The International Office of Universitas Hasanuddin held a hybrid (online and offline) Focus Group Discussion – IISMA Pre-Departure for 11 awardees of IISMA 2022 on Friday (29/07/2022). This activity was attended by Prof. Muhammad Ruslin (Vice-Rector for Academic and Student Affairs), Prof. Adi Maulana (Vice-Rector for Partnership, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Business), Dean of the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Dean of the Faculty of Economics, Dean of the Faculty of Law, Head, Secretary, and Task Force of the International Office of Affairs. The Pre-Departure Forum was officially opened by the Vice-Rector for Partnership, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Business.
In this forum, there were 3 main sessions, including 2 materials regarding Academic Writing and Cross-Cultural Understanding from one of the KUI task force teams, Rafika, and the Secretary of the International Affairs Office, Muhammad Ridwan, and a sharing session with the 2021 IISMA alumni. After the official opening by the Vice Rector, the students thoroughly studied the material regarding Academic Writing presented by Rafika Nurul Hamdani Ramli, a young lecturer from the Faculty of Law. This competency will greatly help IISMA students who will study for one semester on renowned campuses abroad. As we know, the strict academic environment on international campuses forces students to follow the rules of academic writing and not commit academic violations, such as plagiarism. Famous campuses usually set a limit of plagiarism that should not be exceeded, mostly using 30% as the maximum limit for plagiarism. It is so strict that when students are found plagiarizing above this standard, they must be prepared to face an ethics court.
Besides academic writing skills, cultural awareness is also highly required. In the material presented by Muhammad Ridwan, Cross-cultural understanding, students are equipped with cultural understanding so that they do not get caught up in culture shock which can be very detrimental to student mentality. Moreover, in this material, students should realize that cultural differences in the destination country are not something to be overly worried about. Students should have an open mind in accepting these cultural differences and try to understand them so that they can adapt during their studies.
In addition to the 2 materials mentioned above, sharing sessions with IISMA alumni are essential to further understand what students need to prepare before and during their time at the destination campuses. In this session, 10 IISMA alumni had the opportunity to share their experiences during one semester in 2021. One of them, Muhammad Rifli, who previously had the opportunity to study at UC Davis, USA, advised that awardees should make the most of their time to build networking and connections with academics at the campus of their destination. Nurul Habaib, an IISMA alumnus who studied at the University of Glasgow, UK, also provided similar input, that IISMA students should participate in activities or events, such as consortiums, conferences, etc. to further broaden their insights of the students.
This activity ran from 8.30 am to 12.00 midday. This activity was closed by the Head of the International Affairs Office who has a lot of hope for Unhas students who will leave in order to bring the reputation of Unhas to the international world and become ambassadors so that later on they can become a bridge for Unhas and their target campuses to establish collaborations in various fields.
Kumara Tungga Dewa, S.S.
