Hurtin

Our exams result were out today. I think I did okay. Although I got a decent result, I missed out on the dean list, once again. Yeh this is not my first as last semester I had also missed out from being  in the list by a 0.01 gpa margin. Yes, that's a 3.49. And until today I still couldn't stop from beating myself up. So near yet so far. And this semester I missed out on a slightly larger margin. So for two consecutive semester I failed to get my gpa above that 3.50 marker. I was really freaked out upon seeing my result.

It give me a scare because this means I'll be getting into trouble with my sponsor. When I signed the contract I kinda remembered parts of the clause in it that required me to maintain a 3.5 gpa every sem. And all of a sudden regrets rained over me. Menyesal sebab ambik major yang susah. Menyesal sebab pulun nak abeskan jugak pengajian in 3 years. Menyesal sebab tak pilih JPA dulu (sbb jpa lenient). Seribu satu penyesalan. With huge disappointment, I went over to check on my contract to see what's the worst that could happen to me.

And then I found this: 

  

Lega. It requires the cgpa, not gpa. So I am still safe for the time being as my cgpa is still above the minimum requirement. Mula nak mai menyesal kot lain pulak. Because since my cgpa is still above the minimum requirement, this means i could virtually get a dean list every sem kalau aku susun timetable aku betul-betul. Mulaa dah...shesh. Tapi syukur sangat-sangat. Kadang-kadang Allah tak bagi apa yang kita nak, tapi Dia bagi apa yang kita perlu. Rasa sangat-sangat malu dengan Allah sebab for being so selfish and for ever thinking that I know what's best for me. Sedangkan Dialah yang Maha Mengetahui.  

How pathetic of me for eagerly wanting that dean list, that  bragging rights. Tengok, niat pun dah tak betul. Macam mana Allah nak kabul. Nasib baik Allah masih sayangkan aku. I mean, this could also be a gentle reminder for me to not get complacent. Mungkin ada benda dalam life aku yang tak berkat or mungkin aku lalai dalam tanggungjawab aku terhadapNya. Probably that solat yang kerap dilengah-lengahkan. Probably it's because of my foul mouth. Or probably because I got cocky and riak. This is a wake up call for me to improve and sort myself out.

I am still beating myself out, even blogging about it makes my heart ache. But I want to time-capsuled this disappointment. I want to remember what it feels like, so that when I reread this post in the future, I know what to do: To work harder. To be a better person. Lepas ni dah takda excuse dah. There's no more major subjects and instead of 21 units, I'll be having only 18. Im still within touching distance to finish with a first class degree, so Imma work on that. Kalau dapat first class degree boleh skip master, sambung phd. Not that I have any plans yet, but I'd like to have that option in the future. Final semester, here I come. 

A big fish in a small pond

UM has been crowned as the best university in the nation for the third consecutive years. According to the QS ranking, UM is ranked at the 33rd place in Asia followed by UKM (57), USM (61), UTM (68) and UPM (72). These five universities are the five oldest university in Malaysia. I don't really give a damn about these rankings but seeing a lot of people do, it kinda bugs me a little. Because having this ranking out made people question a lot of things. Tiba-tiba ja semua orang super excited nak masuk the top universities and semahu-mahunya nak avoid the not so top universities. Tambah-tambah student yang baru nak masuk september ni. If you think getting in a 'top' university is the answer to everything, you're wrong. Let me talk some sense into you. Belajaq kat mana pun sama saja.

But first, let's talk about the ranking. The QS ranking pakai beberapa kriteria seperti citations per paper, international students, inbound exchange dan papers per faculty. You see, kalau kita betul-betul ranking oriented, benda-benda ni semua kita boleh manipulate. For example, ever since Prof TS Ghauth Jasmon jadi VC UM, banyak ranking-oriented changes yang dia buat. Yang paling famous dia buat, dia banyak hire foreign lecturer untuk jadi lecturer kat UM sehinggakan local lecturers dan ilmuan tempatan disisihkan. You can google this story out. The point is, sapa-sapa pun boleh jadi nombor satu. But to what extend? 

Sampai student kita tak paham kuliah sebab accent foreign lecturer terlalu tebal? sampai lecturer abaikan student sebab terlalu busy nak publish papers? sampai uni kita jadi hub dan sarang penjenayah sebab ramai sangat international student yang salah guna visa? sampai macam tu sekali? 

