Headstart in journalism

Esther Ng Chief Content Officer, Star Media Group Bachelor of Arts (Hons), 1992

WHEN I was offered a place as an undergrad in UKM, I was ecstatic!

It was the late 1980s, I was 20 and gaining a place at a public university was a big deal. There were all of five institutions to vie for and almost no private universities to fall back on.

We studied hard for STPM for that lean chance of making it to university.

Although UKM was just a 50-minute drive from my parents’ home, I saw it for the first time on

Registration Day.

My university stood proudly in the middle of sparse land, surrounded by jungle. It brought me right back to Earth!

Orientation Week was another eye-opener. There were so many rules, including a strict dress code that I found repressive but had to comply to. Thankfully, this was lifted after Orientation.

In UKM, I made friends, and lifelong ones I still keep in touch with. We were of all races and from all over Malaysia.

I did Anthropology and Sociology and Political

Science (which UKM is renowned for), and Communications.

My course mates VP Sujata and Sarban Singh (now my good friends and colleagues) will attest to the privilege of being taught Political Philosophy by the famous Dr Harold Crouch, who was our Political Science dean. It was priceless studying International Relations when Berlin Wall fell in 1990-1991. We studied the event as it unfolded.

Like it or not, we learnt to speak up during tutorials and present papers on political subjects.

Yet, we never forgot to have fun, such as hiking at the notoriously “haunted” UKM Fernarium one weekend though there were no paranormal encounters. My honours year was the most memorable and also the busiest. Being Journalism undergrads, we produced our varsity paper, Nadi Bangi. I was Editor-in-chief of the fourth edition of the paper in our final year, an experience I hold dear. We also spent four months working as journalists in a media company as part of our practical training.

So you can say it was at UKM where I began my career as a journalist.

Looking back, it was not love at first sight but I left an enormous piece of my heart in my alma mater. Happy 50th, UKM.