Pengajian Malaysia 3: Individual Reflection on Group Project

Student Name : Vanessa Christiana Phan

Student ID : 0345811
Group Project : Group 4 (Sabah)

In the past couple of weeks, I and my fellow group partners have been cooperating on a
final project of Pengajian Malaysia 3 modules. Our team comprised seven members, Dennisa,
Denise, Kezia, Madeline, Michella, Rosa and I were working on a virtual video tour and online
portfolio (wiki) in one of the states in Malaysia. After a broad discussion, we decided to research
Sabah states as it is not as popular as the other 13 states in Malaysia. We are expecting our wiki
as well as video projects may inform people further on this second largest state in Malaysia and
elevate Sabah’s tourism as the pearl of Borneo. Furthermore, it is a great pleasure for me to have
a research on Sabah due to it is located on the boundary with my country, Indonesia.
The forming of our group was determined before our first day of class, we got acquainted
through telegram and realized that we are all Indonesian. The intimacy was easily made as all of
us wised up that it is important to understand that working in a group alters productively each of
the individual performances towards our goals. The roles are determined for each individual on
the first day of class and we all agreed fairly on our roles with no objection. Hence, we planned
out specifically what our priorities were as a group and individually to succeed in our projects.
Reflecting upon my roles, I might be said as a ‘time-keeper’ as I have a pace setting
leadership style. I often remind the group to keep track of everything on time and rush them to
complete the tasks following the timeline in a discipline manner. Thus, I got a stern reminder of
the dateline to get our work done efficiently and expect tasks to be done on schedule. Moreover,
in order to establish the process and make matters smoother, I initiative to make a group chat
on LINE apps and being communicative to all members to check our project’s progress weekly.
With regards to communication, negotiating as well as reporting with other team members are
not a big deal for me owing that for the most part, our group exchanges information well and
communicates in a clear and assertive way. Hence, argumentation and problems rarely appeared
throughout the process. Personally, perhaps the most challenging part of this project was the
wiki part as I chose to be responsible upon the ‘History and Formation’ of Sabah. Basically,
Sabah’s history and formation began a long time ago and there were a lot of events that
happened under the Sabah. Consequently, it took me a longer time to research and combine all
of the events according to the chronology timeline to make them easier to be understood by
readers.
In looking back, we had a big deal on managing the roles and delegate the tasks to team
members as we didn’t choose any leader in our team. As a result, everybody was trying to
manage the project by their own perspective without any further consideration on the particular
strength or weaknesses of the individuals in our team. In addition, even though the project was
done and submitted before the due date, I felt a slight dissatisfaction on my work as a time-
keeper due to the rushing timetable might compromise the quality of our work, as well as our
team not allocating sufficient periods to successfully complete the video projects. Experiencing
these issues and critically reflecting upon them, it could be justified that our team should have
been more realistic about timing of activities and clearly determining someone to be responsible
as a team leader to ensure that we could achieve the high-quality group project in adequate time.
Regarding the Sabah state, although I just saw them through pictures and videos on the
internet, I am totally amazed with the wonderful landscapes offered by Sabah’s eco-tourism.
Based on the research done by our group, the natural scenery and cultures through the
traditional food as well as the historical attractions of Sabah are priceless and absolutely worth
saving. These factors come up as my main reason to visit Sabah soon after this pandemic situation
is over. Refers to the history and formation, the history events recorded under the Sabah were
all interesting for me as through this research project I am able to acknowledge that every place
and region have their own unique stories that currently may be involved in their cultures and
beliefs. Sabah was mentioned to be a region that was contested by several authorities as it is
located on a strategic geography with its richness in plant diversity combined with its unique
geological and climatic conditions. In comparison with my hometown, Bandung (Indonesia), the
cultures and traditional food was totally different as we got wide disparities on history and
formation stories, which Malaysia was mostly undertaken by British colonization, whereas
Indonesia was managed by Netherlands. Perhaps, in traditional cuisine, the usage of spices is the
only similarity I can acknowledge between Bandung and Sabah traditional cuisine. On the other
hand, with regards to natural landscapes tourisms, both Bandung and Sabah get the same level
of beauty and fascinating natural tourism landscapes that personally may give me a rich life
where I can heal the fatigue of daily life. Similarly, the old buildings as historical attractions are
also offered in my city. As far as I’m concerned, those places are good tourism spots to be visited
as a good way to touch the region’s history. Furthermore, I would like to recommend elevating
Sabah’s tourism by having vigorous promotional activities done by the state and national tourism
board to increase the stability and security of Sabah state.
Taking all into account, to reflect upon the role I have undertaken during the group project,
it can be maintained that a valuable lesson has been learnt, experienced and confronted to me.
A new set of knowledge and understanding about the Sabah state has completely opened my
mind and made me realize that their existence is worth saving to be preserved. In the future, I
will ensure that sufficient planning as well as task delegation are made in the beginning to lessen
the conflicts and make the project done effectively. I will also have further research about other
regions and cultures and acknowledge people, especially teenagers, that cultures and history are
needed to be preserved from extinction.