I still remember before the pandemic struck, the first two years of my undergraduate life in campus was indeed exquisite! – meeting new friends’ day by day, cracking our heads after tutorials, leisure at the library, endless discussion before exams, etc.
Although my friends and I used to nag about the tiny little things but looking back, those were the things which I miss the most now. When the pandemic struck, everything had to be shifted online and the students and lecturers adapted to the online environment very quickly although we did face some difficulties during the transition.
The online learning experience enabled the students to be more independent in their learning at their own pace and indeed drew a closer relationship between students and lecturers. When I recall the times when exams were getting closer, not just students who were nervous and worried but in fact, the lectures were worried too, and they prepared us with everything they could do for us. Lecturers would stay up late or even online throughout the whole night to prepare us for exams the next day. This truly touched me as the care and perseverance that the lecturers have portrayed proved to me that IMU is not just an institution that prepared me for my future career, but it is a home that has grown me up and instilled me with all the qualities that I needed in life.
In my final year of the BPharm (Hons) programme at IMU, we had the opportunity to undergo attachments at the hospital and community pharmacy settings and from the experience during these attachments, I realised that community pharmacy was interesting as this is where I got to meet different customers with different conditions every day.