This study presents an effort to understand the impact of COVID-19 on the Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM)’s employment trends especially for those who are being graduated in 2019 and 2020. Questionnaire survey was employed, and 505 USIM graduates in both 2019 and 2020 participated in this study. Means comparison and one-way ANOVA analysis were used to identify a significant difference between graduates’ attribute groups on employment trends during COVID-19. The findings reveal that the majority of USIM graduates have different employment as compared to their field of study and have changed their employment at least once during COVID-19. Several attributes including gender, employment sector, employment area, salary range and involvement with the graduate employability (GE) program significantly influence employment trends during COVID-19. Further, among the main reasons for employment changes among graduates during COVID-19 are including to look for a better job, a suitable job and a more satisfactory salary. This study is believed to be a pioneering study in identifying the impact of COVID-19 on employment trends especially on dissimilarities between current employment within the field of study and employment change frequency among graduates. It also contributes by identifying the main reasons for such employment changes during COVID-19.

A lot of intellectual discourses has been initiated on the realm of the contributions and roles of university students who live out of the campus, towards the community that they lived together. The Council of University Housing Principals of USIM had taken their initiative to look into the real views of the community who live nearby the university about the contributions and roles of university students who live out of the campus, specifically in the religious activities and social activities. A qualitative study through non-probability sampling method had been selected, where semistructured interviews were done among 30 individuals who live together with USIM outcampus students. The findings show that majority of the respondents agreed that the contributions and roles of the outcampus students were high and effective in the religious activities but not in the social activities. Several arising issues and themes of discussion are discussed together with recommendations to uphold a better relationship between USIM’s outcampus students and the community. Keywords: Outcampus students, Religious activities, Social activities