Nearly a decade after arriving at INTI International College Subang, Amanda Siew returned during the institution’s 40th anniversary year. She now produces television news in Oklahoma and has won her first Heartland Emmy Award. Yet she still remembers how she felt as a new student in 2017.
“I was a very scared young girl,” she says.
INTI alumna Amanda Siew holds her first Heartland Emmy Award, received for her producing work on News 9’s coverage of the 14 March 2025 Oklahoma wildfires.
Amanda had spent her years from primary school through IGCSE in the same school environment. She knew she wanted to study Mass Communication, but moving on to college meant leaving that familiarity behind. Her first tour of INTI’s Subang campus helped: she liked the place and the people she met, and decided she was ready to enrol.
Through INTI’s American Degree Transfer Program (ADTP), Amanda made friendships she still maintains today. She remembers long nights studying with friends, sometimes falling asleep on library chairs while preparing for final examinations, followed by mamak runs at 2 am.
She also played dodgeball and joined the Mass Communication Society, where she had an early taste of broadcasting. Her lecturers helped her explore her interests through the different classes she took. At the same time, Amanda was adjusting to life away from school. Teachers had once guided her closely; at college, she had to manage her time, take responsibility for her work and decide what she wanted to try.
Amanda Siew returns to INTI International College Subang, where she began the path that would eventually lead to an international career in television news.
“Okay, we’re dropping you off, and we’re gonna wish you all the best,” she says, describing how that shift felt.
Over time, the experience helped Amanda become more comfortable making choices for herself.
“I don’t think anyone really expects this ‘soul-searching, identity mission’ when you start college, but that’s what INTI did for me,” she says.
That growing independence mattered when Amanda moved to the United States in 2018. After studying at INTI from 2017 to 2018, she transferred to the University of Central Oklahoma (UCO), though Oklahoma wasn’t her first choice.
“It was my mom’s choice,” she says.
Her mother knew they had relatives nearby and wanted Amanda to have support as she adjusted to life overseas. Amanda settled into UCO and pursued a Bachelor of Arts in Professional Media. At first, she was interested in filmmaking, short films and YouTube. Journalism was not part of her plan.
That changed when a professor noticed her writing and suggested that she might be suited to producing news. Amanda decided to give it a try. She became a student newscaster and producer in UCO’s university news operation, eventually taking on a student leadership role. The work she had entered almost by chance became the work she wanted to do.
After graduating in 2021, Amanda continued building her experience in broadcast journalism. Her mother’s belief in education was one reason she pursued a master’s degree in Journalism at the University of Oklahoma from 2022 to 2024. Amanda also wanted to understand the profession more deeply. Her research explored stress among journalists and helped her make sense of the pressures faced by people working in newsrooms.
Today, Amanda works at News 9 in Oklahoma City. As a television news producer, she researches and writes stories, decides how to present them, coordinates reporters and interviews, checks graphics, and brings everything together within a strict time slot. A live interview can run into technical problems; breaking news can change hours of planning just before a programme goes on air.
Amanda calls the producer “the master conductor”. She also compares a newscast to a complicated jigsaw puzzle: each piece has to fit so that viewers can understand what is happening, even when the picture changes at the last minute.
On 14 March 2025, that work carried particular urgency. Wildfires spread across Oklahoma in what Amanda remembers as one of the most intense outbreaks she had experienced. She worked with reporters in the field and meteorologists as the newsroom followed changing conditions and tried to keep the public informed.
Amanda Siew (center) reunites with lecturers from the Center of American Education at INTI International College Subang and family members during her return to campus.
The fires and high winds were linked to four deaths, and over 400 homes were reported damaged across the state. Amanda was worried about people she knew. Her colleagues were also covering a crisis affecting the communities around them.
“It’s not just for show; these are people’s lives that we have to save,” she says.
Seeing the devastation afterwards stayed with her.
“It changes you as a person, seeing the damage that way, and seeing how much it changed the community,” she says.
Amanda received her first Heartland Emmy Award for her producing work on the coverage. The recognition still feels surreal, but when she thinks about that day, her concern returns to the people who needed the information her team provided.
“If I saved one person from that coverage that day, that means the world to me,” she says.
The Emmy now sits on her desk at work. Amanda didn’t tell her mother she was entering the awards, so she sent her a photograph when she won. Her mother had to look up what an Emmy was.
Amanda’s idea of success has changed over the years. She once looked towards the next promotion, job or award. Now, she values being content with herself and the life she has built.
“Being successful is being happy,” she says.
Amanda Siew (center) with Maztini Ahmad Mahir, lecturer at the Center of American Education (left), and Angela Marcel Thexeira, Dean of the Centre of American Education (right), during her return to INTI International College Subang.
Her return to INTI brought back memories of the friendships, classes and first broadcasting experiences that had shaped her college years. She remembered arriving with an interest in Mass Communication and little idea of where it might lead.
“It’s like two extremely different Amandas,” she says.