Service Learning 1 (October to November 2021, preparation before the day of site visit)

    My name is Yap Tai Leong. My matric number is 77209. I'm currently a year 2 student studying Resource Biotechnology (Bachelor's Degree) at Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas). I'm currently taking a course called "Animal Biotechnology." The course code is STB2192. Firstly, I will briefly introduce this course. Before I start, please forgive my foolishness😣. My first thought when I first heard this name (animal biotechnology) was that we were going to see and have fun with the animals🐏🐄🐔🐟. Well, I just ignored the word "biotechnology" behind it. All my thoughts came through animals. That's a little different from what I'm thinking. So, without further ado, animal biotechnology is mostly about the genetic engineering used in animals to improve the quality and quantity of animal products, such as milk, meat, etc. I have to be honest, I'm not that interested in genetics. In fact, I'm a biotechnology student, not an animal science student from the Faculty of Resource Science and Technology (FSTS). In summary, animal biotechnology is very useful in many fields, such as agriculture, medical, and industrial. Well, there is something special about this course; it provides an opportunity for us to go out with our teammates. Why? For educational purposes only. In this course, we will need to choose a topic and a place for our interview. I will talk about my journey in preparation for service visit learning.

    Dr. Chung, which is our lecturer on this course, is a very smart and caring man. It is because he created a service learning group selection in eLEAP (a cloud-based learning management system (LMS)) for students from different states to choose their own teammates in the same states. This can help us better choose the farm or company for our interview. Besides, we will have teammates to accompany us to visit the company or farm later. I have chosen Sarawak 2J as my service learning group. My teammates are Dayang Norilyana Syafiqah binti Awang Ahmad Tajudin, Fiona Lisa Anak Ikoh, Rachel Nasha Elen, and Asfa binti Ahmad @ Aziz. Rachel, Fiona and I live in Bintulu, while Dayang and Asfa live in Sibu. First, we are struggling with the places for our service visit learning. This is because in Sarawak, especially in Bintulu and Sibu, the number of farms or companies aiming for animal products is very small compared to what we expected. Finally, I gave my opinion on the name of our topic, which is "application of biotechnology in cattle and goat nutrition." My group and partner group (Sarawak 2F) agreed with this. Later, I found that our topic was quite similar to Abraham's group one. At the same time, we found that almost all the groups have quite similar topics and are almost likely to focus on the production of eggs, milk, meat, etc. so we decided to change our topic to something that is unique from others. I have talked about this with our partner group. They said they needed some time to think about it. Finally, we successfully changed our topic to "The making process of shrimp paste and its preservation method." There is a long story behind it. Anyway, we're satisfied with the new topic. Our partner group's topic is about the making process and preservation of shrimp powder. Our group (Sarawak 2J) have chosen the Monanie Family Enterprise, a shrimp paste company in Bintulu for site visit. After a long discussion, we finally fixed the date for our site visit which is 11 December 2021. After that, we have wrote an interview request letter and sent to the owner of the shrimp paste company. After approved, We have discussed and prepared the interview questions before the day of our site visit.