Asia Fellowship

My Acceptance Essay

I wish to share my statement of purpose which was selected by the school for successful candidates and receive the prestigious POSCO TJ Park Asia Fellowship award. The school selects its best candidates and forwarded our names to the foundation.

After succeeding the first round of interview conducted by the school, I had to attend another interview, this time at its office in Port Klang, Malaysia. I will share the process of the selection process in another entry.

For now, I hope this helps for potential students who aspire to attend schools in Korea and become one of the recipients of this fellowship.

I would like to extend my appreciation to Norjufri Nizar Edrus, former First Secretary at the Embassy of Malaysia in Seoul, a fellow Malay College old boy and a colleague of mine in the service; for the tips and do’s and don’ts, which was one of the factors to my success. Thanks buddy!

1. Explain your most important accomplishment and explain why you think it as such.

The year was 2001, on a clear and sunny Saturday morning in the month of May. It was the 20^th Passing Out Parade for 900 odd officer cadets commissioned into the Malaysian Armed Forces Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC). The writer had completed his cadet training from 1998 to 2001 as a volunteer and a scholar. It was the writer’s toughest and grueling three years even for an alumnus of the Royal Military College in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Throughout the writers schooling years followed by university, it gave the writer a sense of calling to lead men and women in battlefield and in the boardroom. 





           Chief of Army’s son, Best Cadet. 

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Skudai, Johor Bahru, Johor.



Those formative years for the writer, has molded the way to think, react and strategise, and learn from others, and to bring out the best in each other. Out of the 900 commissioned cadets, only 12 were selected for Sword of Honour, or an award of Best Cadets for the 20^th ROTC. The writer was one of them. That sense of accomplishment was for the writer, not the most important, but a catalyst for his future achievements that the writer can and should realise in giving the best he can do.  




Almarhum Sultan Iskandar of Johor’s grandson, Johor’s Crown Prince Tunku Ismail Idris ibni Sultan Ibrahim Ismail, Junjung Kasih Tuanku! 

Universiti Tun Hussein Onn, Batu Pahat, Johor  (Picture Credit to Cadet Officer Aliff Fazly's Facebook Page)

When the emcee for the parade announced the writer’s name to come forward and receive his Sword of Honour, the late Sultan of Johor, Almarhum Sultan Iskandar Al-Mutawakkil Alallah held out his hand for the writer to accept the honour. The writer could still remember the emcee’s script mentioning the writer’s accolades and contributions – President of Rugby Club, Senior Under Officer (Leader) of the ROTC,  President Mess Council, Exco for Leadership and Dynamics of the Student Leader Council, Chairman for “Always Lead Operations” in helping kids in the rural areas of Sabah, Borneo to excel in school, among others. To the writer’s mind, with all these achievements, what more can he ask for. That is the thirst that the writer’s has chiseled in his heart, to be the finest in any field ventured into, as the mantra for the writer remains as:

“Remember who you want to be”

To be successful.

The writer accomplished so many in his youth, and visions that many more will come with hard work and dedication.  To summarise, the writer is still looking for his most important accomplishment – that will come with good mentoring with his superiors, loving family and an excellent place such as KDI School to grow and develop the writer’s full potential.

 

2. Describe your career vision and why you have chosen it as your vision.

In the writer’s career path, he can become the District Officer, an Undersecretary of a Government Ministry, an Ambassador of his country, a Director of Sectoral Industrial Policy, an experienced Trainer for Leadership, or even the Head of Corporate Communications Unit. That shows how broad the career path of one Administrative and Diplomatic Service (ADS) officer in Malaysia.




PTD (ADS) officer in his Number 1 Service Dress, with his college sweetheart,
National Institute of Public Administration, Bukit Kiara, Kuala Lumpur

 

The writer has grown a huge interest in focusing his specialization in Security, Defense and Strategic Management which is important for most Malaysian ADS officers. In this sense, the writer is not single out as the only who wants to venture into these fields.

The Government of Malaysia has given the option for its management and professionals in the public service of which career path one wants to concentrate on and identify his or her interest. For the writer, at his current level, he is responsible for handling public affairs issues, such as complaints, media communications and public relations exercise. It is a good platform for the writer to get the senses and notions of the public in his long-term career experience, but that is not a vision that the writer want to concentrate on.

For the writer, as any Administration and Diplomatic public officials, he is aware that foreign policy is an extension of the nation’s domestic policy. In those fields, foreign and domestic, a serving domestic officer must be an excellent reader in visualising the way his country is heading locally and internationally. 

The writer visions that he may serve the country not only in the capacity as an advisor to his country, but the region and the international platform as well. When someone who is well verse in his nation’s public policy and the policy of its region, e.g. ASEAN for Southeast Asian nations, or OIC for Organisation for Islamic Countries and even other multilateral bodies that cooperates on common issues, the writer foresees that one needs to have that expertise and the will to analyse and influence such issues for the benefit of the masses.

With this, the vision in becoming a strategist and an advisor for his country as well as regional cooperation, be it in human capital development, natural resources sector or even creating leaders among leaders, is the writer’s career vision. The writer chose this as he sees himself as someone who contributes back to the people.

 3. Describe your potential contributions to the class if you were to receive admission to the KDI School.

The writer as a Military brat, had the opportunity to live and grew up in a few countries. The writer’s first experience was residing in Leavenworth, Kansas in 1985, London then Sittingbourne, Kent, United Kingdom in 1989-1991. Then the writer was posted as a Malaysian diplomat to Washington, D.C., United States of America in 2007-2009. The writer was given an excellent experience by the Government of Malaysia to serve first domestically as an Assistant District Officer in the Northern Malaysian state of Pulau Pinang and climb up his career ladder to serve abroad.




My father, General Tan Sri Md. Hashim Hussein – who has guided and mentored me. Thank you sir!

Picture at the International Hall of Fame, US Command and General Staff College, Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas

 

These experiences for the writer gave him an appreciation of what can be achieved by learning from each other. Though the writer quite regretted that he was not given the opportunity to live and learn in his formative years in Asian Tigers nation such as the Republic of Korea.

The writer’s potential contribution would be in learning, unlearning and relearning Malaysian successes and that of other countries. At the same time, sharing the career experiences the writer had in his line as a public official in the Public Service of Malaysia.

Malaysia had in many years grown to become one of Asia’s powerhouses, with a population of slightly 28 million and an influx of foreign immigrants, legal and illegal who had also played its role in its economy-  it has success stories that can be garnered and emulated in other countries, as well as failures to avoid. Though Malaysia’s public policy might not be well suited with other nations, but the writer may share the “What works and what did not” in a developing country such as Malaysia.

The writer would like to see his participation in the class to be livelier with debates and positive arguments that would bring more ideas to real life issues, and more positive outcomes for the sake of learning.

Simultaneously, the writer was once taught that all Western or European seen to be superior to Asians, in the class, if the writer is accepted for this program would be in building up more confidence, and making more networking for the Asians to rise up and take its place in the world as shakers and movers.

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