Breaching Frontiers

Dr Wan Wardatul Amani Wan Salim dissects her time at NASA and the key ingredient missing in nurturing our homegrown talents.

- Poon Li-Wei

“Why is the sky blue?” When little Amani posed that question to her parents, little did she suspect that it would set her on a trajectory to NASA. Growing up in the United Kingdom during the better part of her formative years while her father did his PhD, she readily credits its conducive learning environment, which encouraged thorough understanding of a subject, for sparking her interest in science – a leaf she hopes Malaysia will take out of their book in moving away from a rigid examination structure driven purely by results. Her accomplishments are also to the merit of her parents, who would readily nurture her innate curiosity by bringing her to bookstores and sending copious amounts of encyclopaedias her way – although, she charmingly jokes, they must have been up to their eyeballs from being constantly bombarded by her questions.

TROUBLE ADJUSTING

For someone with such a bright mind, you wouldn’t peg Dr Amani as having struggled with her studies when she was younger. But, truth be told, when she returned to her homeland at the age of 10, her report cards bore plenty of red. “I learnt that to survive the system, I had to memorise and really study the book. But is that really the same as learning? I don’t think so. Our teachers teach and our students absorb – it all flows only in one direction. I do think our teachers are trying to be more creative but, perhaps, we need to allow them to be creative!” she critiques. With her inquisitive mind held back and restricted by the system over the next couple of years, by the time she hit Form 5, she was raring to leave Malaysia – the specifics of her studies didn’t matter as long as it was in the vein of mathematics and science; both subjects she had excelled in. So, she accepted the very first scholarship she received – to study engineering in the University of Minnesota.

PROVING HER WORTH