UMich NER's Alumni Spotlight: Jenga Blocks, TikTok's, and Life as an International Student

Full Transcript

[00:00:00] Danielle Allen: Imagine a tropical paradise, white, sandy beaches, futuristic cities, and the average low temperature is 72 degrees Fahrenheit. Sounds amazing, right? Well, that's Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, but what if you did your master's program in Ann Arbor, Michigan,

Where wintertime lows can get to negative one degree Fahrenheit. A bit different, wouldn't you say?

That was Ikhwan Khaleb's reality when he left Malaysia to study nuclear engineering in the United States.

[00:00:35] Ikhwan Khaleb: The program itself is really tough. There's no sugar coating it. The coursework is. Demanding, especially when you're juggling between labs, projects, research, and full lot of equations in front of you.

[00:00:48] Danielle Allen: Imagine reading through a reactor physics textbook in your second language, still learning the greetings and normal phrases of everyday college American life.

In this episode we're gonna be breaking down how Ikhwan tackled nuclear engineering in his second language, made friends in another country. And now uses his technical expertise to educate Malaysian Popularities on TikTok.

[00:01:12] Ikhwan Khaleb: I use electric kettle to explain how a reactor is just simply boiling water and going around in circle throughout all the whole plant. And people started. Realize that it actually is just simple. It's like an aha moment for them.

[00:01:31] Danielle Allen: We'll be talking about his time at the University of Michigan, how to search for jobs, especially when you're a foreign citizen

and how to get started in nuclear advocacy.

So let's jump in.

First, how and why did Ikhwan find himself at the University of Michigan?

[00:01:49] Ikhwan Khaleb: I believe the answer to that is pretty simple. First and foremost, definitely if you Google the best school for Nuclear Engineering, university of Michigan would probably be the top three. rank number one for most of the, the websites out there. So that was one of the, the biggest reason. Then when I did a lot of more digging, I found that University of Michigan also has a very rich history in nuclear, has the Ford reactor, although it has been decommissioned, University of also has a lot of, professors that authors a lot of books and nuclear engineering, so that also draws my attention to University of Michigan.

Even before Michigan, I actually know what I wanted to do. So in nuclear engineering, you have a lot of branches, material sciences, medical, have safeguarding, fission fusion and so on. I knew what I wanted to, which is reactor physics, specifically in nuclear. So coming to the states and specifically at University of Michigan, that's where I mainly focus my research where in, in fission, in reactive system. from there I started searching for, which faculty member would I approach and ask if I want to be part of the research team. So that's what I did in reactor physics.

[00:03:10] Danielle Allen: Michigan's NERS program boasts world class faculty, cutting edge labs and the historic Ford reactor, but prestige alone doesn't translate to confidence at 2:00 AM. Alone in a snowbound dorm room.

Ikhwan chose University of Michigan for its pedigree, but soon discovered that world class resources demand world class resilience, mastering reactor theory, collaborating across time zones, and writing technical papers in his second language.

[00:03:39] Ikhwan Khaleb: The program itself is really tough. There's no sugar coating it. The coursework is. Demanding, especially when you're juggling between labs, projects, research, and full lot of equations in front of you. Right, and for me, the biggest challenge was actually time management. The first, semester when I got to University of Michigan, I was. Shock by how one coursework could actually take a lot of my time. I had to work AM up until 12:00 AM so the full day length. So, and then I started to realize, this cannot happen. So I talked to my advisors, talk to my professors, talk to my colleagues, and I found out that in order for me to solve this time management problem. I would just have to talk a lot of people and solve the problem with a group not doing it alone. So that's when I found you have to work in a group.

I was able to take some classes in reactor physics, some classes, not in reactor physics, for example, like nuclear safeguards, nuclear policy, because I just simply want to learn. I would feel bad not, saying that reactor physics not one of my favorite. coursework, two of my favorite classes were actually nuclear policy and nuclear policy and Nuclear Safeguard, taught by Professor Aditi Verma and Professor Pozzi. That's where I got a chance to really expose to the real environment and to, to the public and how it actually, how they taught me a lot in terms of communicating, technical. And complicated, projects or problems to the public. So yeah, those, those two are my favorite crossword.

