Loh Rachel, 22 years, who obtained a first class honours in the Bachelor of Psychology programme was also the sole recipient of the Tan Sri Datuk Paduka Dr Hajjah Saleha Award at HELP University’s 31st Convocation 2019 and has much to be proud of.
The award is given to the graduate who not only succeeds academically but has participated actively in the extra-curricular activities of the university and has shown outstanding leadership qualities. She not only participated in a project that benefitted farmers in Myanmar and allowed farmers to double their income but she and her team obtained US1 million in funds after winning the Hult Prize to run the social enterprise project. Loh also won the Maybank Go Ahead Challenge in 2017, beating 40,000 participants in the process and obtained an internship to work in Maybank New York as part of the overall prize.
Ashmini K Gnanasegaran, 25 years and winner of the President’s award believes hard work and perseverance were the key ingredients to her success.
“When I first started my studies at HELP, I was not a ‘top’ student and had to work continuously to achieve my targets and my lecturers gave me the motivation by always encouraging me,” said Ashmini. The President’s award is given to graduands with the most outstanding achievements at Departmental level.
Yap Ze Wei, an accomplished piano teacher, who graduated with a first class honours in the Bachelor of Communication (Public Relations) degree juggled between her studies and being a piano teacher. As a President’s award winner, she was pleasantly surprised to be informed she was a recipient.
Datuk Dr Paul Chan, Vice-Chancellor and President of HELP University in his convocation message said HELP had graduated more than 25,000 students and many are achievers in their careers and professions.
“HELP is also transforming itself to become The Analytics-Driven Entrepreneurial University. Our goal is to create the A*Gen (Analytics Generation). We thus make it mandatory for our staff and students to learn the use of analytics skills. For this pioneering effort we received the MDEC Recognition Certificate for teaching our students analytics.
More significantly, for our university wide Analytics Transformation, MDEC has given us the prestigious Digital Tech University Status,” said Dr Chan.
HELP University celebrated its 31st Convocation with 1200 students graduating, of which 94 undergraduates were awarded first class honours, and 10 postgraduate students graduated with distinction.
Each year HELP University recognizes the contributions of individuals to education and national development in its honorary doctorate and leadership awards.
Professor Emeritus Tan Sri Dr Abu Hassan Othman, has had a distinguished career in public service, serving in various capacities and has contributed significantly to improving the quality of higher education in Malaysia. It was Tan Sri’s appointment as Chairman of the Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA) (2013-2018) that he is best known in the chronicles of Malaysian higher education.
Tan Sri Abu Hassan was thus the recipient of the inaugural 2019 Distinguished Academic Leadership award from HELP University.
Dato’ Paul Leong, Chancellor of HELP University congratulated HELP on its achievements and the winner of the Tan Sri Datuk Paduka Dr Hajjah Saleha award, as well as the ten winners of the President’s award for their excellent academic results.
HELP University organized its Annual Strategy Seminar annually in conjunction with the convocation. This year the 22nd Annual Strategy Seminar’s theme was “Thinking in Teaching and Learning: Sharing Experiences”. There were 18 quality papers presented by HELP faculty members and visiting professors. The papers focused on building the components of the institution’s “TEA culture” thinking mind, entrepreneurial attitude and analytics skills – in its students as well as recognizing the importance of critical thinking as a core skill to prepare students for the working world.