Yew Ben

  One of my recent travels to Krakow, Poland As a student abroad in the UK, nothing thrills me more than the adventures and sights in Europe. It’s definitely a dream come true to have the opportunity to go to new places and learn about new cultures. However, travelling can sometimes be gruesome without proper planning and knowing where to get support from. Here’s my compilation of things to consider and prepare for prior to travelling from my personal experience.   Do Your Homework The image is taken from Forbes. Before you travel, it’s definitely important to do your background check of the place or country you will be visiting. Read up and identify the key attractions of places to go and know what to expect at the location. One common way for me to do this is through Google Maps, which points out tourist attractions and places with high reviews to visit. Especially in the pandemic, we need to make sure that the COVID restriction policy for both the local and place of the vis...

This calendar year has been out of everyone’s expectations in terms of learning experiences as we have to sit at home for our classes through online learning due to the pandemic. As a student, this has frustrated me a lot as we paid equal tuition fees as to in-class sessions. Initially, I was quite skeptical of this format of learning as there is minimal communication between students and lecturers thus making teaching less effective. There are also some instances where lecturers face connection problems and also not tech-literate thus affecting the quality of the lectures compared to in-class lectures. After close to a year of online learning, I felt more comfortable with this method of lecture delivery and have found online learning to be more efficient at times. Here are my views on online lecture: Struggles In Online Learning Less motivation to attend classes.  When there are no fixed time and place to be for a lecture, it’s difficult to attend the lectures on time and it’...

So, here I am, graduated. University life has been an awesome 4 years ride, with many learnings and exploration throughout this period. As a final year student, it’s definitely not the best outcome as graduation is cancelled due to the pandemic, as well as a much-awaited summer ball and gathering with my university mates. In this blog post, I’m writing on my reflection of these past years, from joining the university as a nervous fresher, knowing people, transitioning in the UK and now nearing the end of this journey. Grateful For Everything That Has Happened University life has had many bittersweet moments, from feeling disheartened with unsatisfied exam results and stressing out with university work, to meeting new friends and having fun times. Regardless, I’m very grateful for the experiences as I learned to be more matured towards dealing with problems and acquired new skills along the way. Coming into university, I was quite sceptical about whether I will be comfortable with new p...

Throughout my time in university, I've had 4 summer internships during my 4 years in university. Here's my take on the different lifestyles and learnings that I had as a student and as an intern.   Time management As a student, I cannot deny how pleasant and flexible our lifestyle is. We can freely control the time that we have, where we can choose when to view our online lectures, hang out with friends and even study at the last minute before an exam. As an intern, the lifestyle is different especially if you do not practice a fixed schedule. Weekday's felt long, with the 9-5 schedule (and there might be overtime work as well) in exchange for valuable professional experience. I personally learn to cherish the free time that I have especially on the weekends and I had to make sure to plan ahead of my days so that I do not lose valuable time to work on myself, aka work-life balance.   Learning methods The learning progress as a student is well-structured in many ways as we h...

Image from Nottingham Malaysian Games Facebook page. Back in October 2019, I participated in my first-ever Nottingham Malaysian Games(NMG). As a Malaysian student in the UK, the NMG is one of the most anticipated events not only for me but also for a huge number of Malaysian students as we get to compete in the biggest Malaysian Games in the UK and catch up with our friends in the UK. I represented the university in the table tennis doubles event. My teammate and I trained for 2 weeks prior to the event at Connaught Halls, which is near the Wessex Lane Halls. There is a table tennis table which is available for students to play 24/7 (worth checking out especially if you stay in Wessex Lane).   The journey to Nottingham As a participant, the Malaysian Student Association (MSA) organised a bus ride to the University of Nottingham. Due to space limitation and late registration for the bus ride, I did not manage to get a spot on the bus and had to travel there separately. I starte...

Hi, I'm a final year student studying mechanical engineering and I find myself as a person who likes to code. As a code enthusiast, I enjoy automating tasks and analysing data through code. I started programming 4 years ago, with Python as my first language. Fast forward today, I found myself working on data analytics on Python, besides having learned other programming languages for different purposes such as C for embedded programming (making machines move) and also C#, JavaScript, CSS and HTML for app and web development. Back when I started programming, I did not have a mentor and my learning path felt terrifying at first as I stepped into an unknown world where I had to learn independently. It might sound crazy for non-programmers, but this has been quite a ride and a worthwhile experience, and also a great investment in your skillsets development.  In this post, I would like to share how did I teach myself to code, from my perspective who came from a non-computer science backg...