And you can also see stereotype student-student kita. Depa ada macam satu rule of thumb nih; lagi sikit huruf, lagi bagus uni tu. UM? bagus. UKM? bagus. UTHM? tak bagus. Sebab empat huruf. UiTM? tak bagus sebab empat huruf. Orang pandang uni-uni yang empat huruf ni sebelah mata. Ranking is only as good as a marketing tools. Let's talk about my uni for a while, USM.

As most of you know, ever since USM achieved this 'apex' status, they had conducted their own intake. Untuk uni lain semua orang kena apply through UPU, tapi untuk usm depa kena beli pin nombor yang lain dan apply kat website yang lain. Dan selalunya result intake USM akan keluar dahulu daripada result intake UPU. In other words, usm have the first pick pastu baru upu boleh pilih. Macam NBA draft lah. Team-team yang kuat akan diberi kuasa untuk pilih player mana yang depa nak sign dahulu. Like when Houston Rockets picked Yao Ming as their first pick in the 2002 draft.

So most students who were selected by USM are the top ones. Creme de la creme. We don't need ranking to know that we have one of the best crop of students in the country. But here's the downside. Sebab ramai sangat yang hebat-hebat, we have this distribution table grading system. You know, the graf loceng thingy we learnt in maths. For example, if you scored 80 marks in an exam it doesnt mean you will get an A. Kalau ramai yang score 80 marks and above, the distribution table will 'drag' the initially weaker A to A-, for example. Maksudnya di sini, depa ada kuota untuk A student. Kalau kuota dia 10% dan 100 orang yang ambik subjek tu, hanya 10 orang sahaja yang akan dapat A. Unlike other university.

Now let's bring UiTM into the picture, yang konon-kononnya one of the who fared quite low in the ranking. Lets not forget about all the babbles I've been talking about earlier regarding how the ranking is calculated. It only make sense, because uitm is the largest university in malaysia, so it is very hard to positioned yourself higher in the ranking due to these criteria. But with all due respect to all UiTM students, I really do think it's easier to score and get a good grades in UiTM. I don't want to elaborate why and I don't want to get into troubles with millions of uitm students , because that's not important.

What's important here is how you fare against the others. Okay Im going to say this straight. Penubuhan UiTM memang betul-betul tujuan dia untuk tolong bumiputera. Bagi peluang kepada bumiputera-bumiputera kita melanjutkan pelajaran. Sebab tu branch campus dia merata kat Malaysia ni. Tak cukup dengan branch campus ada pulak kolej bersekutu, kolej francais yang menawarkan program UiTM at a lower academic requirement. So it is pretty fair to assume that the qualities of the students varies. Ada yang bagus and ada yang kurang bagus. You're probably an exceptional UiTM student who's scoring four flats every semester, only because your teachers have to cater and downgrade the examination standards so your average classmates won't fail and you're probably angered upon reading this, but what's wrong with that?

There's nothing wrong at all. Upon graduation everybody wants you to work for them. You're favored much more than some redneck from USM who probably worked harder than you in school but scored a mere 3.8 in cgpa. Bila habis nanti firms bukan ambil tahu pun dari mana hang graduate. They just want to know whether you're good enough for them. Which comes to my main point. Belajaq kat mana pun sama ja. How do you think I got my scholarship at the first place? I was from a small college. I was a big fish in a small pond. I just needed a chance to sit in that interview room and amazed my interviewer and show them how I was good enough for them.

I believed more than half of my competitors during the interviews worked harder than me, and came through from a much more prestigious educations institutions and also tougher examinations. STPM, A-levels. Tough kot. But in the interview room, it was a different ball game, and I managed to come out on top. So yes, if you'd asked me, I'd rather be a big fish in a small pond. Hang belajar kat Johns Hopkins ka, hang belajar kat AUCMS ka, in the end kot mana pun hang jadi doctor jugak. And who's to know whether John Hopkin or AUCMS produced the better doctor? Because like I said, when you're out there, it's a different ball game.

*Johns Hopkins ada kat Malaysia. Under Perdana Universiti. Guess berapa tuition fees depa? Check them for yourself, http://perdanauniversity.edu.my/pugsom/admissions/tuition--fees/. Nak jadi doctor jugak lah, apply ptptn, vote PR. Pastu kasi mansuh itu ptptn!

