Interview at UM for mass communication. The full experience

Baru saja 2 heavy bricks drop from my shoulder after the USM interview ended and yet life decided to take me for another ride along, this time its and interview at UM pulak, zee prestigious government university in the whole of Malaysia.

  

but then recently the ragging problem in a certain public uni that made it to the news (but at least we made it to the news wert, positive or negative no need care la) suggests that i probably should add a "kononnya" infront of prestigious.

Anyways traveled down to KL for that interview, havent really been to KL in like what, 1 year plus already i guess, but aiya still the same la, all the drivers still driving around like wana terberak in the car like that.

crashed at my sis place in nearby in KL sentral... ah man..this deserve a special mention because the internet speed is like 10x the speed of the one i have at home..clocking up at 10mbps... really, give a man a slow internet and he will surf for a day, give him a high speed internet and he shall never see the sunlight again.

1st thing that came to my mind was

before i go off topic, lets get to the interview. Due to the fact that i went to the USM interview previously..i had a rough idea of what kind of question they will ask. There is certain pattern to it and true enough my prediction was accurate but with a twist to it.

1.First they ask me to do a self introduction (this is important to give the interviewers a good 1st impression,    try to relate back to why you picked this course)
2. Why did you pick this course ( know what majors you wana take, learn a few keywords of the subjects)
3. What you wish to achieve

and that was it

Inside my mind was like "i went all the way to KL just for this 3 sentence...like whattttt" guess my preparation was totally an overkill. I would say the interview was over in less than 6 minutes.Imagine that, a 4 hour journey to KL just for that 6 minutes. LOL...but i guess i should be thankful that they did not ask any heavy duty questions la.

few tips to make yourself more appealing to the interviewers.
1. When you enter the room, say good morning/noon to the interviewers.
2. Ask "may i sit" before sitting down. It makes a difference
3. Try to smile naturally throughout the interview (you can try to make a joke also if you are confident               enough but not too much)
4. before exiting the room, say have a nice day to the interviewers.

In my personal opinion, this interview was held to see whether you have gold inside your mouth or not, whether or not you have the EQ. not only IQ. Just treat it like a formal conversation instead of an interview and you will be just fine.

Interview at USM for mass communication - The full experience

Woke up at 5am today just to be sure to get to USM on time for the interview (interview at 8.15am). The feeling is just no fun ~.~... feeling like those morning session school days again. Woke up looking like

Shoot off from Taiping about 6.30am in the morning, the sky was still kinda dark. Though it seemed rather early for an 8.15am interview but i kid you not, when i reached there it was like 8am already due to the heavy traffic on penang bridge. Bull shit aside, let me tell you my experience, i did not go around taking random photo because that is just not me. All i can say is USM looks very much like those campuses that you see in the movies with the garden and such, i would say a 70% similarity.


1st off, take a look at the name list pasted on the board outside your respective interview places, just follow the crowd and you are likely to find it. For me, students were spread in groups of A,B,C,D and E and we each entered the interview room in groups of 3.

we will get to the actual interview part later.
this interview is separated into 2 phases whereby the 1st phase requires students to write 2 essays in 45 minutes with each being not more than 250 words, one is BM and one in English with any random given tittle inside the hall. For me, the english one was tittled "a summary about your life" (I wrote my experience growing from primary till graduating secondary school.) and if possible, try to relate with you course that you opted for, AKA the one that you are currently interviewing for.

 for the BM essay the tittle was "seorang pemimpin yang anda kagumi" since they did not specify pemimpin tanah air or what not, i decided write President Barrack Obama as my idol, i dont really have any idols here anyways. So the lessons of the day here is you better use the berus jamban and brush up your language that you have so willingly abandoned after secondary school

after that the 2nd phase is the actual interview. You will be briefed on what to do and where to go so i dont need to elaborate more on that part. Instead, here is all the question that the interviewer asked during the interview. (note that if the question is in BM answer in BM, no matter whether the question is asked by the interviewer or just written on a piece of paper. Always answer in the language of the question)

1. Sila memperkenalkan diri mengikut urutan yang diberi. (there was a piece of paper in front of us with the       order written on it.
2. Mengapakah anda memilih bidang mass com
3. Apakah yang anda tahu tentang lawatan Obama ke Asia
4. If you were the leader of the mass com club in USM, what would you plan to achieve in that club
5.  What phase are we currently in on the APEX agenda in USM

There was one question that i forgot about but i remember the word "terkilan" in that sentence or so i heard.
I did not really know the meaning of that word but before i could ask the answer session has begun. Out of all the word that ends with LAN'S the interviewer gotta pick the word terkiLAN... Apa LAN wor...i also duno..so i just answered "I do not know the answer but i will find out" if dont know just admit it or say something else that is closely related to the topic to lead the interviewer to something you know.

