The founding father of the United States, Benjamin Franklin had once said "Without continuous growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning".  K'ng Yee Pei's life embodied the sentences very well. K'ng now has been an international Marketing Manager at HELP University since March 2020. Her journey to her current self is all about progressing and keeping growth steadily.

    Her journey started back after graduating from University of Malaya (UM) in bachelor of East Asian Studies with a major in Korean studies back in May 2006. From there we can see how she continued her passion in Korean, especially in the Korean language. Two months after graduating, she was sponsored by Korea Foundation fellowship at Korea University, Seoul to study at their Korean Language and Cultural Centre. She successfully graduated from the Advanced Level of Korean Language Regular Program. 

     However her growth did not stop until there. This time instead of the Korean language, she further her studies in a much broader field yet still within the realm of Korean studies. With her research topic South Korea- ASEAN relations, she was once again sponsored to study in Korea in September 2008. This time from the Korean government scholarship, Global Korea Scholarship at Hanguk University of Foreign Study in Seoul. In just about six months, she completed her research in March 2009 which was another big feat in her life. Her success in early completed the research in South Korea might also contribute to her long time experience as a research assistant in UM starting a year before she graduated bachelor study.

      Just like what Einstein said, life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving. After completing her education. K'ng started her career journey closely related to Korean culture. She was a Korean language lecturer in National University of Malaysia (UKM) for about a year from 2009 until 2010. During her career as a Korean language lecturer, she also served as an invigilator for TOPIK (Test of Proficiency in Korean) in Malaysia since the only place to conduct TOPIK is in UKM.

      After that she kept moving and began her second career life as a PR and event manager at Korea Tourism Organization (KTO). Her career continues to grow briskly while still not stepping out from relation with Korea. Her career experience with KTO was the longest, which is almost four years starting from October 2010 until January 2014. However, a success- driven person must not limit themselves to one place but instead they must seek for progress. Her career journey showed her ability to use related connections for better life's improvement. From KTO she is continuing her path in the tourism field by working for Hong Kong Disneyland as a Malaysia GSA representative Sale Manager for about a year in 2014.

      People say success is a journey not a destination. Thus, from working with a famous global company like Hong Kong Disneyland, K'ng reverted back to work for a domestic company. She worked with Malaysia Airlines Berhad (MAS) a domestic yet very renowned airline company. Her role in MAS was pretty much the same as in her previous job with Hong Kong Disneyland. Here in MAS was probably her second  longest career experience after with the KTO which was from July 2014 until January 2017. After that, due to her experience with MAS and her other global related work experience she started another career journey as a regional recruitment specialist at Grok Southeast Asia in which she became a recruiter specialist for the Aviation Institute of Maintenance, USA for Asia Pacific branch in 2017.

       Even after that, her passion may be within the cultural and tourism field so she changed back to become a manager at Rida International Travel and Tourism. But it was only for a year until she reverted as a Central Sales Manager which also included being a recruiter for the United Kingdom Education Centre (UKEC) Sdn Bhd in Malaysia. Going with that kind of flow, she continued her career progress as an International Marketing manager at HELP University back in 2020 in which she is not only a recruiter for international students to study at HELP University in Malaysia, she also managed the marketing for the HELP University showing the growth in her career journey.

       K'ng also showed us that having a career does not mean it will hinder our interest if we ever desire it. K'ng is a member of Toastmaster club at HELP University back in 2020 and currently she is the president for the Toastmaster club. She also showed us that our interest can progress alongside our main career. She is still teaching the Korean language which was considered as her roots since 2012 back when she was working with KTO. She is a Korean language instructor at the University of Third Age (U3A) in which she designed and conducted  Korean language and culture for the senior citizens in Malaysia.

      K'ng career was and is still growing and progressing steadily. She teaches us an example on how to follow and manage our career path until it will lead us to the road of success. As per what Robert Kiyosaki said, " There is no one road to success, you must find your own route", likewise can be seen on K'ng journey to her current self.

According to the Ministry of Human Resource (MOHR) Malaysia, less than one percent of the disabled population is employed. People with disabilities or pwd are less likely to be employed in Malaysia especially in this competitive job market nowadays. One of our alumni Azhar Kamis is one of those few to be included in that one percent employment rate for pwd in Malaysia. We had been given an opportunity to interview him about his university journey until his career now as a Korean Language teacher at University Science Malaysia(USM).