The bad guys.

Mama always taught us to be an honest stand up citizen. She taught us the importance of responsibility, truthfulness, and good ethics and moral values. She's an idealistic woman who view the world in a positive light and she always wants her kids to be a part of it. My dad, on the other hand is different. He's a bit goofy and doesn't always do things by the book. Unlike my mom he's a realist and he always tried to show us how cruel the world can be. This is where abah and mama complemented each other in raising us.

If someone slapped you on the right cheek, mama would have advised us to turn the other cheek also. As for abah, if someone as much laid a finger on you, he would have advised us to kick his/her ass back to the ground. The answer to whether 'turn the other cheek' or 'stand up for yourself' is pretty much subjective. But both methods had helped me to be a better man. It helped me to think things through while playing this game called life. 

Mama pretty much sets the standard, our very own moral compass but at the same time abah tried to teach us to always not be so pedantic and to violate our moral compass once in a while. He taught us to be a jerk, to be a bully; not to take pleasure or pride in it but to teach us how it is like to be on the other side of a group. In a way, we are well prepared, not naive and can't be taken easily for a ride. This way, it'll be easier for me to solve any moral dilemma conflict I encountered.

It also taught me to have more empathy on the others, no matter which sides they represent. You know, when you rely only on your moral compass, it's easier to blame the bad when something happens . Si pembuli was always in the wrong, yang dibuli was always in the right. Because it simply align with our moral compass. But if we have more empathy, si pembuli tak semestinya salah. Mungkin si pembuli ada abandonment issue sejak kecil, mungkin yang dibuli tu yang provoke si pembuli, or mungkin si pembuli desperate for approval dari kawan-kawan.

If we could identify ourself with other people, it is easier to help them. If you have a smoker friend, and you wanted him to quit, identify yourself with him. Jangan pedantic sangat, terus nak label dia jahat. Try to put yourself in his shoe, then only you'll be able to help him quit. Ni tidak, terus nak punish dia. Nak bash smokers, pastu nak tulis 'hak bernafas hak kami' kat fb. It's very uncalled for. Sama la jugak macam solat. Kita tengok orang tak solat, kita terus nak boikot dia, nak ignore dia. Macam mana dia nak pi masjid kalau takdak orang nak guide dia and ajaq dia.

Sebab tu kalau kita tengok support group macam alcohol anonymous ka contohnya, sponsor/leader depa mesti dari golongan depa jugak. Maksudnya di sini, seseorang yang pernah jadi alcoholic jugak. One reason is because they simply could identify and have empathy on members of the support group. Mana pi yang lain? Yang claim diri depa baguih dan perfect sangat? yang tak alcoholic, yang solat lima waktu, yang tak merokok? 

Buat rancak.

Ever since they announced the upu n usm intake results, all fb groups related to my uni has been swarmed by thousands of the new upcoming students asking question regarding the uni. These noobies asked a lot of questions I can tell you. All the important ones, and also the not so important one. Tapi senior semua baguih-baguih. Depa jawab pi la berapa puluh kali pun walaupun soalan yang freshies ni tanya soalan yang sama, redundant, even the trivial one; macam soalan ada hantu tak kat desasiswa?

Time-time ni lah 'abang-abang' dan 'kakak-kakak' keluar dan menonjolkan diri mereka. Kan..tiba-tiba ja semua orang pun nak jadi abang, kakak, biras, sepupu, sepapat depa. My advise to you noobies, jangan bersakan-sakan sangat berabang-abang, berkakak-kakak ni. Relax dulu. All the cool kids will only appear during the mid semester. Why you may asked? Because awal-awal sem, the cool kids mana mau datang lagi uni. Gang-gang pulun, gang-gang yang skema ja la yang sanggup datang awal, jadi ppsl bagai, pegi kelas first amik syllabus suma. And then during the mid sem, gang-gang pulun ni nanti busy dengan activities and programs, and only then you'll notice the cool kids one by one. Haha!

