UTAR Alumni

JUNE 2012

My Life in Malaysia as an Indonesian

Sandy Christian
Bachelor of Information Technology (Hons) Communications and Networking

My name is Sandy Christian, I am currently working at Computer Science Corporation to support Woodside Petroleum Limited which is an Australian petroleum exploration and production company and has its headquarters in Perth, Western Australia. Woodside is Australia's largest publicly traded oil and gas exploration and production company and one of the world's leading producers of liquefied natural gas.

I am working as IT Operations analyst and working remotely from Malaysia to support IT operations in all Woodside offices and locations such as in Australia, China, England, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Singapore, and United States of America. My task is to make sure that all IT system and infrastructure operate properly within internal company operation and externally with other partner and client companies. I support all range of IT operations from Service request, change and incident management of IT management, Remote desktop support, Server, Applications, Network and telecommunication. As an analyst I work with many and different kind of people from Woodside staffs, Internal IT team, External or third party vendor and non-Woodside staff prior to escalation and notification process in handling incidents and problems.

I graduated from UTAR in 2011 with Bachelor of Information Technology (Hons) Communications and Networking Degree. I decided to continue my study further to UTAR because I wanted to study oversea and could not decide where I should go at first. The main reason I chose to come to Malaysia is because it is not far away from my hometown Jakarta, Indonesia and since that was my first experience living away from my Family, I would not have to worry much because of the distance. I chose UTAR specifically because there were not many International students especially Indonesians, so I could feel experience the real oversea experience and get to know local cultures better.

A lot of great memories are unforgettable during my university life. From sleepless night to complete assignments and prepare for exam to getaway and trips with friends during semester break and holiday. I also joined extracurricular activity such as Basketball where I have 2 medals from UTAR for participating in competition. I also represented UTAR in Nilai UC-Ministry of Higher Education Future Leaders Camp 2009, where all universities student leaders and delegations in Malaysia are gathered in Nilai for 3 days to be prepared as Future Leader.

I enjoyed diversity of cultures in UTAR very much and also learned many languages, cultures, and experiences from friends around me. UTAR offered me good education through comprehensive education system, qualified lectures, complete facilities and adequate learning environment in great campus. Not only academic knowledge that I received from study in UTAR but all hard and good time that I have been through while studying in UTAR had created my character to be a person who can accept challenges, motivated, highly dedicated, endures hardship, and grateful for what I have in my life.

As I am experiencing my working life now, I realize that all lessons that have been taught, knowledge and experiences that I got from UTAR are the preparation and foundation of great life that I am currently working on and what is going to come. I am grateful that my experienced dealing with multi-cultural people in university has enabled me to perform and interact well with staffs from different nations and cultures in my current working place.