The MSA/MSSA Orientation Evening

The MSA/MSSA Orientation Evening was held on the night of 24 March in the Smoking Room. If you would allow me, I will make some comments on the gathering through your columns.

1.	The organisation was poor. Because of the poor publicity only about 100 people turned up. As usual the evening started late and there was also general chaos and delays in between the various acts through bad organisation.
2.	What's more important than precision coordination and organisation is the programme itself. The choir gave an impressive start to the evening. What followed however was an over stretched impression by a High School boy. A short concise talk might be tolerable to the audience but he waffled boringly on. He also managed to dutifully put in some cheap commercials for MSA and OCF.
3.	Though it was mainly an orientation for Malaysians and Singaporeans, it was good to see the Thai students actively contributing and enjoying themselves. As overseas students we share many things in common. We should welcome other nationalities in future orientations.
4.	The sketch by MSSA was rather disappointing compared to the one on International Evening. The talents of the actors and actress was evident and the form of presentation interesting though a bit disorganised. What was lacking was an intelligent theme. The story is nothing more than an immature infatuation. A sketch devoid of a moral becomes another cheap soap opera.
5.	The group dance was most successful in terms of audience participation. In fact the main purpose of the orientation should be to get all the people to participate and feel part of the crowd.
6.	In sharp contrast to the dances, the games introduced were rather boring and childish. The part of pouring water down the tube into the new students was especially disgusting. Even the audience could feel the anger and embarassment of the new students of being humiliated in front of the crowd.
7.	Supper and informal chit chat was an important part of the evening. It provided the opportunity for the students to meet and get acquainted with each other.
8.	On the whole, the orientation was comparitively better than last year's in terms of programmes, participation and organisation, despite a lower turnout. However there is much room for improvement. I would suggest the two associations concerned will get together to conduct a post mortem so that next year's orientation will be a better one.