Okay, mengata di bulan romodon jokes aside, the reason why I am writing this is to talk about my course, particularly my major. That's right aku pun nak jadi abang-abang jugak. Haha. But only for different reasons. I noticed that a lot of my friends didn't know much about what I study and sometimes did not know the difference between finance and accounting. So first, let's address the difference between accountancy and my major, which is finance. Accountancy is basically about the bookkeeping of the business. It basically measures, analyzes and interprets the data and performance of an entity. And these datas will be portrayed into financial statements.

Moving on to finance. It covers a huge array of subjects, I dont know where to begin. But basically it involves decision makings, risk management and assets and liabilities management. We studied pretty much everything that has monetary values in it. Stocks, bonds, insurances, the markets, derivatives, foreign exchange, securities, savings, cash flow management and many more. In finance, we're looking to maximized profit and prolong the survival of the firm through a series of strategies and decision making. How? By looking and examining the financial statements prepared by the accountants.

You see, a finance student might not know how to produce an account, but they simply know how to use it. In a nutshell, accounting and finance are inter related. That's why sometime people confused those two. Finance is pretty much a hybrid between art and science. There's always theories, formulas and calculation involved. But all of it won't matter if you disregard the 'art' part. Which is things that are immeasurable like risk aversion, trend and the global economy. Yeah you can came up with the best regression equation to earn outrageous profit buying stocks for example, and yet you could still suffer a loss because you overlooked some minor detail.

I mean, if finance is a science, then semua orang dah lama la jadi kaya raya. Another reason why it is also an art is down to choices we made. For example in capital budgeting, you can structure your capital structure anyway you want. For example 60 % equity-40% debt or 40% equity-60% debt. It's all up to you. Dengan economic conditions, trends, interest and inflations, these choices could affect the health of your company. It's not that interesting pun, pi mai pi mai kami nanti main benda yang sama jugak. But in finance the scope is soo wide. They have a wide variety of players, bukan setakat traders ja. And also they have a wide variety of markets. I mean kat Malaysia ja pun kita bukan ada setakat bskl ja, kita ada market lain lagi macam commodity, futures, and options market. Tu belum masuk lagi banking and financial institutions. 

And there's always firms and industries. Because pretty much everything that's running the world right now need finance manager. Even governments. Heck, finance manager might know nothing about automobiles and the pharmaceutical industries but these big boys, they need finance manager to handle their funds and capital in order for them to grow. So that's how we get a slice of that big fat cake. Macam lawyer la lebih kurang. Nak kawin? kena jumpa lawyer. Nak cerai? Jumpa lawyer. Nak beli kerete? lawyer. nak beli rumah? sign legal contract. sapa buat? lawyer. We can pretty much stick our nose into everything. Buat rancak.

A good leader is a good subordinates

I've been going to masjid negeri for 15 years since I moved here and I already developed a knack of knowing who's the imam performing the prayers from 20,30 safs at the back without looking at him.  It's not hard really, you just need an adept ears to be able to identify their voices, tone, pitch, reciting style etc. Because everyone has a very unique, distinctive style of reciting. And having that skills developed, I also learnt to manage my expectations and concentration better. Manage di sini bukan la bermaksud kalau imam tu bukan imam favorite aku, aku skip prayers atau pergi masjid lain. Maksud aku, kalau imam tu memang dari awal aku dah tau style dia macam mana, bacaan dia laju ke perlahan ke, sedap ke kurang sedap ke; in a way it helps me to regulate my expectations and improve my kekusyukan.

Anyway, aku bukan nak cita pasal imam sangat. Cuma ada la kena mengena sikit. You see, I've been this ustaz's makmum for quite a while now and I realized that his performance is dropping. He is the imam besar there. In a way, he's like the big boss there. Bacaan dia dah tak selancar dulu and kadang-kadang dia terlupa surah yang dia nak baca. Kalau nak dibandingkan dengan imam-imam lain, depa kemas lagi. I'm not writing this to point out his flaws or anything, I mean, come on ilmu dia dengan aku memang macam langit dengan bumi. That's out of the question. Aku bukan nak kondem atau kritik dia.

Cuma aku terfikir, adakah kemahiran kita akan diminish bila kita pegang tanggungjawab pengurusan? Take my parents for example. When they got promoted to be a part of the school's management teams, a lot of things changed. Fokus dan skop depa dah jadi semakin besar. Tanggungjawab pun dah berbeza. Dulu depa ajar 20-30 hours a week. Sekarang, they only teach from 2 to 3 classes, less than 10 hours a week. This is because they need to focus more on the management side of the school; attending meetings, dealings with jabatan and kementerian, hal ehwal luaran dan dalaman sekolah etc. The question is, does this changes affect their role as a teacher? 

