From 17th – 21st June 2019, UTM has participated in the International Staff Week (ISW) organized by the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid under the Erasmus + Staff Training Mobility Program. A selected representative, Norfazliana binti Jaafar an Executive Officer from UTM Kuala Lumpur have successfully participated in the event for the whole 7 day programme.
17th June 2019: On Monday, all the representatives from various partner universities were welcomed warmly with a simple Spanish Greeting by the organizer. It followed with a short ice breaking activity among the participants and UPM started the session with a very informative opening session and interactive introduction of UPM and its historical background. The presentation included an introduction on the background Erasmus+ and other European programs such as Athens, KA1 and KA2. The representatives got to know about the corporation and development including Asia and Erasmus+ associated partners.
Another interesting session included in the program is the opportunity to learn a “survival kit” of Spanish Language in Spain. This session is really important and has become a great help to the participant because majority of the local society in Madrid are not able to talk in English. Therefore, this session was to give an opportunity to the representatives especially those who cannot understand and speak Spanish to at least being able to speak basic Spanish and communicate with the society.
18th June 2019: On Tuesday, all the representatives was gathered in a session for a brief presentation to introduce, promote programs and share their universities’s uniqueness. They each presented on the marketing, working and ethnic of their universities. The day ended with a group activity and campus experience sharing session among the participants.
19th June 2019: The program continued with a very interesting campus visit where all participants are given the golden opportunity to choose and decide to visit any UPM campus and conduct a meeting with the Erasmus+ coordinator of the UPM department. During this visit, our representative had a very fruitful discussion regarding the facilities provided by the campus for the student and managed to visit their beautiful library and historical board of director’s meeting room.
Tour in itdUPM
Tour around itdUPM – Mining
During the visit, the UTM representative also met a potential student and discussed further about the admission and visa procedures to join our University’s Exchange Program in the next semester.
Meeting potential UPM student for UTM exchange programme
20th June 2019: Apart of the program, on the 4th day, Thursday the representatives were taken on a city tour around Segovia. They went on a guided walking tour to learn about the traditional culture and history of the city. The tour lasted for the whole day till the evening. To end the tour program, Ms. Fazliana and the representatives had an academic session “Cross Culture: Thinking – A Cultural Perspective” by Prof. Mark Hallet, International Relation English Teacher, UPM, Madrid.
21st June 2019: On Friday (last day of program), all representatives were gathered for a closing session. The had a farewell ceremony from UPM and feedback from the representatives of each universities regarding the ISW 2019 programme. The certificate of attendance was distributed to all the participants and all the participants exchanged their social media accounts to stay connected to each other.
With speaker & organizer after closing ceremony
After the closing, our representative was invited by Mdm. Dolores the Erasmus + Coordinator to have a special visit to itdUPM and learn about the SDG Project conducted by the institute. It was an enlightening and impressive discussion and our representative has learnt a lot about the sustainability project that focused on what the university can do to contribute to the society.
The five-day visit to Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, Spain by Ms. Norfazliana Jaafar as the representative of UTM in the International Staff Week (ISW) 2019 under the Erasmus+ staff mobility program (outbound) ended on 21st June 2019.
The representative Ms. Norfazliana Jaafar, concluded her visit to Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, Spain with the saying:
“It was the most awesome experience that I’ve had so far. At first, I wasn’t sure about anything because this was my first time travelling abroad to Europe. It was a rushed travelling because of the short duration between the connecting flights, I was running here and there most of the time in the airport. I even almost missed my flight due to it. There were a lot of hectic moments, but I learnt a lot throughout the journey and I can surely say that working at the International Office benefits me greatly in understanding cultural diversity and how to adapt yourself the instant when you need it. For me, making the first conversation with an European is not easy but the confidence that I gained while working and managing students from all over the world really helps. Overall, this trip was fascinating and amazing in many different ways. It opens your perspective wider and expand your networking farther. As a result from this trip, I have gained many new friends from Spain, Russia and Turkey now! Thank you UTM and Erasmus+ for giving me such opportunity!.”
by: shahidaa