        First of all, he was a Korean major student under the department of East Asian Studies from 2006 to 2010. After that, he further his studies in Korean language at Hallym University, Korean Language Education Centre in 2010 until 2012. Later he continued Masters studies in Social Welfare at the same university in 2012 until 2015 in which he was supported by the Korean Government Scholarship Program (KGSP). He also studied at his current workplace USM for a year in teaching method short course to enable him to be a Korean language teacher at USM. In asking him why he chose Korean studies because at that time during his studies year, Korean language and Korean major was lesser-known and favoured by most students in the department of east asian studies. He answered that it was actually due to the absence of a language teacher for his initial choice which is Chinese studies and he also wanted to try something different than usual hence the reason he chose Korean studies.

         As a person with visual impairment, Azhar was also interested in social activities of helping disabled people especially visual impairment people and that might be the reason why he pursued Master in Social Welfare. We asked Azhar his experience as a social worker in South Korea. Azhar shared with us that as a student in Social Welfare studies, he was required to do industrial training thus he was placed at Chuncheon Blind Centre to do his practical training. We also asked him the differences of social welfare conditions in South Korea compared to Malaysia and any examples we should learn from South Korea. Azhar commended the advancement in accessibilities for the pwd in South Korea which is a transportation  that helps their users by notifying the upcoming train or buses for them. In comparison to Malaysia, the apps similar to that were only recently introduced but it is also incomparable with the apps in South Korea. He also noted that a lot of facilities for the pwd in South Korea should be emulated in Malaysia.

         Azhar has quite an ample experience in jobs relating to the Korean language prior to his current job as a Korean language teacher in USM. He used to be an interpreter at Chuncheon Police station. Azhar shared an anecdote about it as a coincidence. While studying in Korea, he became a replacement for his Indonesian friend as an interpreter at a community event in Chuncheon. In that event, he was asked to interpret for the Chuncheon chief police officer. Later, he became sort of an adopted family with the officer. Moving forward, an incident happened where his phone was stolen from him by a scammer pretending to ask for help from him. He immediately informed his adopted father and the Chuncheon police department decided to establish a unit to help foreigners facing similar problems as him. Since he used to be the interpreter for the Chuncheon chief police officer, he was also involved in translating and interpreting in  every meeting of that established unit. Other than that, he also used to be an interpreter for the National Institute for the International Education (NIIED) roadshow in Penang. His other experience in teaching Korean language was with Keysight Technology. He explained his job as a Korean language instructor was to teach the workers at the Keysight factory to enable them to have advantage in third language and have the transferring opportunities outside of Malaysia since Keysight technology was a multinational company (mnc). Interestingly, his job at Keysight Technology was another sided-job for him as he was already working at USM.

         Lastly, Azhar's advice to his junior was to suggest to all East Asian Studies students especially in Korean studies to find job opportunities that are relevant to the Korean studies. He emphasised us to take advantage of our strength in 3rd language. He also suggested for the students to enhance and brush up Korean language skills more extensively like studying in Korea in Korean language. He also said that it is not necessary for graduates in Korean studies to work in a field related to Korea but it could be with China or Japan international companies as it is still within the scope of East Asia.

        The most influential scientist Albert Einstein once said "Commit yourself to lifelong learning. The most valuable asset you will ever have is your mind and what you put into it." Therefore we must keep being a learner, a lifelong learner be it personal or professional. So, the most professional lifelong learner is a researcher. Aaron Denison Deivasagayam is one example of what it is to be a professional lifelong learner. He is an alumni from East Asian Studies under Korean studies at University of Malaya. After graduating with his degree in 2016, he pursued a Master in International Masters in European Regional Integration also in University of Malaya and graduated in 2018. His journey as a lifelong learner did not end there and continued into PhD studies in 2021 until now at Hiroshima University in Japan, majoring in Political Science. 

        We were given the opportunity to have quite a quick interview with Aaron as an alumni pursuing a career as a researcher and asking him a few related questions about being a researcher. Before that we should briefly mention his career as a researcher before pursuing his PhD. Aaron used to do his internship as a research intern at ASEAN Foundation. After completing his bachelor degree, he became a research assistant at Asia-Europe Institute from 2017 to 2018 which is while being a research assistant he was also studying for his Masters studies. Right after completing his Masters in September 2018, he worked as a social research officer at Centre for ASEAN Regionalism University of Malaya (CARUM) in December 2018 until June 2019. After that, he worked at British High Commission Kuala Lumpur as an International Programme Officer until he continued with his PhD in October 2021.

