Nafisa Bello Issa came all the way from Nigeria to pursue her tertiary studies in Malaysia. Upon completing her pre-university studies, Nafisa enrolled in the BSc (Hons) Information Systems, a programme under the Department of Computing and Information Systems, School of Engineering and Technology.

Like any other international student, Nafisa struggled with homesickness. However, to overcome it, Nafisa became active in her co-curricular activities as well as her social life yet she maintained a balance with her studies. Nafisa believed that by having people around could be a great support system like a second family.

Not only was Nafisa an International Student Ambassador and student representative for her programme, but she was also actively involved in clubs and societies and student-related activities such as the Sunway Analytics Society, Sunway LEAP programme and many others. Additionally, she was also inducted into the Sunway Golden Key International Honour Society. Nafisa believes that University life is more than just books and these extracurricular activities were a very important aspect of her journey as a student as it helped her gain different skills-set. One that she knows she will surely need in her post student life.

After graduating with a First Class Honours and having secured a position in HILTI Malaysia as an IT Process Consultant, Nafisa also enrolled into master’s degree by research with the encouragement of her mentor, Associate Professor Dr Angela Lee. Despite the challenges of juggling both a full-time job and working on a research postgraduate degree, Nafisa successfully completed her Masters in Information Systems in 2020 after much hard work and determination.

Her research area focused on digital economy challenges and intention of using e-commerce. Her recent publication has been accepted in the Journal of Business Administration Research.

After completing 3 years in HILTI Malaysia, Nafisa is now back in her home country working as an IT Applications and Database Officer at the Nigerian Communications Commission. Prior to that,she worked for the Central Bank of Nigeria and PwC Nigeria respectively.

In her current job, she works with in-house developers as well as consultants to ensure successful completion of all applications and projects where she manages the commission’s databases and data backup to ensure all information is secure. She also needs to communicate with different stakeholders such as developers and consultants to carry out the above duties. The experience she has gained during her time at Sunway University as well as her job at Hilti has allowed her to better handle the expectation of her current role.