Kulliyyah of Engineering Research and Innovation Exhibition: Selected Chat

Prof. Dr. Ahmad Faris to Me
Dean, Kulliyyah of Engineering
Expert in fluid mechanics and heat transfer (super related to my project)

'Is this your project? What is gas turbine engine?'

'Its a jet engine, Sir'

'Why is it called gas?'

'Because its fluid medium is air, which is a type of gas, Sir'

'Air?! So, why didn't you call your engine 'air turbine engine', sounds better, you know? The term gas is so negative to the environment!'

'Er.. Hehe.. Er.. Hehe, yes, yes,'

Never thought of that before, but its true, indeed.


Prof. Dr. Khalid to Me
An old timer from Electrical and Computer Engineering Department

'So, can you tell me more about your project?'

'Er.. it is a model jet engine, Sir, just like the big ones on real aircraft, only this one is small,'

'Really?! Can you show me? How much is the thrust your engine produce?'

'Er.. That is the problem. Actually we didn't manage to measure the thrust, becau-'

'No! Here's some advice I want to give to you. Never say the negative things! You never say 'problems' during exhibition. In exhibition, people wnat to see the beauty of your product. So tell people the beauty, tell them what is so amazing about your product. Of course, I know there are lots of problems you faced before, but, keep the problems between you and your supervisor. Now, just put all your problems in a positive way to tell people. You know, after this you will be an engineer. Engineers will always present to clients about their product and need to impress the clients to buy. OK? I know you tried measure the thrust. Now, tell me again how you measure the thrust..'

Very nice advice. Panjang lagi sebenarnya advice dia, dari aku berdua dengan dia, sampai 4, 5 orang berkumpul keliling kiteorang, dengar Prof. Khalid bagi advice. Thank you, Sir, appreciate it.


Assoc. Prof. Dr. Qasim Shah to Me and Hadi
A Pakistani, spent 10 years in Japan, expert in impact engineering, makes jokes all the time

'There's no other people coming to the exhibition, eh? Just our people from engineering,'

'Yup. They don't even do publicity for the outside to know, Sir'

'Yeah.. That's the thing. But you know why we do the exhibition? We do it because we want people to know about what we're doing (research). In the West, they don't do this exhibition, in fact, we will go to them and ask them what are they doing. You know, these 300 years we (Muslims) are still at the bottom, far below them. You remember one time long ago, the Western come to us and ask us how we do this, how we do that? When do you think that time will come again, eh? Probably not coming even after a century more, eh? Haha. But that is life now,'

Lepak dengan dia aja sepanjang satu hari exhibition, poster dia bersebelahan dengan poster aku dan Hadi. Dalam gelak-gelak dengar dia buat lawak, banyak isi dapat daripada dia. Bagus dia ni. Mudah-mudahan satu hari nanti, tak lama lagi, Muslim akan bangkit semula dalam bidang ilmu ini. Amin.