BANGI: He ate rice with salt water, walked five kilometres daily to school and went hungry to save enough money to buy books.His efforts paid off Saturday when Darman Nordin, 23, received the highest honour, the Royal Student Award at the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) 33rd convocation, Saturday.
Darman from Kampung Titingan, Tawau, Sabah, was also offered a place to pursue his doctorate (PhD) in Biochemical Engineering due to his excellent achievements, hence skipping the Masters Degree.
Apart from receiving RM2,500, Darman also received prizes from Exxonmobil and the third prize for Petronas design.
"I promised myself to change my family's fate. My family's poverty drove me to achieve success despite being so far away from them, I prayed for strength and resolve," he said after receiving his scroll.
Darman, who held on to the maxim: "Success is not a destination but a never ending adventure," believed that poverty was not a stumbling block for anyone to gain knowledge and achieve success.
Currently a tutor at UKM's Engineering Faculty, Darman was under the Shell scholarship after completing his matriculation studies at Kolej Ibukota Kinabalu.
Realising his responsibility as the eldest son, Darman sent a portion of his scholarship to his family back home and he also worked part time during his semester breaks for extra money to support himself and to relieve his family's burden as he had three schooling younger siblings.
Not confining himself to books alone, Darman was active in extracurricular activities, especially in the art of self defence and was successful in taekwondo during the Malaysian Universities Sports Council (MASUM) meet.
He said that balancing between his lecture schedule and extra-curricular activities as well as consistent and systematic revision was the recipe of his success.
Besides Darman, another graduand who shared the same award was Wong Jyh Elin, a Bachelor of Food Science graduand from the Integrated Health Sciences Faculty.
Meanwhile, a PhD graduand from the Islamic Studies Faculty Dr Amaludin Ab Rahman and his daughter, Nazahatul Anis Amaludin, who received her Bachelor's degree from the Faculty of Science and Technology, felt the simultaneous father-and-daughter success was a coincidence.
"I began my first degree in UKM and now completed my PhD programme, it is pure coincidence that my daughter and I completed our studies at the same time," he told reporters.
Dr Amaludin, 45, an administrative officer at Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), was also a motivator and permanent panel member for the "Remaja Dan Islam" programme at Radio Ikim.fm since last year.
Nazahatul Anis, 22, who aspires to be a lecturer took the cue from her father in pursuing his studies to the highest level and would be starting her Masters degree in the same field, biology at the same faculty.
"I am motivated to pursue my studies after seeing my father's resilience... even though we are in different disciplines, we always share information with each other," she said.
Other graduands, Fouzia Hassan Abdullah, Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in English Studies, received the Vice-Chancellor's Award while Amirul Hafiz Mohd Nasir, Bachelor of Accounting and Loh Wen Chen, Bachelor of Information Technology, both received the Tun Razak Award.
A total of 6,903 graduands ranging from the certificate to PhD levels would be receiving their scrolls during the six-day convocation from Sept 17 to 22 at UKM campus.- Bernama
