Top-notch Utarians
UNIVERSITI Tunku Abdul Rahman (Utar), although established less than a decade ago in 2002, has a student population of over 19,000 and has produced over 25,000 graduates.
All these graduates are employed (more than 97% of them employed within six months of graduation) and are contributing to the local and foreign economies. A contributing factor to such success is the holistic education offered by Utar which not only provides students with the hard technical knowledge essential for them to start their career but also the soft skills that ensure an extra edge for them to outperform their peers.
Among the soft elements of the holistic approach is inculcating in students Utar’s six education philosophies of virtue and morality, knowledge and intellect, physical and mental health, sociality and humanitarianism, aesthetics and harmony, and creativity and innovation.
The following are some of the success stories of Utar students or Utarians. Twice Nehemiah Design champ Utar civil engineering students Ng Kim Yeong, Ang Lip Hong, Huan Han Cheong, Hew Yi Wen, Ngio Hua Jian, Ooi Zhong Yi, Sim Jiun Leong, Sim Teong Piao and Tan Soon Haw emerged as champion team of the Nehemiah Design Competition on November 24, 2011. They repeated the feat of their seniors Lee Kok Sheng, Lee Lian Wei, Chiew Yi Zhong, Cheong Wei Hao, Richard Chai Chen Foon and Peter Soo Chin Yee, who were the champions of the inaugural competition in 2010.
Nehemiah Design Competition 2010 is an engineering/architectural design competition open to all engineering, construction management and architectural design students from both public and private institutions of higher learning. It is sponsored by Nehemiah Reinforced Soil Sdn Bhd, a specialist contractor with its core expertise in the design and construction of reinforced soil retaining. Twice OSK Challenge top winner Three students from the Utar Department of Mathematics and Actuarial Science, Joseph Lo, Fong Chun Hui and Fong Yoke Khey, supervised by lecturer Liew Kian Wah, won the RM30,000 grand prize of the campus edition of OSK Investment Challenge in October 2011. This was the second year that OSK Investment Bank organised the nationwide investment competition.
In the inaugural competition in 2010, 20 Utar students from the Faculty of Engineering and Science won the top prize which was a computer lab worth RM100,000 for the campus. The 20 students used their investment skills which they had just learnt online and secured the first place in the campus category with the highest combined portfolio value of RM5,323,278.25 to win the lab. The computer lab was handed over to Utar in March this year.
Mosti, Intel, Agilent, and Altera awards
Utar’s three-student team beat 71 other teams and emerged as champion and won the Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry’s Innovate Malaysia Award at the Innovate Malaysia Design Competition on June 11, 2011. The team comprising final-year electrical and electronic engineering students Gan Yu Han, Vincent Chiah and Gan Guo Dong won the first prize in the Intel category.
Their winning design was an electric vehicle intelligent control system using the Intel Atom processor-based desktop board platform. Another Utar team comprising mechatronics students Cheng Chia Loon and Chia Kok Siang won the first prize in the Agilent category with their advanced underwater mechatronics manipulator. Electrical and electronic engineering student Wong Chi Liang with his implementation of a soft core processor on a FPGA, and Tan See Hui, Chu En, and Jing Ming with their digital speed limit monitoring system reached the finals in Altera and Intel platforms respectively and won consolation prizes. Utar Raging Bull is Bosch Champ Raging Bull, an electric race-kart designed and built by four Utar students, outran 11 others and emerged as Malaysian champion in the Bosch Power Tools Asia Cordless Race on July 30, 2011.
Held for the first time in Malaysia, the race challenged the innovative mindset among students of public and private universities to design and build racing karts that ran on wheels powered by four Bosch GSB 18V-LI professional cordless impact drill-drivers with a RM12,000 grant and six Bosch impact drill-drivers.
The builders of Raging Bull, mechanical engineering students Lee Chong Siang, Gatelin Wee Yue Lin, and Ng Shie Hea, and mechatronics engineering student Daniel Yong Yew Rong, won the first prize of RM3,000 and RM2,000 worth of power tools. They represented Malaysia at the race grand finals in Beijing, China from Sept 21 to 23, 2011 and competed against finalists from Thailand, China, South Korea and the Philippines. Two top national basketball prizes Two Utar basketball teams from Perak and the Klang Valley emerged as the first and second runners-up in the University-college Basketball League which was organised by the Ministry of Higher Education in collaboration with the Malaysia Basketball Association to promote the game.
The national finals were held at MABA Stadium in Kuala Lumpur on July 30 and 31, 2011. Earlier, the Utar team from the Perak Campus competed in the league’s northern zone and the Utar Klang Valley team in the central zone and emerged as champion and first runner-up in the zones respectively to qualify for the national finals. In the national finals, the all-malaysian Utar Perak team put up a tough fight against the HELP University College team, which had several more experienced and taller foreign players. The former lost by just nine points and became first runner-up of the league.
Utar Klang Valley team beat the team from SEGI University College, Penang with a score of 87-83 and took the second runner-up position.
Utar is a not-for-profit private university founded with the ultimate objective of providing holistic quality education. In conjunction with the May 2012 student intake, Utar is inviting school leavers, their friends and families to come to Utar Open Day to enquire about programmes and participate in the open day activities. Details are as follows: - March 24-25 (Sat-sun), 9.30am5.30pm at Utar Petaling Jaya Campus in Selangor
- March 31 – Apr 1 (Sat-sun), 9.30am-5.30pm at Utar Perak Campus in Kampar
- Apr 7-8 (Sat-sun), 9.30am5.30pm at Utar Kuala Lumpur Campus in Setapak
- Apr 14-15 (Sat-sun), 9.30am5.30pm at Utar Sungai Long Campus in Sungai Long
Utar is also having its extended counselling hours at the Petaling Jaya and Perak campuses, Monday to Sunday (excluding public holidays), from 9am to 5pm.
For details, call 03-7625 0328, 03-7958 2628 (PJ campus), 05-468 8888 (Perak campus) or 016-223 3559, e-mail enquiry@utar.edu.my or visit www.utar.edu.my