I have this lecturer of mine who happened to be the deputy dean and she was just promoted even further to work at the chancellery with the top management team. If I were to evaluate her teaching from a scale of 1 being the worst and 10 being the best, I would have given her only 5. I dont question her work ethics, because to me, she's motivated as ever. Cuma bab-bab teaching ni, kadang-kadang aku rasa macam she didnt give her best. Kadang-kadang dia lupa benda yang dia nak ajar, kadang-kadang dia lupa yang dia ada kelas pun. And her teaching was pretty much superficial. Very basic and only exist at the surface. It's as if she's reading to us.

Aku teringat when the tv show House was still around, House selalu lawan cakap Cuddy, the Chief of Medicine. Because Cuddy was always thinking as a manager, not a doctor. Cuddy dwells with management things like hospital's policies, handling lawsuits, public relations, risk etc, and not the best interest of the patient. I am not trying to play down the importance of the management team, but for me, a good manager should be a good -insert jobs here-. I think that's the best way to move forward in your career and grow as a person. 

Happy and sad

Hari ni result intake untuk first degree keluar. I am absolutely thrilled to see some of my juniors who made the cut. Some of them were pretty close to me as I was the one who conducted their college orientation shortly before I left. Yang mana buat diploma ict banyak apply utk usm. Yang mana buat diploma uitm, depa apply degree fast track untuk sambung ke uitm. Masa aku kat ict, depa tak offer lagi diploma uitm. 

Tapi aku sedih jugak bila tengok ada yang tak dapat. I felt sympathy towards them as Im sure that they worked as hard as those who had gotten a place. Tapi takpa. Mesti ada hikmah untuk semua ini. Boleh buat rayuan lagi. Ada lagi ruang untuk make an effort. Kalau ada kabel besaq punya, pakai. How you start is not important. How you finish is more important. Orang tak berhak judge kita at the beginning. Orang hanya berhak judge kita bila kita dah habis belajar; berapa cgpa kita, our contribution towards the uni and society, what kind of person we have become. That's more important.

Aku lagi bertambah sedih bila tengok ada yang active in curricular activity, tapi tak dapat. It saddened me because they deserved to get a place, and it frustrates me that lack of information is the reason they didnt get  a place. Junior aku sorang nih, baru balik dari SUKMA kot, and she just heard her bad news today. 

Sekarang ni, all the major iptas have these so called 'alternative channel' for student intakes. Through this channel, those who qualified will get a direct admission into the university. For example, USM have this warga sukan intake. Mana-mana budak yang excelled in sports, akan terus dapat direct admission, with minimal academic result requirement la. And to have represented the state for SUKMA? Pejam mata, confirm dapat. I knew a lot of my friends who had gotten into USM through this channel. 

Of course, depa wajib main sports every semester. And they had to prepare reports and logs pertaining all their sports-related activity. But its not so much of a burden, but a pleasure to them. I mean, they love doing it. They breath and live for the sports that they involved in. Plus, ada allowance and scholarship lagi kot atas. It's a win-win-win situation. Dapat scholarship, dapat education, and dapat do things they love. Hang nak apa lagi?

They have different names for every uni. Kalau macam adik aku kat UKM, depa tak panggil warga sukan. Depa panggil 'thinking athlete' programme. Adik aku main kriket. Dia dapat direct intake terus dari SPM, buat degree kat UKM. Which is a big gain, sebab dia skip pre-U (stpm, matriculation, diploma). Tapi sayang, tak ramai orang tau pasal saluran-saluran alternatif ni. Should my junior yang main sukma ni tau pasal ni awal-awal, memang dia tak yah risau dah pasal getting a place. 

Saluran alternatif ni bukan untuk ahli sukan ja, tapi macam-macam lagi. Ada special intake untuk performing arts student, ada special intake untuk warga emas, ada special intake untuk student leaders. All you have to do is make an effort to search for them, and make additional effort to apply. Because one thing I can tell you, it is a little bit more complicated than the normal procedure. Kalau macam adik aku, dia kena travel pegi Bangi nak jumpa orang dari pusat sukan ukm, attend interview, etc. Which requires more effort than buying a pincode at BSN.  

