instil health awareness through the presentation of the microbiological laboratory findings to the community.

During the first visit, samples from soil, drain water, common touch areas such as door knob, racquet, shoe racks and toys were collected and brought back to IMU for further laboratory analysis.

The presence of pathogenic microbes was determined using both biochemical and molecular biology methods, such as gram staining, oxidase test, coagulase test, catalase test and polymerase chain reaction (PCR).

The laboratory findings were presented to the children at the second visit in the form of poster, talk and games.

During the talk, the medical biotechnology Semester 6 students explained both positive and negative health impacts of microbes and ways to prevent microbial infections.

The audience benefited from the talk and participated actively in the quiz session. On the other hand, the games planned by the medical biotechnology students have intrigued the children well and they had an enjoyable and educational session.

Reflecting on this community service, MB student Raja Mohamad Shazimin Raja Muhammad said: “The community project work has allowed me to develop my soft skills especially in the aspects of time management and communication. As a final year undergraduate student, I am usually very busy with assignments and my final year research project. The community project work has taught me how to prioritise especially when it comes to studies, assignments and community project work. I tried to create a balance for all of these by creating a to-do-list and prioritising the tasks according to their respective deadlines so that I would not miss any of them.”

While Raja Mohamad has viewed community project as a way of selfdevelopment, another MB student, Rupini reflected how the community project has helped in building up the team work among MB1/15 students.

“The community service project has strengthened the unity within the entire class, enhancing our relationship with each other as well as our teamwork, while improving our communicative skills with the children and workers at the day care centre. This project was executed in a Mandarin-speaking day care centre, so I had much fun attempting to speak Mandarin and play with the children.”

To conclude, Sim Serjay reflected that: “This community visit was an excellent learning opportunity for us as we were asked to analyse samples that we collected ourselves and present our findings to the public. It was truly the essence of the module by allowing us to implement what we have learned in the past semesters and master the art of delivering scientific facts to the community in the simplest and most interesting ways”.

At the IMU, the curriculum of its medical biotechnology degree is developed to meet international standards and is accepted by renowned international Partner University, University of Newcastle, Australia for credit transfer into relevant programmes.

Students can also complete the entire degree at IMU. Graduates of these degrees can undertake postgraduate degrees in any related disciplines.

Commencement of this programme is in July and September. If you have pre-university qualifications and have an interest in Medical Biotechnology, apply online now and join the University in your pursuit of a promising and rewarding career.

If you have just completed your SPM and do not have pre-university qualification, consider enrolling in the one-year IMU Foundation in Science (FiS), the preferred foundation and direct route for entry into any of the University’s degree programmes.

You can find out more at our FiS Info Day on 9 June 2018 at our campus in Bukit Jalil.

For more information, please refer to www.imu.edu.my or email: start@imu. edu.my or call IMU at 03 – 2731 7272.