[00:05:23] Danielle Allen: If reactor theory at midnight feels impossible, imagine pushing through the fatigue when you're homesick far away from home. So I wanted to ask, what was it like coming to America from Kuala Lumpur all the way over to Ann Arbor?

[00:05:40] Ikhwan Khaleb: The first time I came to the US was in 2015 when I did my undergraduate at Pennsylvania State University. So that was like 10 years ago. The first impression that I had for Americans were actually, they were really upfront and they were really confident and vocal. they really like to give their opinions. Even if they, they do not understand in one specific topic, but then from there they started learning because that's when discussions started to happen, right? So in Asian culture in Malaysia, especially in Malaysia, we were taught to be a bit passive. Not to ask a lot of questions because that seemed to be a little bit rude.

I mean, you can ask a lot of questions, but, but not in a way that could annoy people. Right. specifically in the US Americans, they ask a lot, way, a lot questions. So, I had to get used to it. Right. And sometimes, and sometimes they, they ask, like, you think, would it be a personal question?

But no, it's, it's not a personal question. It's more like engaging towards a problem and how to get towards the solution. Another thing I noticed for Americans is they tend to say, for example, and they greeted you a, a total random stranger greeted you like, Hey, how's it going? They don't really want to know your life story.

They just want to know what you up to. And in that short, instant moment, so, because in Malaysia, if you ask, how are you? And you would. Definitely tell your whole life story.

It's just you have to be exposed and, and by being exposed is, you have to make a lot of friends, specifically Americans friends, to familiarize with the culture and get acquainted with the culture and be comfortable with it.

Right? So yeah, being a international student itself was already hard because let's say English is not your first language and then you have to study everything in English, and now you have to improve your social skills. also have to navigate your visa status and everything. So a lot of juggling between all that stuff, and I think that also taught me a lot of things in, in managing my, life well.

[00:07:53] Danielle Allen: Beyond textbooks and reactors Ikhwan had to decode an entirely new campus culture from ice cold dorm corridors to idioms that do not translate.

But he slowly found community turning every awkward pause into a learning moment. So if you or anyone you know has moved abroad for study or work, what was it like? Because the journey is one hurdle, but then there's a challenge of finding a job in a foreign country. So I had to know how did Ikhwan position himself to be successful in the job market?

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[00:09:20] Ikhwan Khaleb: What I've learned is to always start early. I cannot emphasize this enough. If, you're gonna graduate in May next year. And you have a gap of about eight months, the best time to you to start applying to work or job is right now, it's today. It, regardless of how, how people say you have to apply within four months or three months before graduation. try to start early because when you start early, it gives you some time. If, let's say you did some mistake, you can improve. If you, there's a improvement that you need to do in your, on your resume, you can also improve. So time is always your best friend, especially in cases like this.

So first thing, first what I did was I would gather a few of my friends and we started talking to each other and started, role play. So I would assign, so you would be the, the guy who interview me. I would be the person who you would be interviewed. So. From there, you started to, you know, be more comfortable and when, let's say an hour before the interview itself or before networking sessions happen in with the industry representative. So you started to actually warm up and that's what I did. So I think it's, I mean, different people have different method of doing it, but I think that that works for me.

So I, I know, and I understood that, as a international student, it is quite hard for me to get a job in the US, especially in the nuclear industry because you need that security clearance. So I started way, way early. A year before my graduation. I applied to at least. I forced myself to apply to at least three jobs every single day fail. So imagine that. So I also tailored my resume, tailored my cover letter for, for each of the employers. I did a lot of research on which company I'm applying to. to my surprise, I've only gotten a few interviews and only two of them. Made it to the final stages and only one offer, which is from Holtec itself. So always try to start early because that's, it will give you some leeway if you make a mistake.