        Aaron is also a member of Malaysia Scholars on Korea (MASK). This group is under the Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS) Malaysia. This group was directly linked to the Korea Embassy in Malaysia where they collect and gather young researchers and professors together. They usually held annual forums with Korean experts and Malaysian experts that did research about Korea. Other than that, Aaron was also a part of the Curriculum Review Committee that helped in reviewing curriculum of the course subjects in East Asian Studies department. They are responsible to help review the relevance of the syllabus according to the trend of current job markets and the condition of international relations nowadays.

        We asked Aaron in regard to his opinion on why he is interested in regional studies as we can see based on his work experiences, most of it related to regionalism. Aaron answered firstly, it was due to the too much studies regarding Europe or Western studies hence he was quite disinterested in those studies. Meanwhile, there are still a few scholars in regional studies especially related to Asian studies. Thus, it brought us to his second reason, there is still a lack in ASEAN or asian scholars perspective regarding ASEAN or asia studies. He also mentioned that there is a need for asian scholars to give their perspective about their own regional studies with his analogy with "a perspective from our own house before looking at others house".

        As Aaron had already had three in-print academic publications under his belt, we asked him for tips on academic writing. Aaron was very generous to share his tips. His first tip is to learn from a more knowledgeable professor, a professor that is an expert in a certain subject. Collaboration is fundamental in academic writing. Through collaboration with experts, a researcher or writer can learn about writing format, how to write arguments and writing technique in academic writing. Other than being able to learn about how to write academic writing, collaboration with experts is essential in order to receive feedback to make our writing become better. Second tip is always being diligent in writing. It is hard to write if you never start it, especially academic writing. Aaron's advice is to at least write a day minimum half a page. He also suggested doing free writing. It is alright just to freely write without concern about formatting or references. We can just later insert the references and do the formatting after we are done with the writing. The last tip is to always proofread. Proofreading is pivotal despite how laborious it is. We need to always have the mindset of reading our writing from other's perspective. It is basic for us to ensure the technicality such as the format, spelling and grammar, and the clarity of our own writing for the sake of our future reader. Aaron concluded that consistency and free-writing are the two elements important in academic writing and writing is a continuous process as he is also still learning and improving his academic writing skills.

        Our next question to Aaron is his view about qualities for anyone aspiring to be a researcher. First, research is a 9 to 5 job. He goes to university at 9 am and goes home at 5 pm just like a regular office job. He reminded us that to be a good researcher, we must never  treat it lightly according to our mood, such as doing a day's research and having a rest the next day. It is alright to treat it like a half-day job or even better a full time job as per his earlier advice, to be a researcher consistency is essential. Second, a researcher must do a lot of literature review. Aaron suggested at least reading one full article a day. The reasons are literature review helped a researcher to know what to write and also from reading the articles we can find the insufficiency in the writings thus through it we can take it to supplement the inadequacy of that writing by our writing. On top of that, doing literature review is important as that will be the starting point for us to write our research paper.

        Aaron also left a few pieces of advice for his junior in Korean studies or any other students that want to pursue a career as a researcher. First, do something or anything while doing your degree. Aaron advises the students  to join any activities or clubs either on faculty level or university level or even outside of university. As for him, back in his university's day, he was a student council member for the Faculty of Arts and Social Science. He was also a committee member in east asia studies club. This experience not only helps in teaching us on how to manage our times, it is also important as a future investment to increase our self-quality. He also advises those who seriously want to pursue Masters studies or PhD studies to work first before you start furthering your studies. In his view, it is important to at least have a year of working experience for the sake of the job market. He also said it is because a person might experience culture shock when working after postgraduate studies if they keep studying without having a working experience in-between. Other than that, you might find new interest in a new field of subject to further studies while working. As per Aaron's own experience, he took interest to study his current PhD research subject due to the exposure he got during his working experience. Aaron also highlighted that working experience is pivotal for your application in PhD studies to get passed.

