The President of INTIMA IICS, Nur Shafiqah

Nur Shafiqah, currently 22 years old, is studying Bachelor of Art in Mass Communication under the University of Hertfordshire. She is currently in her final semester, third year.

Being questioned on what made her become the president of INTIMA, she replied that she was the service cell for the 42nd INTIMA, hence it gave her the desire to be more involved in the curricular activities that were carried out, where she finds that a number of students were interested in it as well. Shafiqah further explains that she was also a diploma student here in INTI International College Student, but she wasn’t very involved in curricular activities as she was basically studying most of the time during her diploma years. Coming back for her degree, she told herself that she should be more diversified hence choosing to pursue it.

Shafiqah also further mentions that there was no specific person such as a role model that inspired her to take up the role of being the President of INTIMA. In fact, she enjoys reading about figures who are very accomplished in life, for instance, Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey. Shafiqah sets her mindset in wanting to be a better self and that’s how she inspired herself to go further for what she wanted.

She stated that she feels happy being the president, especially the term of serving is ending and she is only 11 days from stepping down. She felt extremely happy throughout her journey in a year as a president and it was 8 months of service cell, but of course, there are challenges to be faced, so there are times of ups and downs. Overall, she feels that a positive mindset is very much needed in overcoming these obstacles.

It is definitely wasn’t an easy job being the president, as Shafiqah bargained more than what she could take up and it was a whole mindset of wanting to change for the better. It wasn’t an easy job for Shafiqah to handle due to the setbacks and learning what is the main reason of things are being in ways they were. She further states that the hardest challenge that she had to face was to face is to know that some things can’t be changed for a certain reason. Adding on to that, Shafiqah did try to keep people aligned and pleasing people which was one of her mistakes.

Talking about being the president of INTIMA, Shafiqah felt that it was an obvious fact herself, as she felt different but that does not make her any better or any worse. Being in INTI, she finds that everyone has a different mindset as we are all in a different community which makes all of us understanding and respectful to one another. Putting aside all the race, Shafiqah felt that she is able to reach out to people better with her mere presence as she further mentioned that she is not the friendliest of person but to think that one can have a different set of emotions and personalities to talk to people. Therefore, in terms of race, it is an obvious truth that it didn’t really matter much as she doesn’t want people as their race and vice versa.

Furthermore, Shafiqah felt that we all of the conflicts with others, including conflicts with members in a club, especially your personal opinion clashes with someone else’s opinion that could cause misunderstanding and it is very common. From there, she explains that we need to be understanding how to go about handling issues and how other people will have different or better ways in handling such issues. Having conflicts from time to time will help to understand what people are like because things don’t go your way all the time. Shafiqah stated that she was also given advice which was “The higher your position, the more significant your responsibility.” With this advice, she learns that there is always other people’s opinion that has to be taken into account.

Being questioned on her greatest achievements for being the president, Shafiqah personally felt it was her role. She is proud to say that both her and her team had changed and also made an impact. She further think the students and INTI’s management who were helping her and her team out. Whenever Shafiqah were to come up with ideas saying she want to do certain changes, people are very welcoming to it. Therefore, she is proud in terms of celebrating the small things in INTI, for instance, celebrating Valentine’s Day, Teacher’s day, and International Women’s day. She emphasizes on things that weren’t being paid attention to previously, are now being paid attention to, as Shafiqah finds that the little things in life can make people happy and it can make people’s day. She adds that they have social media postings such as “Origins of the Week”, whereby on Mondays, they have motivation Mondays. Receiving comments from people telling that the post had made people’s day, she feels happy as she felt that she had something for someone. Both Shafiqah and her team had done a lot of things, which they are all happy about knowing that their actions can be seen by people.

As for her personal achievements would be such that Shafiqah became a more confident person. It may sound cliche, but the bigger responsibility that had been taken up will somehow make you grow and learn.

As for the next president of INTIMA, Shafiqah hope to see better improvements as it is always good to improvise or think what better ways are there to get things done. She said this knowing that everyone has their own unique ideas of what changes can be made. Shafiqah further states that she heard that manifesto was given and it is basically what they have to being their own manifesto in INTIMA. She would like them to achieve what the manifesto that the new president might bring, hoping that the new president would be able to achieve more than the expectations set by breaking through the challenges.