Anyway, once you get your confirmation letter for interview, start digging up the USM website for info, read about their profile,vice chancellor etc etc, just buat like you minat gila want enter USM. And read up stuff that are related to your course, for example mass com you need to be well aware of all current affairs. Another example for architecture course is to look up to stuff related to architecture, like who was the head architecture of the petronas twin towers etc etc.

The new STPM, what you need to know

I am back again and this time i am going to write a 101 about our current form 6 studies whereby me and my batch were pretty much the lab rats for this new semester (most of the teachers will call it penggal instead of semester, whats the difference? i dont know either) thingy.
Before i start on anything lets go with a disclaimer 1st, isnt that how it works? to deny everything that anyone might use against you?

Disclaimer (yes it is BOLDED and RED) : the situation described below is based on an individual's personal opinion and may or may not reflect the actual situation depending on the many manipulated factors.

Ok, with all the chim-ness gone, lets get started. Personally I have been in the science stream as well as the art stream in form 6, so i know a little bit or so about some of the subjects, but we will get to that later. This "new and improved" system has 3 semester's in total whereby student are required to take an exam at the end of each semester.

The 1st semester starts somewhere around in the middle of year mainly beginning of May till November
The 2nd semester starts in the beginning of the year from January till May
The 3rd semester? take a guess...

Students may choose to retake or recheck the exam paper's for each semester if they are not satisfied with their results.

With a fee of Rm 50 per paper.............

Now the 1st question is What kind of students should enter form 6 ?

• Students who can study smart instead of study hard. Lets face it, merely a short 4 months for 1 semester is way too short to do your "hafal" magic. There is just not enough time to squeeze everything in unless you are planning to study every single day of the semester.
• Students who can handle seeing other students going home first because the PBS will make you go home LATE. Its a big deal, trust me,it is...the feeling is just no fun.
• Students that can handle getting up early again for another one and a half years. Dont need to explain more on this i guess.
• Students that can be the "bad guy" once in awhile. This "bad guy" persona is needed especially in the PBS (pentaksiran berasaskan sekolah, aiya ma last time form 5 we do the folio lo, nama gaya only) due to the fact that in certain subject team work is required to get the job done, so it takes some "i straight tell him/her off " to keep the team moving.

Subjects (note that i will only explain the subjects that i know about and have taken before)

• Pengajian AM (P.A.)
  this subject is a wajib for all the form 6 student, how also kenot escape one. This subject mainly focuses on the administration of Malaysia. A very good subject to boost your general knowledge about the country (note that you might get confused of what is written in the book and what is actually happening in Malaysia)  but at the same time....boringggggggggg... but during the exam everyone's faces will be like 
  
  cuz there is just not enough time
  

• Bahasa Melayu (B.M)
  Given that you have the right teacher, this might be one of the easiest subjects to score. As for me, i am lucky i managed to find a great teacher. Much like the saying happy wife happy life. Mostly this subject take you deeper into the origins of the language as well studying the rights and wrongs in the tatabahasa and shit... If you are good at this, the exams will be a piece of cake whereby you can goyang kaki with all the extra time.

• Ekonomi
  This subject require a little bit of memorizing but mostly it requires understanding. It involves simple maths and graphs. But dont take it for granted as sometimes it will pinch you in butt due to the frustrating calculation and the sometimes confusing graphs that just looks like a 3 year old's doodle doodle. It may cause you to get butt hurt

be sure to check you chairs before you take a seat because some of the chair cracks may pinch your ass good.

• Pengajian Peniagaan (P.P)
  If wan sound glamour abit just call it business studies la. This is perhaps the only subject that you have no choice but have to hafal since all the answers are straight forward and factual based. Basically a long lost member from the family of the subject Sejarah. I hate sejarah...just saying..

As for the Science stream subjects, unless you are some kind of a maths genius and looking forward to one and a half year of hair fall, please stay away from it, unless you are completely sure and confident that you will be able to handle the heat. I personally switch from Science stream to Arts because whenever the maths comes i will be like

this is coming from a guy who got like what? negative 2 marks for his add maths in form 5. But what can i say? not all asians are good at maths bro.