Is it OxBridge, or is it Camford?

My college has gotten a little cooler recently (that’s Sunway University College).

Just last Saturday, we have an Oxbridge (or Camford) event going on in college. And I was showered with serendipity to discover some volunteer jobs for this event. Students from high schools across Malaysia congregated in college once again, like how merchants from all corners of the globe converged in Malacca in the 15th century.

The OxBridge event, as you would have known from the word “OxBridge”, is all about the two most proverbial elite universities in the United Kingdom – Oxford University and Cambridge University, albeit you would want to call it CamFord if you are from Cambridge and/or uses the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary.

The event is organized by the Oxford and Cambridge Society of Malaysia, and as its name suggested, it is an alumni association of sort, for ex-graduates of Oxford and Cambridge Universities. Intriguingly, the president of the OxBridge Society of Malaysia is Ms Elizabeth Lee, who is also the Executive Director of Sunway University College, which explains why SyUC has the privilege to host this event.

The event comprises 4 sections, with the first one being an Essay Writing Competition for high school kids, and then there are two workshops: writing and speaking skills, and of course, a campus tour, and finally there is an OXBRIDGE ADMISSION TALK! (in fact this is the only reason I volunteered).

So for the first two events, I was in charge of bringing these group of 30 odd students from SMK Seri Bintang Selatan around the campus. I really enjoyed bringing high school kids around my campus, especially bringing them to the library and the School of Hospitality,Tourism and Leisure Management (SHTLM) floor. You see, our library is *arguably* the biggest among all private colleges in Klang Valley, and in the SHTLM, there is a hotel room, a cafe, and a fine dining restaurant, which I thought was really cool. So, there are actually quite a lot to brag about.

I enjoyed the speaking workshop and the writing workshops. The first was conducted by a famous thespian who actually starred in “Entrapment” (famously known as the movie filmed in the Petronas Twin Towers) along with Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones. He started his speaking skills workshop with a “song” from My Fair Lady or Pygmalion, and throughout his workshop, I can see that he is indeed a proficient speaker by virtue of being able to secure the interest of the students seated in front of him.

What turned me on, was the writing skills workshop. It was conducted by Mr Mark Disney, an Oxford grad and a British national who now lives in KL and has a Malaysian PR. He founded and owns the Education Quarterly magazine, and he writes extensively on freedom of press, and education system in Malaysia. Not to mention he is extremely vocal about the conduct of western media organizations like the BBC and the CNN.

The writing tips was fairly uninteresting to me, because it was not meant for me after all. And Mr Disney, as a person of burning passion in media and education (just like me!!) constantly digressed to talk about these issues in the midst of his presentation, which I thought was so darn cool. He aptly illustrates the difference and discrepancy of editorial directions of the NST and the Sun, on the human trafficking issue. NST, which is government owned, ran articles on the Malaysian government criticizing the US for ranking her unfavorably in the rankings, while on the very same day, the Sun (which is not owned by government) ran an article about the Malaysia’s unfavorable position in that ranking. In short, the former was a little more of a subjective account of the issue, while the latter was an objective account of the very same issue.

So why the discrepancy in a same issue? Blame it on government’s ownership.

Some issues pertaining to education system raise by Mr Disney resonated so powerfully with me. He touched on several key issues in education, like how the entire flawed system suppresses creativity and innovation, among others.

And being a person who wants to connect with others who think alike, I immediately knew I have to talk to this person. Alas, he left the hall immediately, and my effort was in vain.

Anyhow, no big deal. I managed to find his email address (the world is shrinking, don’t you think so), and emailed him.

The final part was the admission talk. There are two surprises here. First, OxBridge Society of Malaysia managed to get Mr Tony Pua to the hall. And I was like, wow. I longed to meet Mr Tony ever since I came to know the Education Malaysia blog, which he co-authored.

He represented Oxford University and touched on a variety of topics. As underwhelmed the topic might sound (because I’ve heard things like this many times), the very thing that caught me was a sentence out of his own mouth, ” You don’t judge whether you’re good enough or not; you apply and let the university judge you. “, referring to Malaysian students’ reluctance to even submit the application due to the lack of confidence. This is one phrase that I will always remember.

Other than that, he showed quite a lot of pictures. And wow, the campus is really beautiful. Like what I told Hao-Wei, these buildings resemble the castles in fairy tales we read when we were younger, and that I will cry if I am physically there.

Next it is a Cambridge University representative, Mr Alen. It is indeed unfortunate that he did not have the time to complete his presentation due to time constraint. The agenda has to cease to make way for the arrival of a Queen Elizabeth like British lady, whose identity still remain a mystery.

Surprise number two came when I found out that the admission rate for both OxBridge is rather high, as high as 20%, that’s 1 out of 5, compared to an admission rate of only 10% for most elite US schools.

As trite as it might be, it is an exciting and fulfilling day, and I managed to make contact with Mr Mark Disney and Mr Tony Pua.