University of Michigan actually provided a lot of opportunities for student to engage with the industry, where on every semester they would have at least once or twice, career fair, they would bring in, people from the industry come in and then they will engage with the students and the students will. Sending your resumes to the industry representatives. And from there they had, they have the chance the students have the chance of talking to the industry representative and, and getting more engaged with the industry.

[00:12:17] Danielle Allen: Listen closely, Ikhwan launched a relentless campaign.

Tailored three applications a day every day until week 13 finally brought an offer. The most grueling engineering challenge isn't just thermodynamics classes, it's the job hunt. Headshot coded ATS systems and pre-interviewed jitters.

These are tried and true tips and methods that helped him land a job, although Ikhwan practiced preparing for interviews, one of the things I first recognize is how well he presents on TikTok, even though Malay is not my first, second, or any language that I know.

So I wanted to get a little further in. How and why did he start advocating on TikTok specifically to a Malaysian audience?

[00:13:05] Ikhwan Khaleb: so I realized because I grew up in Malaysia. I was born and was raised in Malaysia, and we have this idea, whenever we say the word nuclear, would be terrified. The first thing that would come up to anyone's mind in Malaysia, most of them would be the nuclear weapon or radioactive waste. Growing up, I always like to question a lot of things. Now, one of the thing that I question a lot is nuclear itself. I didn't really believe nuclear was part of the solution back then. But then because I did a lot of digging, a lot of personal digging, a lot of questioning on this specific industry, I started to believe that this is. One of the best solutions for moving forward, that is why I believe, I have to communicate this to my fellow Malaysians. And getting towards that, I started to create my TikTok account. I started to think, okay, how do I get my message across to Malaysians, especially the youth, I know that, I mean youth. like to use TikTok and other social medias, right? So why not just create TikTok and communicate to them? So that is how the idea came in.

It always frustrates me how people are somewhat missing from in this specific, topic. And it's not the fault because, because the, the media has portrayed of bad things about nuclear. I would say it's also our, engineer's fault where we didn't communicate it enough. And I think especially in Malaysia, because we do not have a lot of nuclear engineers or anybody working in the nuclear industry. I think it's also my responsibility back and contribute towards a society to make them truly understand what nuclear is and how reactor works, and so on and so forth. In order for me to make them understand, I just have to simplify the complicated things to make it not complicated so that the public would understand.

I always try to force myself to use visualization. For the public, because for me, I think if the general public not relate the information that I've given to them. If they cannot relate with the, the life that they, they see every single day, that it means that they do not understand that piece of information. So I always try to use easily accessible items, household items like the Jenga blocks, like for example, kettle even banana itself to explain how radiation works and so on in order for them, to make them understand, to make the public understand because they're not exposed to everyday environment of working in a nuclear reactor.

They do not see that system itself. So it's hard for them to visualize and imagine what's going on. So I always try to force myself to take appliances or everyday, stuff to relate with nuclear so that people would understand it more easily.

[00:16:09] Danielle Allen: If you have TikTok, I strongly suggest you check out Ikhwan's channel even if you don't speak Malay. TikTok has translation features, but more importantly, you don't even need the translation to understand what he's saying. The visual cues he uses on screens with Jenga blocks and electric tea kettles are more than enough to understand the scientific concepts.

[00:16:31] Ikhwan Khaleb: Yeah, I also really like to go through my comments just to see how people are engaged with a specific topic that we'll discuss. A lot of comments were quite positive, honestly, and I'm surprised. Maybe because of how they could relate to that specific information so for example, I use electric kettle to explain how a reactor is just simply boiling water and going around in circle throughout all the whole plant. And people started. Realize that it actually is just simple. When, when they understand how a reactor works, it's like an aha moment for them. When that aha moment came to their mind, they started to. Become more curious. They started asking the right questions, they started to explore more and that's when they started to talk more about nuclear. that's how we can get the ball rolling and increase the awareness in nuclear for public.

Nuclear topic is actually taught in high schools and also middle school, but specifically in high school, we didn't really go into detail about the nuclear topic. So the, it explained how. And reactor works and how, nuclear fusion happened, how nuclear fusion happened. But it doesn't specifically tell you this is actually safe how waste is managed and how it does not correlate to nuclear weapon and so forth. And so I think, I think, the education itself can be improved, but that's a big goal. What I can do for, them, in my personal view is that I can reach more, reach a public and try to educate terms of, that perspective.