So my advise to juniors out there, make an effort to search your alternatives. Guna internet sebaik mungkin. Jangan dok berfacebook ja.  

Sime Darby Online Assessment Test

In recent weeks, I've been getting a lot of unique visitors searching for infos regarding the SD online assessment test. Some of the search keywords used that resulted them to stumble upon this blog are:

1. online ability test sime darby

2. online ability test sime darby scholarship 

3. online test sime darby 

4. sample assessment test questions sime darby

So I am going to talk a little bit about it in depth. But ALWAYS note that I took it two years ago, so the system now might be different. Whatever I am telling you here is purely on the basis of my experience and perceptions.

During my time, the online test is conducted during the interview session. But now, I was made aware that you can do it on your own personal time, at the comfort of your home. They simply gave you the login id and password to do it. Anyway, it doesnt make any much of a different pun. Because the questions are pretty much straight forward. You won't even need to study anything to answer it. Plus, you wont even have the time to do anything else (googgling, do revisions, ask ur friends) because the browser will keep on refreshing to the next questions, regardless whether you managed to answer or not.

If you asked for a sample question, Im afraid I cant provide you with one. They hired some sort of training and skills consultant to do the online assessment for them. But I can tell you it is similar to the Bloomberg Aptitude Test. Never heard of BAT? Nvm, read on.

They will test you greatly in two areas. Verbal and numerical abilities. When it comes to numerical abilities, fret not, they wont ask you any complicated mathematical problems. You need only to master the basic plus, minus, multiply and division process. But here's the tricky part; you need to be able to conceptualize and analyze the problem given to you. You may know what's the answer to 1+1, but you need to also know how it will fare against other data, how it will be portrayed in a bar graph, what it means, how big the proportion of the slice of pie chart it will represent, yada yada yada. 

If you have a great mental or graphical cognitive, you won't have any problem. Ada soalan yang tak perlu guna calculator pun, but requires great graphical processing. For example, the question give a series of initial and subsequent values. You need to determine which one have the highest percentage increase. If you have great mental representation, you'll be able to draw out an answer without even calculating it one by one. It wont be obvious to the naked eyes, but if you look closely, you'll get it. 

Let's say if the initial value is 100 and the subsequent value is 95, you already know it's not the answer without even calculating because it was a percentage decrease of -5%. Identifying and analyzing is more important than calculating. 

Now the verbal aspect of the test. Basically it tests your interpretation skills. They will give you reports, statistics, memoes, letters and so forth, and you need to extract vital information from them. It is pretty similar to IELTS, MUET and GCSE test you had taken, but a little bit difficult. If you have a decent command in English then you will have no problem. For example, lets say they give out a contract specification and it says the contracts are on a quarterly month basis and the quarterly months are March, June, September and December. If it is now February and a buyer is looking for a semi-annual stock replenishment, which contracts months should he locked into? 

It's pretty much like the english subject we learnt in school, but on a corporate/business level. Also need I to remind you that the questions are mcq, and the browser will keep on refreshing when it reached the time limit. Most often you will find yourself a little bit shorthanded, so you might want to came up with a strategy or something. For me, I did the 'easy' question first then only I tried to answer the slightly harder ones. If the time is almost up and the browser are about to refresh, I simply tembak ja lah. A 25% chance is better than having no chance at all.

Anyway, hope this helps and I hope that you'll get through it with ease. Should you succeeded in securing the scholarship or should you come across me in SDP (scholar development programme) in the future, dont forget to say hi. 

Ketchup Please

Ada orang cakap 'two heads are better than one', ada orang pulak cakap 'too many cooks spoilt the broth'.

Ada orang cakap 'Familiarity breeds content', ada orang pulak cakap 'familiarity breeds contempt'.

Ada orang cakap 'absence makes the heart grow fonder', ada orang pulak cakap 'out of sight, out of mind'.

