PETALING JAYA: It is a tall order to get to graduate from an Ivy League university but high-flier Andrew Loh managed that and even more.

       The 35-year-old has two prestigious US degrees to boast of – a Master in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), and a Master in Business Administration from the Stanford Graduate School of Business through a special joint programme.

       Loh said his grand efforts were mainly due to the support from his family who sacrificed a lot for his tertiary education.

       He said he persevered with the family’s thrust on perseverance aided by two strong women: his mother and grandmother.

       “We are actually standing on the shoulders of giants, with our parents having worked so hard to give us these privileges. Same goes to the previous generations who toiled for them,” he said in dedicating his degrees to his family.

       Loh recalled that his late grandmother persevered through the tough life of Japanese-occupied Malaya, which made his mother all the more determined to succeed by gaining a better education.

       “I remember my grandmother telling me stories about her harrowing wartime experiences when food was scarce and people lived in fear.

       “But she was not complaining... it was just to make me realise the difficulties of the past,” he added.

       Loh said his mother, 69, inherited the same spirit as a schoolgirl in Kajang, where she started working at the age of nine for her family business.

       He said his mother did not give up when she found out there were no Form Six classes offered in schools in Kajang back then.

       “She travelled by bus for hours, going back and forth daily to Kuala Lumpur to attend Sixth Form. Her hard work paid off and she managed to become a vocational school teacher,” he said of his retired mother.

       Loh also credited two other women whom he said shaped his mind – SMK Damansara Jaya language teacher Koh Bee Lian and debate teacher Magdalen Su Ai Tiing.

       “They went the extra mile to teach and coach me. They helped with my critical thinking and public speaking skills and I could feel their passion,” said Loh, who helped his school debate team win many championships.

       Loh also said he was inspired by his friend, Nicholas Kaw, who made it to Harvard University. “He made it feel possible for me to do the same too,” he added.

       Lo has moved on to greater things in life, helping co-found the pulangmengundi.com platform during the last general election. He said the platform helped voters who faced problems returning to their constituencies to cast their ballots.

       He said due to his proactive approach towards the problem, it set him apart from other candidates involved in the special joint-programme by Harvard and Stanford universities.

       Besides the nation-changing platform that went viral on social media in 2018, Loh was again in the limelight when he dressed in traditional baju Melayu for his Harvard graduation ceremony.

       The Twitter post he sent on June 4 received over 3,400 retweets and hundreds of replies with most netizens expressing their pride in him and joy over his successes.

       “If I don’t tell Malaysian stories, who else will? I feel it a duty to have this kind of representation,” he said.

       “Secondly, top US universities select their candidates very carefully based on the value of diversity – by nationality, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation, class and others. All of these play a part on whether or not you use these to help create change in your life,” he added.