Shyamalan Naidu Bala Chandran

“Hi, I’m Shyamalan Naidu Bala Chandran, a fourth-year Applied Geology student at Curtin Malaysia.

“Since high school, I have always been interested in geography and how the Earth works, so Curtin Malaysia was one of my top choices for university studies as it offered a degree in Applied Geology. During my foundation year, I joined the Curtin Geology Club to find out what geology was all about. Luckily, there were some friendly seniors who were kind enough to explain what they were studying, which really piqued my interest and convinced me to enrol in the Applied Geology course.

“However, just a few weeks into the course, COVID-19 hit the country and we all went online. This meant missing out on field trips that were really important to getting hands-on experience, but our lecturers managed to come up with virtual field trips in place of physical field trips, which were better than nothing and we still learned quite a lot.

“I was really looking forward to coming back to campus, especially the experience of sitting in the classroom and using the labs again. During the pandemic, I became more involved in the Geology Club by being a committee member and eventually becoming its vice-president last year. When the time came to return to campus last year, it was really great and the club immediately organised a trip to the Niah Caves!

“Now that I’m in my final year, I feel sad that my university experience is coming to an end. It has been an interesting ride with many ups and downs and I’ll always be grateful to all my lecturers who have helped ignite my passion for geology. I’d like to part with these words: “Humans and rocks are not so different. With some pressure and stress, we all end up gneiss in the end.” – Shyamalan Naidu Bala Chandran, Applied Geology student

26 March 2023