| Universiti Putra Malaysia

Mun Yee received a bachelor’s degree from his Royal Highness’s chancellor

By Azman Zakaria

Photo by Marina Ismail, Noor Azreen Awang dan Mohd Hasrul Hamdan

SERDANG, 4 Nov - Besides juggling both sports training and competitions at the national and international level, a national diver, Leong Mun Yee has successfully obtained a degree in Bachelor of Communication today after studying for ten years at Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM).

Mun Yee received the degree scroll from Sultan Selangor, Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah who is also his Royal Highness’s UPM Chancellor in the first session of the 41st convocation ceremony here at UPM. She intends to further her studies at master’s level.

She, who registered as a UPM student in 2007, said that as a national athlete, she has to allocate time for training, and as a student, she was not exempted from attending classes, sitting for examinations and completing assignments just like others.

She said that she took quite a long period of time to complete her studies as she represented the country at the international level, of which the event organisers do not take into account study semester of university students.

‘Even though I have spent ten years of study at the university, I can still feel proud. This pride stems from the fact that my achievements as an athlete were while I was a UPM student,’ she said in her speech on behalf of graduates at the convocation ceremony.

 

She added that her success is also because of her strong determination to get the degree which is influenced by her great effort in sports although she had to defer her studies a few times.

‘Today is a successful completion in my life. A success in holding a degree is too special even though I have been showered by other successes.

‘It is not too outrageous for me to say that this success completes my life story,’ said her who involved in diving sports since she was ten year old.

Among her achievements were winning the bronze medals at the World Championship in Rome 2009 and in Barcelona 2013, silver medals at the New Delhi Commonwealth Games 2010 and at the World Series in Beijing 2011, and together with Pandelela Rinong, she won the gold medal in FINA Diving Grand Prix Kuala Lumpur 2017.

In Asia, she won two silver medals in Guangzhou 2010 and a bronze in Incheon 2014, in addition to a total of 17 gold medals from the Sea Games Kuala Lumpur since 2001.

She has also taken part in four series of the Olympic Games.

Mun Yee said that knowledge and intellectual strength are most important in life. While one has to stop doing sports when age increases and physical strength decreases, knowledge will not be differentiated because of the physical factor, let alone the age. - UPM     

 

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