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.