Update from Michelle
We took some time recently to reach out to our past and current scholarship recipients to see how they are doing with their education, and in general with COVID-19. Below is an update from Michelle about where she is in her studies:
Hi! This is Michelle from Pakistan. I’ve been in Malaysia for the past 6 to 7 years from 2013 onwards, and it was in 2017 that I started my tertiary education at the University of Nottingham Malaysia on scholarship. However, this scholarship only covered the tuition fee and on-campus accommodation, and as I left my job to commit to full-time education, I didn’t have enough financial support from my family to manage the rest of the expenses. That’s when I was introduced to Azmina and Cheryl through a very good friend of mine, Jonathan. I was then given the grant money worth around RM 1900 with which I was able to bear my educational expenses for the first year.
I have successfully completed two years of my degree there, however, due to unavoidable reasons, I had to return to my home country last year to move to another country. This was supposed to be my final year, but unfortunately, I haven’t been able to graduate this year and now since the whole world is struggling with Covid-19, I highly doubt I’d be able to return to Malaysia in September 2020 to complete my degree. However, I’m not giving up on my tertiary education. If the borders open before September this year, I might return to the University of Nottingham Malaysia. If they don’t open, I might consider the option of online education.
About two months after I landed in Pakistan, almost all countries closed their borders and since November 2019, I’m stuck here not being able to travel to the other country. It’s quite frustrating, but I’m trying my best to keep myself occupied during the lockdown instead of stressing out. I’ve been working online on a web-app project. I have to upload content on the web-app in English and Urdu languages. It’s not a stressful job to do and it doesn’t require me to sit for hours online either. The timings are super flexible, so, I’m quite content with my work. Apart from working online, I fill in the rest of my day with different activities such as gardening, reading books, practicing Spanish, watching lots of films, making art to reduce stress, cooking, playing board games with my family and trying my best to observe the quarantine strictly.
