IATSS Forum

I’m quite enthused to be going to Japan this September to learn from Japan on how to sustain modernization while protecting and preserving its cultural heritage. With the rapid developments globally, I’m eager to learn in the Forum on how politics, education, environment and culture intertwine to help sustain the future. This September, I will not only be visiting Japan for 59 days but I will also be ‘visiting’ 8 other countries as I will be meeting the future leaders of the Southeast Asian region whom will eagerly represent and make their country proud. Despite my enthusiasm, I’m also anxious to discover my own leadership capacity while building more effective skills to bring back to Malaysia. This is also a great opportunity for me to understand and learn the different approaches from my fellow participants from the region on certain issues. I also hope to develop my adaptive skills in facing challenges while gaining constructive feedback from the group of fellow participants. I am eager to gain new experiences, improve my skills and broaden my understanding of the dynamic impact Japan has on the countries in my region, which hopefully will better equip me to become a leader for a better future.

The IATSS Forum prepares you to be prepared. It prepares you to discover your own capabilities and develop your own sets of skills, namely your social, thinking, and self-management skills. Social skills will be developed when you learn on how to communicate your ideas to 9 different nationalities of different personalities. You will learn how to contribute your ideas and thoughts in a group and further learn your ability to take a leadership role within group situations as well as facilitate discussions and not to mention learn how to manage conflicts. There is a lot of learning in the program but not necessarily just academic learning. We will learn through experiences; good and bad, know-hows from professionals and experts along the academic learning. Therefore, the program helps participants to be an effective thinker. Participants can develop a wide range of skills that help them to create meaning, gain understanding, make judgments, make good decisions, self-analyse and reflect on the topics discussed. But this will only be developed if the participants choose to be an independent learner. With the reports that are required to be written, participants need to manage themselves as an individual as well as in group. Inevitably, this develops the participants’ ability to manage their own time and resources for self and also for the group. At the same time, the ability to focus on the task in hand and work through distractions such as onsen, karaoke, bowling, eating, drinking, ping-pong and badminton will also be a challenge. The program won’t be able to change you, it will only improve you.