Adding on, Shafiqah faced a lot of challenges, all physically, mentally, and emotionally. Physically is such that before she took the role of President of INTIMA, she was a more happier and livelier person but after that, she felt some changes whereby she had to work really late. Being in the office until 9 p.m at night, becomes very unhealthy especially when sleep becomes insufficient leading to feeling burned out. Shafiqah explains that she come to campus with horrible eye bags where she, herself know she wasn’t in a good shape. As for emotionally, Shafiqah finds it even more challenging because some things don't go the way she wanted, ending up to frustration, anger and dissatisfaction, hence making her a negative person. This somehow have let Shafiqah to learn on how to deal with her emotions and refresh herself every single time it happens. Mentally, of course would be the workload that she has. It was not easy as it was also something for her to take up the role of being a final year student but time management had really helped. The internal challenges that she faced would be herself heading off to bed without doing any of her work, but the external challenges on the other hand, would be having people to understand who she really is. As people tend to see her as a furious and stern person based on her appearance which does hurt her to know that people do not see her as a happy person. It may be due to her position that people are viewing her as that, but she hopes that people would see her as a different person after stepping down.

Balancing both her academic and position as president is hard for Shafiqah, but she states that time management is very important. She has her planner and she makes it a point to really stick to work in progress. Shafiqah emphasizes that deadlines are important and it is something that no one can run away from, therefore, always trying to squeeze in time for assignments. To Shafiqah, assignments definitely comes as a priority as that is the whole reason that she is in college, but she understands that extra curricular also plays a part, therefore she is trying to keep it balanced. Apart from all that, Shafiqah states to never skip classes and always try to be more interactive in classes. She also mentioned that she would always want to put herself to work but at some times she would want to have a bit more fun at work, she would put aside her assignments and start head on with INTIMA work. She finds that INTIMA work is fun, by checking through proposal and reports.

The experiences that Shafiqah gained are numerous. She has learned rejection, as well as finding rejection is tough. As she mentioned earlier, she learned to be more confident. Upon stepping up as president of INTIMA, she was not confident, but now she had become more confident that what she was before. Being part of INTIMA has brought Shafiqah many first time things, such as experiencing hiking and different kinds of trips. It is a whole different experience that one could get, there is good and bad but it brings to where you are. A little advice from Shafiqah would be “Don't diminish all opportunities you get, cause it is kinda good.”

Shafiqah’s advice to students who are interested in taking the upper role is that, “If you have the mood for it, then just for it.” She also finds that the biggest problem is such that one who is interested in taking the upper role ended up not taking the role as their friends are not there. She used to think the same way but learning that her friends will never go the same way as her, she decided to go on her own. Next, Shafiqah explains that one will have to try to understand how things are really done, but also try to bring something of their own. For those who are interested in taking the upper role, one will have to understand on what the differences that he or she can bring. Most importantly, one will have to believe in themselves. One will have to believe that he or she can take the lead, because if they don’t believe in themselves, who is going to believe?

Shafiqah further states that there isn’t much that both her and her time can do to achieve now, but they still have one more event to handle which is the sports tournament. With hope, Shafiqah hope that it would be a nice way for them to end things, as the sports tournament is for students. Apart from that, there is more internal things that both her and her team had to do as being in a team, they have to pick themselves up again because some of them are already quite tired and burned out.

She mentioned that she and her team are also excited because they are discussing about their installation night. Being said, the whole team said that instead of it being a very normal kind of installation, they want it to be very appreciative of everyone. Not just themselves, but every single one in INTI, including the clubs. It’s more like picking up the pieces and appreciating the 1 year relationship that they’ve had together.

“So before I end, I would like to say that in life, you’ll learn that sometimes it is not really your way to please everyone in life. You would always try to please everyone. But sometimes you learn that being a people-pleaser might not be your thing. So you just have to go with the flow. And also, sometimes things can go very bad, it can be such a big hurdle for you, but you just have to go through it. Because if you don’t go through it, you won’t be where you are right now. So that’s why I say you don’t have to diminish your opportunities. You don’t have to thank them for being there but you just have to accept them. And there’s also one more thing that I have learned is that you should always try to take a break. That was my previous regret but it was also my biggest lesson learned. Even if you try so hard to finish your work, your work will still be there but then if you actually lose time for what you want to do, you’ll actually lose that time.” - Nur Shafiqah, 43rd INTIMA