“You won’t succeed if you neglect relationship with Allah”

By Ummi Fauzianul Husna Abd Rahman

“You can study for the whole night or the whole week, but, if you pay no attention to your relationship with Allah, then all your efforts will be wasted,” said Fadzleen Shahida binti Rusli, an IIUM student who constantly received the Dean’s List every semester.

This twenty-two year old lady said religion plays a very important role in her studies. She is very concerned with her relationship with Allah. One of the obligatory daily routines for her is to read the Qur’an. If she doesn’t, she will feel like she has lost contact with someone that is very important to her.

She said, “Do not be off track or deviated from the true path of life. It means, do not forget Allah and the main purpose of why He created human beings in this world. Do not miss the five obligatory prayers, read the Qur’an daily and always give charity.”

Fadzleen, from Kota Bharu, Kelantan, is currently in her third year, second semester, in Communication Engineering. Her father teaches engineering subject at a school while her mother is a senior technician in biomedical engineering. She is very excellent in her studies and has been on the Dean’s List every semester. The highest CGPA she has obtained is 3.91 during her second year study. Not only that, she also received the Dean’s List award during her foundation studies and not to be exaggerated, she also managed to get straight A’s for all examinations during her school time, which are UPSR, PMR and SPM.

Apart from that, she is also currently doing part-time business where she sells hijabs online and it is quite impressive because she managed to buy her own car using her own money. She is proud for the reason that she does not have to burden her parents to buy the car. Besides, she learned that it is time for her to be independent and financially support herself. Plus, she is happy for having something from her own income.

It is surely difficult to complete many jobs in a time. But, it is possible to be done if the time is well managed. She explained that if there are many things to be done, she will make a timeline. She will arrange all the tasks in the timeline and to make sure to complete the tasks within the stipulated time.

She said, “I don’t like to delay any task. What need to be finished, must be finished according to the time that I had set. Since I have a part-time business, I am very busy with the stocks, customers and marketing. This is also one of the challenges for me because I need to divide my time wisely for both study and business. The most important thing to me is time management.”

One of the factors why she can perform in her studies is because of the full attention that she gives during the lecture conducted in the class. She will make sure that she understands the topic during class time. If she doesn’t, she will directly ask the lecturer or her friends.

She further described, “When you understand the topic in the class, you can be relaxed once you get back to your room. When there is a quiz or exam, usually, I will study smart not study hard. Study smart here means, I will study using key points or I will create my own formulae. I will try to understand the concept and later on I will apply it in exam.”

According to her, both self-study and group study are important because to be successful, a student cannot stick to one method of study only. She further stated that the study group plays a part in exchanging knowledge and information. Not everyone knows how to solve a certain problem.

In clarifying her method of study, she mentioned, “We need to have plenty of keys or ways. Every key comes with its own benefit. Self-study is not enough to force ourselves forward. Yes, self-study helps to calm your mind, to relax and to be more focused. But, when it comes to difficulty, it is impossible to solve it without having any discussion.”

There must be someone behind each success in a person. The same goes to Fadzleen, her parents are the driving force for her to be successful in both study and business. They always remind her about her family’s status that they are not from a rich family. Moreover, she studies hard to make her parents proud of her and also she wants her accomplishment to be highly recognised by the whole world.

Besides, her ambition is to have her own company with her own brand. She added, “Whenever I feel sad and less motivated, I will look at my parents’ photo and recall back all those sacrifices that they have done for me. I’ve always wanted to bring my parents to Mecca by using my own money. And because of that, I am struggling in my studies, to work and have my own salary to support my parents and to repay their good deeds towards me.”

If you come to her room, you will see lots of Dean’s List certificates on her study board. The reason why she put them up is to serve as an inspiration for her to do better in her study. Instead of having other Dean’s List recipients or her classmates’ as her rivals, she said she is focusing more to challenge herself. She wants to challenge her previous semester’s achievement in order to get a better result for the coming semesters.

The difficulties faced in engineering field have never failed her to perform well. She agreed that engineering is difficult not only for women but also for men. Although engineering is a tough course, she still wants to do her best to accomplish as much achievements as she can. She wants to develop her soft skills and to socialise with many people during her study time because she realised that she needs to compete with others, especially men to get involved in the engineering industry.

On her advice to the younger generation, particularly for young ladies, she pointed out, “Please don’t be weak. Prepare yourself both mentally and physically. Change your attitude and be independent. It is hard for you to become successful when you are depending too much on someone else.”

“It is important to be creative and open minded. A person who always follow what other people said is most likely difficult for him or her to be successful in engineering field. Engineering is about problem solving. In order to survive in the field, we need to think in advance.” **

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