It's getting more and more common. I would say.

[00:18:21] Danielle Allen: I thoroughly enjoyed going into his comment section and translating questions audience members had, but I wanted to understand how does posting tiktoks make you a better engineer?

[00:18:34] Ikhwan Khaleb: I've been working at Holtec for a year and a month. Exactly. my work currently is I am a senior engineer, Thermo Hydraulics. For Holtec where I analyze the small modular reactor also the dry cast for the span fuel management. And terms of technical, it's teaching me a lot of things.

So it's teaching me to understand the fundamental physics of how things are going in that system of how we handle spend fuel. And I use that specific information. I use that specific knowledge that I've learned I've gained throughout working in Holtec in order for me to translate that information towards the public. And it also forces me to trying to communicate complicated idea in a simplest way possible, which is actually quite hard.

I honestly feel the best way for us to learn to communicate is to expose ourself and ourself to talk more, put yourself in a, in a situation or in a place where you are forced to convey something. Let's say very complicated idea. Convey to someone who has zero idea of about that specific topic.

So for example, I would say the best thing to do is pick any 10 years old kid, to the the idea that you have in mind. So, for example, you learn about reactor. Explain how a reactor work to a 10 years old. So if that specific 10 years old, understand, then you, are able to communicate

[00:20:12] Danielle Allen: Public engagement? Sharpen Ikhwan's technical lens.

Every reactive problem he solved at HOLTEC sparked a new TikTok script, and every viral video drove fresh engineering questions.

How would you explain a chain reaction to someone who's never heard of it? What kind of communication and visual tools would you use? And if that's not your strength, how do you find someone who maybe is better than you at communicating? That's where teamwork and engineering comes in.

I wanted to ask Ikhwan how he went from flying solo to working in groups and teams and what working in a team in engineering really means.

[00:20:50] Ikhwan Khaleb: I think one of the biggest misconception of being an engineer is working, that. People tend to think that engineers always work alone, but that's not always the case. Because in real life, what I learned working at Holtec, and past few experiences, especially in grad school, learned that in order for us to come to the best solution is actually it comes from working in a team. Teamwork is honestly one of the most underrated skills in engineering. In school I used to think that, okay. If I understand the physics and I could the simulation, then I've done my part. But in reality, it's not about how good you are. It's always about how well you can explain ideas and take feedback and move together as a team. in real life, you don't build a reactor alone, right? You build it as a team because it's multidisciplinary. Civil comes in, the materials comes in, the chemical comes in, electrical comes in. So everything would come together, work as a team, and, you go forward.

[00:21:58] Danielle Allen: The nuclear industry doesn't happen in a silo from Capstone teams at UMich to cross discipline groups at HOLTEC collaboration is non-negotiable. Behind every reactor lies countless conversations, engineers debating nodes, regulators clarifying standards,

Teammates synchronizing Gantt charts and working to beat the deadline

Having started a language learning company in my twenties, I learned there's a deep difference between learning the language and learning the culture.

Mastering technical terminology in a second language is usually just the start. Cultural fluency is hard to pick up on reading unspoken cues, questions that are not actually questions. These are all things that led to Ikhwan's toolkit, and although it can be frustrating, it makes a world of difference when you can understand not just the language but the culture as well.

And now it's time for our rapid fire questions. so my first question is, do you have any hobbies?

[00:22:59] Ikhwan Khaleb: Do I have any hobbies? Of course, right?

Everybody has hobbies, right?

So my hobby, I like to play guitar. Actually, this is my only guitar that I have in New Jersey. I live in New Jersey, back in Malaysia I have seven more guitars I also like rock climbing. I do a lot of hiking so I like mountains.

[00:23:22] Danielle Allen: What is your favorite type of American food?

