On 24 September 2019, an entourage of 13 Quantity Surveying students accompanying by 1 lecturer from Kolej Laila Taib (KLT) embarked on a 5-days-4-nights educational trip to Johor Bahru and Malacca. The main objective of the trip was to expose the students to real world of building construction as well as enhancing their social networking.
During the trip, the students visited the mega futuristic city, the Country Garden Forest City located within the Iskandar Region. Forest city, the high-profile smart new city built by Chinese property developer Country Garden Holdings, consists of four man-made islands, total land area of 1,386ha – about three times the size of Singapore Sentosa island. The city has attracted significant attention from industry watchers and the media worldwide and been named by Forbes as one of “five new cities that are set to shake up the future”. The Integrated City with 8 major industries (Foreign Investment, Tourist Attractions, Education Hub, Entrepreneurial base, MICE, Retirement Community, E-Commerce Centers & Financial District), a Smart Eco-City can acommodate estimation population of 700,000 residents.
The trip also included an academic visit to Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) Johor. Being the host to this academic visit, the Faculty of Built Environment and Surveying from UTM had arranged a half-day event for KLT students to have a chance to mingle and interact with the Quantity Surveying students from UTM. Such interactions include educational session, workshop and campus tour. The purpose of the event was to encourage quantity surveying students from public and private institutions of different cultural backgrounds and religions to mingle and to get to know each other. It is hoped that this will indirectly enhance greater networking amongst the students during their studies and in the near future when they enter the construction industry. Lecturers may also have the chance to initiate future collaborations in student activities, research, conferences, etc.
The remaining days of the trip was well spent by visiting Malacca, a place which is rich in cultural heritage and bears several places of historical interest such as St Paul Church, Christ Church, the Stadhuys and A’Famosa. Both the students and lecturer had an awesome experiential learning time in soaking up the cultures in this historical town.
KLT firmly believes that theoretical knowledge is not enough for making a good professional career. This trip is truly an eye-opener for the students by providing them an exposure to real life industries as opposed to possibly theoretical knowledge being taught at college. Hence, KLT will continue to organise such educational trip or site visit to provide students a platform to interact with real industries. KLT now offers six diploma programmes, which are accounting, architecture, civil engineering, quantity surveying, business management and electrical & electronic Engineering. KLT scholarship is available to all deserving Malaysian who achieve a minimum of five credits in SPM or minimum of 4 credits in UEC or other equivalent qualifications. The college welcomes all walk-in-enquiries from Monday to Friday (8am to 5pm). For online enquiries, visit https://klt.edu.my or call 084-311888.