1. About me:
I came to University at Buffalo in 2013 to pursue my Environmental Engineering degree. The reason I
chose this major is because I want to make an impact on the world. Everyone is talking about changing
the world, but no one has the exact solution. I chose this major so that I could turn this mission into my
daily job.
My home country, Malaysia, is on the other side of earth. In Malaysia most of us are trained to learn three
languages (English, Mandarin, Malay). When I first came to UB, my English was barely proficient enough
to communicate with Americans. Since I was a fast learner, I was able to pick up my English writing and
speaking skills with the help of my professors and my classmates. In the future, I envision being a bridge
to connect engineers in United States with engineers in Malaysia, Singapore, and China.
If you want me to use a word to describe myself, I would say accountable. I am a man of my word. It is
either 0% or 110% from me. The one thing that I am really proud of myself is that I am always on time.
When I was a little kid, my grandpa told me being early will never cause any harm to you -- it means you
take the promise seriously. Additionally, I also like to work in a team. Working in a team came naturally
to me as I was exposed to leadership at my early age. I always want to become a leader, a role model that
will help others to improve and grow themselves.
During my spare time, I like to read self-improvement books to invest in myself. Furthermore, I also
stepped out of my comfort zone to talk and meet new people, associate with high achievers and learn
from them on how to present myself in front of the crowd. During college, I enrolled a leadership training
program called TORCH. In the program I attended workshops on how to be a good leader and also
participated in community service projects such as helping out at a shelter house and a food bank.
Education
As I mentioned earlier, I came to UB to pursue my Environmental Engineering degree, focusing on soil,
water, and air remediation. I have taken those classes and also completed group assignments and projects,
working together with my classmates. With 3 years of direct education UB, I believed I have prepared
myself well enough to face the challenges in the real world. For most of the classes I took, professional
written reports and data analysis are essential in this program. Critical thinking and strong analytical skills
are also required in order to become a successful engineer. I once was told by my professor, he mentioned
that engineers are in top 1% of the world, in terms of our analytical and critical thinking ability. As an UB
trained Environmental Engineer, I believe I am.
Favorite Class
In the beginning, I was not really interested in what Environmental Engineers are doing. My friends always
teased me that I will be fixing toilets or clean up crap after I graduated. So I really hate this major. I
remember whenever I called my parents during the weekends, I spent 80% of my time complaining how
much I hate this major. Until my senior year, I met a passionate and successful environmental engineer as
my lecturer. His name is Mr. Martin Doster. He contributes his time after work and come to UB to share
his knowledge with us. He uses his knowledge and real life experience as teaching materials and show us
the reality and also how to solve challenges as they arise. His passion, work ethic, and his selfless
personality have made me decided to become a part of something big. He showed me that what I have

2. now and what I have learned are very valuable and I could use that knowledge to really make an impact
on the world.
Employment Goals
I hope to apply what I have learned in school to my job and improved my knowledge as I am constantly
learning new skills. For the next five years, I am looking to increase my job responsibilities, to be in a
management role and add value to the company. My goals are to work with a team of passionate people
who have the same goal as me, together we make a real, achievable change in the world. My ideal first
job will be something related to remediation or water/ wastewater treatment. Those are the areas that I
am really passionate and interested about to start my not just exciting, but rewarding career.
Academic Success
Back in UB I participated in activities organized by student chapter, Engineers for Sustainable World (ESW)
and Air and Waste Management Association (AWMA). From the activities, I learned how to communicate
with people, to work with people I did not know. Besides engaging myself in school activities, I managed
to maintain my CGPA despite my busy class schedule. I became acclimated to US culture and US academics
such as teaching style, group assignments, and also exams. Given that I only have limited amount of time
in US, my grades have risen significantly over the years despite my culture shock.
I was fortunate to intern at the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation. From the internship I
had a chance to work with different departments including Petroleum Bulk Storage (PBS), Community
Outreach, and Great Lake Programs. I have learned a lot working in a team with them. During the week, I
usually went out with the environmental engineering technician to the field and inspected sites around
the Buffalo area. From that experience I learned how to communicate with clients, how to have a great
attention to details as an inspector to make sure clients would not violate any rules and regulations.
Additionally, I also learned how to be a great learner as I was learning real work experience and new skills
from technicians. In addition, I volunteered to help out at the DEC booth in Chautauqua County Fair. I
have learned how to educate general public about invasive species, informed them new rules and
regulations about hunting and fishing. Furthermore, I also collaborated with a biologist and engineers
from Army Corps of Engineers to do water sampling to determine invasive species on Tonawanda Creek.
From that experience, I learned how to work with people efficiently under tough environment, and able
make the best out of worst situation.
In addition, the senior year project also put me in the team environment. I was an efficient communicator
on the team. Also, I am always the first one to volunteer to do work so that I could help other teammates
once I finished my tasks. My role on the team was to create digital data for my team such as cross sectional
area, elevation of the site, creating surface water and groundwater level, and also the direction of
groundwater flow by using software. In that project, we were required to apply everything we have
learned in the past three years. After I finished my tasks, I went to helped my teammate and finished the
remaining tasks if I was not needed. I admitted that I was not a good leader until I saw one of my
teammates showed her leadership skills. She was amazing in conducting meetings and communicating
with us. She oversees our work and make sure that all of us did our part correctly. I felt very enthusiastic
working with her because I know in order to become a great leader, I have to become a good follower. It
was a lot of pressure but we managed to overcome it as a team. I am very grateful that all of us put our
maximum effort to complete the project.

3. Other than that, I also participate in a design project outside of my class. I collaborated with four other
students from different majors such as, mechanical engineering and chemical engineering handpicked by
the professor. He expected us to contribute our expertise in our own discipline to the design project. The
client required us to design an automated watering system for a community garden at University Height.
The main purpose was to minimize the labor and the water used for watering the garden. We started off
the project as four strangers, but as we getting to know more about each other, we made a significant
progress in our weekly meetings. From this project I learned how to communicate with real client and
understand their needs. Additionally, I also learned how to use my knowledge from my discipline and
implemented it with other discipline in this project. I have used my research skills and conducted analyses
between each alternative and also my hydrologic skills to calculate how much water is needed to water
the garden. However, the most important lesson I learned from this project is that do not feel ashamed
when asking for help or express your ideas. Asking for help means you are learning and expressing your
ideas could lead to something great at any time. All in all, it was amazing that five strangers had come
together and managed delivered an amazing proposal to the client in University Height by the end of the
day.