Fri, 11 December, 2020
Rusydan Mohammad from Terengganu has been with TWI Malaysia as a lecturer for 9 years. After graduation from UITM with a diploma in business studies, Rusydan found it very difficult to land a job in the midst of Malaysia’s economic crisis. Looking for alternative options, his friends recommended that he looked into the technical training courses that were in high demand by the industry. Following his friends’ suggestion, he enrolled on NDT training courses at Ruane Tati, where he got certified in conventional methods of Magnetic Particle Testing (MT) and Penetrant Testing (PT).
The training proved to be a success as, upon completing the training period, he started working as an NDT technician in various projects, from fabrication to a turnaround project, ship building and oil and gas projects in offshore.
His position on the site was mostly as a UT technician and, later on, he was upgraded to NDT coordinator. During this time, he had the opportunity to work as an expatriate in Dubai and Vietnam as well.
After years of working in the offshore industry, Rushydan wanted to be closer to his family and spend more time with his children as they were growing up fast. Coming from a family where both his parents were teachers, pursuing a career in education felt like a natural career path to him. This change could also allow him to have a better work-life balance, with standard working hours and days. Knowing about TWI as one the most well-known training institutes in the industry, Roy was confident that he was making the best choice by joining TWI as a lecturer.
At the beginning of his career at TWI, Roy was only delivering the ultrasonic testing (UT) course. However, working at TWI allowed Roy to expand his knowledge in other techniques of NDT. He soon was able to get certified in RI as well as the advanced methods of NDT, such as Phased Array Ultrasonic Testing (PAUT) and Time of Flight Diffraction (ToFD), and diversify the range of courses that he delivers.
What Rusydan likes the most about teaching is that he is pushed to constantly prepare himself for the classroom to be confident in the subject matter that he is teaching, and also deeply comprehend the topic so that he can perfectly present the topics to his students. In doing that, he does a lot of research and also studies constantly to keep himself up to date with the latest information and real world examples and applications. This creates a dynamic job which doesn’t get stale and boring for him.
For Roy, it is important to patiently listen to candidates to properly understand their points of view and the questions they have in order to be able to guide them through the course properly.
“I’m meeting numerous strangers who all come with different backgrounds, knowledge level, experience and attitude. I need to be flexible and prepared to interact with all of them effectively and be able to answer their questions and solve their problems. Sometimes I may need to use a different method or teaching approach for each group of students so that I can meet their learning needs. However, this is what makes my job interesting for me, because it is not only them learning from me, but it is me also learning from them.”
In Roy’s experience, what separates a successful NDT practitioner from a less successful one is their ability and skills in doing a precise practical inspection. Obviously, having a proper knowledge of the subject matter can be influential. Pairing the knowledge of surface inspection with subsurface inspection techniques can give a holistic approach to the inspection, which would deliver reliable results.
Find out about the career options in Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) here.