MyPSA Metamorphosis 3.0
MyPSA Metamorphosis
After a year of hiatus, MyPSA Metamorphosis is finally making a return in 2021! The programme has spanned across 6 months and is structured into 3 phases: Introductory Phase, Execution Phase and Reflective Phase. Unlike the previous years, the programme is conducted fully virtual due to the pandemic, but that does not hinder the objective to transform young pharmacy students into potential leaders within their community and build intervarsity bonds among participants.
Phase 1: Introductory Phase
“A Baby Photo of Me!” session was one of our ice breaker sessions, where all participants will get to know each other by the baby photos shared on the screen.
“Who’s The Undercover” is a word guessing game with a detective twist to keep everyone on their toes.
Other than that, sharing sessions and workshops were scheduled throughout the days with experienced leaders in their respective fields, presenting on the 4 main topics: Creativity, Management, Branding and Communication.
On the first day, we had Mr Kent Sim, a director of the local documentary: Local Legends and the founder of 48 Production as the main speaker and a guest speaker Dr Sam Wee, sharing around the area of creativity.
“Creativity is not limited to the creative industry but also applies in all situations that involves critical thinking.”
- Mr Kent Sim
Group 3 catches everyone’s attention launching their skincare product named Hydra by connecting both water bottle and a moisturising face mask.
Group 4 unleashed their creativity in advertising the free ruler by telling the heartwarming peanut butter love story with a poetic style.
The morning of the second day, we had Mr Kaii Lim, CEO from Clef Marketing Sdn Bhd and founder of 97Bros presenting the topic about Management in a Q&A format. Mr Kaii has willingly provided insightful sharing and practical tips based on his experience.
“Always understand your top priorities and make sacrifices if necessary. ”
- Mr Kaii Lim
After the interesting Q&A session, “Life’s a cutie-PIE” workshop is conducted where participants are requested to fill in the circle with pie illustrations based on each aspect of their life. Then, another pie-chart is drawn based on the desired lifestyle that the participant wishes to achieve in 2021.
“Life’s a cutie-pie” workshop serves the purpose to help participants to reflect and manage the expectation of each aspect of their life.
Third workshop, featuring Ms Vivian, an expert in the area of advertising and marketing, worked with multiple brands locally and internationally, bringing us about the topic of “Personal Branding”. Ms Vivian has revealed the concept and the importance of personal branding.
“First you should do the internal work before we do the visual or external work”
- Ms Vivian
The session then proceed to a LinkedIn banner workshop to help participants to work on their banner and eventually encourage participants to set up their LinkedIn profiles.
LinkedIn Banner workshop: Participants were separated into breakout rooms and worked on one LinkedIn banner collaboratively. Ms. Vivian provided useful feedback and practical tips for the banners presented by all the teams.
The last session is led by Ms Mirosha, who currently works as a Recruitment Consultant at Monroe Consulting Group which is an international award-winning executive recruitment company. Ms Mirosha has shared on the topic of “Communication”.
“When communicating, we have to realise, we are dealing with humans, we should give people the benefit of the doubt ”
- Ms Mirosha
After the session, the committees have prepared an interesting communication workshop named “Blind Drawing”. The participants were separated into breakout rooms and had some fun drawing sessions. This workshop emphasised the importance of maintaining good communication between group members in order to produce an accurate drawing.
“Blind Drawing” workshop: The participants are required to describe the drawing verbally to the artist and the artist is expected to draw as similar to the original picture and the end result was revealed by the end of breakout room.
By the end of Phase 1, the participants were introduced to the format of Phase 2 and they are expected to pitch for the projects that they are interested in Phase 2. The project titles and the respective mentors are being introduced to the participants.
Pitching session as conducted by Timothy Lucas Cheah (Co-organising Chairperson) introducing the projects available with their general aim and suggestions to participants.
On the third day, as the highlight for the phase, participants were ready to pitch for the projects. All participants were exceptional during the pitching session and went the extra mile to prepare slides to showcase their passion for the desired projects. The allocation of groupings was then announced a few days later.
Phase 2: Execution Phase
Stepping into the second phase, participants are given the hands-on opportunity to be involved in projects selected by the Metamorphosis committees and MyPSA mentors. In this collaboration, a total of 16 mentors were invited from the current and past MyPSA Executive committees, who will be guiding the participants throughout the process of planning and execution of the projects. The phase officially kickstarted with the first meeting of getting-to-know-each-other session and discussion session. Each of the group projects was unique in nature and different outcomes are expected in the process. The 8 projects are Pre-U Junior Webinar, Speaking Competition, World Hypertension Day, Anti-Tobacco Campaign, Website, MyPSA TV, PROKENS and MyPSA 15th Anniversary Branding Campaign. With the pandemic in mind, none of the projects were able to conduct physically, thus posing a different challenge in project management. All of the events have been successfully completed by the end of Phase 2.
Project team members and mentors meet up regularly to update the progress of the project and have some bonding sessions together. Mentors and facilitators utilise online meetings to provide their guidance to the metamorphosis participants.
Upon the completion of projects, some groups continued to have masterclasses conducted by the mentors. Pre-U Junior Webinar team and Speaking team held a mini debate competition in the month of June.
Phase 3: Reflective Phase
After 4 months of hard work, it is time for the last phase of Metamorphosis. In this reflective phase, it is time to showcase what the participants have progressed throughout Phase 2.
MyPSA Website Team and MyPSA TV team have demonstrated their end-product to everyone.
PROKENS Team and Tobacco Team were also sharing about their event process and reflections based on the past 4 months.
Throughout their presentation, participants have generously shared their challenges and growth story with their peers. Listening to their story, their eagerness to grow and their willingness to learn is the most valuable bring home lesson for all the participants. As quoted from Rafiki, Lion King, “The past can hurt. But the way I see it, you can either run from it, or learn from it.”
Before ending, the committees have prepared a little farewell video for all the participants to encourage and motivate them further in life. Phase 3 was adjourned with a bittersweet note where everyone left some goodbye notes in Google Jamboard.
Although Metamorphosis 3.0 could not manage a physical meet up with all of the participants, we believe that the program has fulfilled its purpose of Morphing Leaders of Tomorrow. Once again, we wish all the participants all the best in their future undertakings. Metamorphosis family is always here for you!
Special thanks to all the time and meticulous effort poured in by the committees, facilitators,
mentors, and supervisors who have worked tirelessly for the entire 7 months.
Stay safe and do look forward to Metamorphosis 4.0!