Meet our International Engineering Ambassador: Cheuk Ying Tam

Name: Cheuk Ying Tam

Department: Material Science and Engineering

Hi, I am Cheuk Ying Tam. I came from Hong Kong to Sheffield last September to start my academic life as a materials science and engineering student. My passion of collecting cookware is possibly the reason I am interested in the science behind materials in the first place. But this was not a readily available choice of subject in the universities in Hong Kong so I tried to apply for overseas universities. I was excited that I got a place here. Yet I was struggling back then. It was hard to choose to leave the city which I had been living in since the day I was born to a totally different place. Now, I am glad to say that I have made the right decision.

Maybe it is not that fair to compare Sheffield with Hong Kong (definitely one of the busiest city), but I still find this city makes me feel calm and relaxed. My new hobby is to walk around in Sheffield. This balances out the stress from school and the frustration of thinking of what to cook for dinner every day. Nevertheless, Sheffield is closely connected to a number important improvements in the history of material development, especially steel. Isn’t this great?

Speaking of my course, yes, I know this is confusing because of the name but it is really an engineering course rather than a science one. Except for the fact that I need to explain the background of my course whenever I meet new friends - this course has what I need to be a decent engineer. We have lessons with students from other engineering courses. I have plenty of chances to interact with students studying other professionals. And we have interesting labs almost every week. Most of our labs take place in the Diamond, which means that we can get our hands on those newest and advanced tools. The session I like most this year is the sand casting of aluminium. My hands were shaking when I was standing in a huge sand pit and pouring red hot molten aluminium in to a sand mould.

Despite of the wide variety of activities available in the university, I think the skills week and the global engineering challenge (GEC) week are the two that engineering students will never forget. They provide rare opportunities to widen our horizon and show that the university values our potential to be future engineers. During skills week I had the opportunity to visit a steel factory near the city and I was astonished by the scale of the industry. This has become a trigger that urges me to apply for a summer internship in related industry next year. In the GEC week, I had a chance to work with students from other faculties of engineering on a project about food storage technology and brushed up on my soft skills.

And for sure, there are also lots of non-academic related activities. I feel that I can achieve many things here. I am looking forward to the coming two years and maybe I will want to continue my fourth year of study by then.

World Week in Sheffield?!

Written by: Saylee Jangam

Last Week at the University of Sheffield there was World Week, a week organized by the International Students’ Committee to celebrate the international diversity in Sheffield. The following is my experience of the World Parade that took place to mark the beginning of World Week on 15^th November, 2014.

World Week began ceremoniously with the ever popular World Parade that happens every year starting at the Students Union. Over 150 students participated this year and gathered outside the Students Union on the chilly morning of Saturday, 15^th November. As a fresher, the World Parade, I had heard, was something not to be missed so although it was drizzling and far too foggy for my liking, I headed outside to join this celebration and I am so glad I did because I had such a great time!

Once at the SU, I picked up the Hong Kong flag as it was the first thing I spotted amongst the other flags laid onto the welcome desk of the International Languages Festival that was happening the same day (for which I volunteered to face paint – more on that later haha). And once my friends had picked out their flags, we walked outside to join the others in order to start our parade to the Winter Gardens in the city centre.

After a brief photo session, we started our walk and to my surprise, a fellow IEA was playing the ‘Dhol’ – an Indian drum-like instrument. And what does one do when the Dhol is played, you ask? Bhangra*, of course!  

Walking through the city centre as part of such a big group was definitely interesting. We had a lot of people looking our way and some even taking pictures. Once at the winter gardens, we had another photo session (there can never be too many of these!) and soon after, I came back to the SU for the Languages festival after a quick lunch in the city centre.

The International Languages festival was a two-day event over the weekend where students volunteered to teach a language as part of World Week, and other students came to learn. They had a total of about 30 different languages being taught that weekend which I found very impressive. I was volunteering to face paint in the Activities Zone of the SU so this is what I did when students came out of classes for a break or if committee members of the ISC (International Students’ Committee) wanted to get their faces painted as well. I mostly painted flags to go with the theme but at one point, was asked to paint an elephant too. 

I met so many new people during the World Parade as well as the Languages festival and honestly had a brilliant time. To make things even better, they had Masala Chai at Coffee Revolution for the entire week! Now I can proudly say that I have checked off ‘World Parade’ from my to-do list at Uni.

Have a look at the few highlights! :)

*Bhangra – an energetic form of Indian dance.