        To conclude, Aaron shares his future endeavours. His plan for now is to keep going in the academic world and continue to write academic publications as he already has a know-how in publishing academic writing or maybe working for other institutes after his PhD studies end.

We are nowadays living in the era of Industrial Revolution (IR) 4.0 and some experts even say that we are heading towards IR 5.0. As we all know, a few  keywords determine IR 4.0 such as Internet of Things (IoT), Augmented and Virtual Reality and Big Data. Hence, we can see how changes happened in the job market. One of the jobs with increasing demand today is an analyst. A job related to one of the keywords in IR 4.0 which is Big Data industry. Usually those who worked in this field come from the background of computer programming or business administration, rarely there are those from outside of that background especially in the Social Science field . Yet, Aezlyn Fariesha is one of those rare individuals that is currently working as a junior analyst for Korean Support at the Gfk Retail and Technology Malaysia.

        Aezlyn was one of the graduates in Korean Studies. She graduated not a long time ago in 2021. One of the contributors for Aezlyn to be hired as a Junior Analyst in Gfk Retail was due to her multilingual skills in Malay, English and Korean. However, having an additional language perk is not the only reason for her to be a junior analyst. Despite being a fresh graduate, Aezlyn had quite extensive experiences under her belt even before graduating.

        First of all, Aezlyn is very active with engagement activities in university since her first year of study. She was a committee member for the faculty of arts and social science whereas she was involved in organising the Dean Lists Award which was held every semester. A year later, she became the Head Committee to manage and organise the Dean Lists Award. She is also active with the I-Smart Buddy Programme under the faculty. This programme was managed by the faculty in which the local students became a guide, helper and 'buddy' towards the international students at the faculty. She was involved as an I-Smart Buddy for 3 consecutive phases. She is mainly involved with Korean and Japanese students. Being a committee member and an I-Smart Buddy had been helpful for the improvement of her soft skill especially in communication skill.

        Other than that, she is undeniably interested in international relations. Aside from being an I-Smart Buddy, Aezlyn also regularly participates in outbound programs organised by the faculty. She had been twice to Thailand for the short-term outbound programs. Other than that, she also participated as an exchange student to South Korea for a semester during her second year in university. Participating in an outbound mobility program more than once and even one that is for quite a long time demonstrates Aezlyn as a person with strong adaptability skill and interpersonal skill. Adaptability is important when you are in the workforce especially if you are a newly hired employee. Adaptability also depicts that you are courageous to face any new unforeseen challenges in your career especially if that job is not exactly matching with your field of studies. Thus, her experience was convincing enough for her to land a job as a junior analyst right after graduating.

        Aezlyn also proved her solid Korean language ability that further gave her more edge compared to others. Aezlyn is a participant for the 14th Korean Speech Contest in Malaysia which was held by the Embassy of the Republic of Korea (ROK). She participated in the advanced level category and was able to claim the title as the champion for the advanced level category in 2019. She also was selected as Malaysia's representative at the ASEAN-Korea Youth Camp for the Korean Speech contest. In that contest she competed with other 200 contestants in southeast asia countries. She not only honed her communication skill but also her additional language skill which is Korean language. It is very commendable of her to compete in a speech contest using her third language. Hence, Aezlyn was able to highlight her proficiency in Korean language which is important in her current job.

        Another impressive feat achieved by Aezlyn is she is a part of Malaysia's Nation Leader and Youth Delegate which was organised by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family of Republic of Korea (ROK). Her role as Malaysia's delegate also needed her to participate in the ASEAN - Korea Youth Summit in which they must discuss and draft recommendations for the prospect of ASEAN- ROK better cooperation. She also wrote and conducted undergraduate research dissertations on the topic 'International Marriage in South Korea and Malaysia'. These achievements enhanced Aezlyn's ability in analysing, critical thinking, detail-orientation and documentation skills. Those listed skills are extremely fundamental in recent years especially in the career of an analyst.

        Last but not least, Aezlyn also shows impressive credibility as a future member of working society. She was an intern at Deloitte Malaysia. She was placed under global employer service for the immigration department. Being an intern at such a big multinational company (mnc) already an extra credit to display her competency as most mnc companies only selected the cream of the crop for their interns. To sum up, we can choose a very unlikely career that most people assume might not be related to our studies like as a junior analyst as long as we have enough experiences and matching skills demanded by that profession just as what had been proven by Aezlyn Fariesha.