[00:23:25] Ikhwan Khaleb: Type of American foods. Hmm. man, this is hard. This is actually harder than you asking me reactor questions. Give me five seconds. Uh, I wanna say quesadillas but that's Mexican.

[00:23:39] Danielle Allen: We can count it. It's one big melting pot. I do love a quesadilla as well.

What kind of quesadillas do you get?

[00:23:45] Ikhwan Khaleb: The chicken quesadilla or sometimes carne,

[00:23:47] Danielle Allen: When you're playing guitar, do you have a favorite song that you like to play or, a type of music that you'll play?

[00:23:54] Ikhwan Khaleb: My biggest influence is John Mayer. So I really like blues and rock kind of stuff. I play blues and rock.

[00:24:03] Danielle Allen: If you had to give a Ted talk or a speech about something non-nuclear related, what do you think it would be about?

[00:24:11] Ikhwan Khaleb: Oh, that is a tough question. Maybe. On how to improve yourself. I guess that sounds cringe in a way, but always do the hard stuff,

[00:24:23] Danielle Allen: Do the hard stuff. That is true. Okay, so if you were to design the city of the future. What would you put in it? How would you design it? What would be in it?

[00:24:33] Ikhwan Khaleb: Oh, first thing, first. Nuclear reactor, nuclear power plant, right? That's where you get most of your energy from. I would make it a walkable city. Notice that, in the US it's not that walkable. You would need a car to go anywhere. It's exactly the same thing in Malaysia if you are living in suburban, you definitely need a car to go anywhere. So I would try to build it as walkable as I can.

[00:24:58] Danielle Allen: I always laugh at this question because I think all of the nuclear nerds are getting together on this question because the top three are always, there's nuclear energy, it's walkable and there's parks and green space.

Any, future career goals for you? Anything that you wanna see yourself doing? Anything that you would wanna try within the future within the nuclear industry?

[00:25:19] Ikhwan Khaleb: Long term I want to be the bridge between the industry, the public, and the first deployment of nuclear power plant in Malaysia. Now, just two weeks ago actually, we release a news that, we're exploring nuclear again. So this is our third time of trying and, exploring nuclear power. So I wanna be that bridge in. Helping Malaysia deploying our first nuclear power plan.

I mean, it's probably gonna be 15 years, 20 years from now, but yeah, we have a lot of work to do.

[00:25:53] Danielle Allen: It's a big goal. any advice that you would have, in terms of trying to enter the industry and make a career out of this?

[00:25:59] Ikhwan Khaleb: Any advice for students, international students? I would say networking.

Yes. Now we have LinkedIn it's a crucial tool for us to use it in order for us to get to know the right people

[00:26:13] Danielle Allen: Any other topics that you would wanna hear from a nuclear energy podcast? What topics would you wanna like people to dive into? What do you think that people need to talk more about?

[00:26:25] Ikhwan Khaleb: I really wanna see the debate between nuclear fusion and nuclear fission. The reason why I say this is because Malaysia many people like nuclear fusion, but they don't really agree with nuclear fission, which is already a hundred percent. But then they always want to try the idea that is further away. That's why I wanna see the debate between those two groups.

[00:26:51] Danielle Allen: Where should they go to find more about you?

[00:26:54] Ikhwan Khaleb: So my TikTok and my Instagram is, nuclear tuclear. It literally means in Malay that nuclear is definitely clear.

Nuclear is clear there's no doubt about it.

Have a specific message for. I think, Malaysians, and I think it applies to anyone globally, is to always seek for the truth. Because when you seek for the truth, that's when you start asking the right questions. That's when you started to become more curious and you start to investigate personally, the reason I pursued my career in nuclear engineering is because I, back then, I started a lot, started asking a lot of questions regarding this industry,

[00:27:38] Danielle Allen: First, I wanna thank Ikhwan for sharing his journey to catch those Jenga block demos and real time reactor explainers. Follow him on TikTok as Nuclear Tuclear. Thank you again for listening to this episode of Naked Nuclear.

If this episode sparked curiosity, please leave a review, share it with a friend, and subscribe so you get all of our latest episodes. Until next time, stay curious.