Curtin Malaysia Virtual Info Day offers online consultation and virtual tour of campus

Miri – 16 April 2020 – With the Movement Control Order (MCO) entering its third phase and little likelihood of face-to-face university marketing events being allowed anytime soon, Curtin University Malaysia (Curtin Malaysia) has taken all its student recruitment activities online.

Applications for its second semester degree and foundation intakes in July and August respectively are now open. So that school leavers do not miss out on the opportunity to enrol, Curtin Malaysia has been conducting its Curtin Malaysia Virtual Info Day since 6 April 2020 and will be ongoing until the lifting of the MCO.

With over a month since the STPM and SPM results were released, many students have yet to decide on where or what to study since visiting university campuses or attending education fairs and university roadshows are simply impossible.

While school leavers and their parents would attend its Info Days and other recruitment events at its campus in Miri and in locations throughout Malaysia in person in the past, they can now engage with staff, academics and student ambassadors from the comfort of their homes.

By logging in to https://futurestudents.curtin.edu.my/virtual-info-day/, they can get relevant information and valuable insights to make informed decisions about joining the university. This includes information on specific courses, fees and entry requirements, intake dates and enrolment procedures.

They can also learn about available scholarships and student loans, including merit scholarships and fee grants for school leavers with outstanding exam results. Sarawakian Bumiputera students can find out about Yayasan Sarawak’s BP40 Bursary Scheme offering subsidies enabling them to study at Curtin Malaysia at fees equivalent to those at public universities.

They will also learn how Curtin Malaysia, as its largest international campus and global hub in Asia, is a critical part of Curtin University. Curtin is an increasingly global university with campuses in Australia, Malaysia, Dubai, Singapore and Mauritius and strategic partnerships with more than 130 institutions around the globe. Curtin is ranked in the top one per cent of universities worldwide in the highly acclaimed Academic Ranking of World Universities (AWRU) 2019.

For those who are unsure what career path they would like to pursue, they can take a free personality-career mapping test that will match their personality traits and interests with courses and career options that would suit them best. They can also download a variety of brochures for reference.

Additionally, they can take a virtual tour of Curtin Malaysia’s campus, which sits on a 1,200-acre site in Miri’s northern suburb of Senadin and includes modern teaching spaces, a 16,000sqft (1,486sqm) modern library, engineering and science laboratories, a 1,500-seat event hall and a range of recreation and sports facilities, all from the comfort of their home.  This allows them to get a feel of what it would be like to study at the campus, see all the facilities and have a general feel of the place.

The Virtual Info Day webpage provides enough information for students and parents to research and gets more information about the campus’s most sought after programmes in the fields of engineering, science, business, media and communications and more, or they can explore other areas of Curtin Malaysia’s website for more information.

This is, in fact, Curtin Malaysia’s second online recruitment event since the outbreak of COVID-19. The first was an Online Education Fair from 9 to 13 March 2020 which generated considerable interest, prompting the campus to organise this second event.

“When the coronavirus pandemic spread to Malaysia, we were in the midst of conducting Curtin Info Day events at different locations nationwide, and following these, we continued our recruitment activities online,” said Curtin Malaysia’s Pro Vice-Chancellor, President and Chief Executive Professor Simon Leunig.

“We knew that many school leavers and parents would be at a loss as to what to do, considering the movement control order and universities going into lockdown. Despite the circumstances, they do not necessarily want to delay their plans for further studies, so we devised online platforms like the Online Education Fair and Virtual Info Day to address their needs,” added Professor Leunig.

According to Professor Leunig, Curtin Malaysia has emerged more resilient and primed to navigate the continually fluid and challenging circumstances under the movement control order. From the outset, the campus reacted positively to the new conditions, implementing various measures and processes to ensure academic and business continuity, and that its campus community was sufficiently supported and protected.

As soon as the MCO was announced, Curtin Malaysia responded immediately to the situation by moving all lectures online within 24 hours, followed by the transition of tutorials and workshops to online spaces as well within a week.

Professor Leunig said Curtin University, on the whole, is able to adopt a variety of e-learning approaches due to its well-developed frameworks, tools, support facilities and infrastructure, which have been developed and enhanced continuously alongside advancements in learning technologies.

“Curtin’s education model has always involved a considerable amount of online teaching and much of the course material was already online. We are continually fine-tuning our online teaching practices to ensure that no student is left behind,” said Professor Leunig.

In addition to the online classes, Professor Leunig added that students have access to Curtin Malaysia’s substantial online resources, including over 150,000 journals, about 420,000 e-books and more than 600 online databases, as well as open access resources.

“Our library staff are working hard to ensure a high level of support in the fully online learning and teaching environment,” he said.

An online banner promoting the Curtin Malaysia Virtual Info Day.

The 1,200-acre Curtin Malaysia campus in Miri, Sarawak.

Potental students can get look and feel of campus in virtual campus tour.

Pro Vice-Chancellor, President and Chief Executive Prof. Simon Leunig.