If we look at this maxim, memang contradict gila kan. And yet people have been using these for ages because to some extend, the meaning is true. For instance, the second example. Which one is true? As we come to know others better, we tend to like them more OR is it as we come to know others better, we tend to like them less? Common sense suggests that 'more is more' where liking is concerned. On the other hand, though, research findings indicate that sometimes, the more we know about others, the less we like them. (Norton, Frost & Ariely, 2006) 

Common sense often suggests a confusing and inconsistent picture of human behaviour. It doesnt mean that it is necessarily wrong; in fact, it often does offer intriguing clues and insights.

People need to always feel better about themselves. That's why we tend to choose an explanation yang boleh membuatkan kita rasa better. We are predisposed to have this selective bias. That's why bila kita buat group assignment tapi end result dia tak elok, kita akan bagi alasan 'too many cooks spoilt the broth'. And vise versa. Kita akan pilih apa yang baik untuk kita, yang benefit kita betul2. In a way, yes we are selfish. 

Gang UG

I posted about the terrific trio couple of years ago. For those of you who didn't know, yes, Hafiz and Yahya are also in USM, also majoring in finance like me. But their story is a little bit different than mine. And a little complicated too, so just bear with me while Im trying to piece everything together. To make things easier, let me tell you a little bit about my college, Island College of Technology, where I spent 3 years of my life doing my diploma.

You see ICT is one of the few lucky colleges to offer degree programme under the USM flagship. In other words, hang masuk belajaq kat ict, konvo nnt hang dapat skrol graduation dari USM. Tak banyak kolej yang diberi peluang untuk offer program francais under USM. Tak silap aku hanya ICT dgn KDU sahaja yang diberi lesen untuk offer program ni. Kat ICT, they used to offer Management and Pharmacy Courses. Diploma program pun macam tu, tapi they didnt used the 'kerjasama dengan USM' terms but they used the 'kawalselia USM'. That's why us ICT student dari diploma boleh dapat tranfer credit sampai 42 unit, which is the maxed amount.

I dont want to go into details, so long story short, Hafiz, Yahya, Suzy and a lot other friends of mine masuk belajar kat ICT under the francais program. Depa ikut syllabus kita sebijik, cuma lecturer ICT la yang nnt ajar. Tapi kadang-kadang lecturer counter part nanti turun padang jugak sekali sekala. For example, Dr Shankar nnt turun ICT ajar depa International Business. 

Also to make a long story short, there was a problem with ICT in 2011. Mungkin masalah royalti ke, takda duit ke macam mana tah, USM decided to tarik balik their francais license from ICT. Depa tarik lesen, and asked the students there to masuk USM. So that's how they ended up in USM. So boleh dikatakan yang kemasukan depa was purely not on merit, but it was purely incidental. So ramailah budak2 ict yang masuk USM. Nak tau depa yang mana satu senang ja. Matrik kad. Unlike us they have a unique matrik number. Matrik number depa ada perkataan UG kat depan. 

So if you found a management or pharmacy student with a 'UG' matric number, they are likely from ICT or KDU. And the best part is, they still get their mara allowance, around 700 bucks per month (note that MARA tak support student IPTA, only IPTS). So yes, kalau jumpa depa, silalah jek sikit apa yang patut, boleh depa blanja ampa teh tarik ka segelas. 

Seriously, aku dulu agak jealous dengan depa. Tak payah ambik munsyi, tak payah apply usm, tak payah score tinggi2, tapi dapat masuk usm. Pastu dapat duit mara lagi kot atas. Memang aku jelly. But what I thought as a gain for them was actually a loss to them. Kat sini depa tak boleh pilih minor. Depa wajib ambik minor communication. Pastu depa dah tak dapat privilege one on one tutoring mcm kat ict dulu. Lecturer ict dulu semua baik-baik dan senang sangat nak jumpa. Kalau ada benda tak paham nak tanya boleh walk in macam tu ja. Kalau kat usm nak kena buat appointment lah, tu pun belum tentu boleh jumpa lecturer. Busy memanjang. 

Kami suma masih lagi rapat macam biasa. Dok merapu meraban macam tu jugak. Tapi kami tak la selalu spend time together macam dulu kat ICT. Lagipun kami banyak kelas yang tak sama walaupun major sama. Sebab technically depa senior aku by one sem kat usm. But we are graduating together, InsyaAllah. 

Gambar ni time kami main treasure hunt kot kat padang kawad. Dapat hamper gittuw.


* I felt like I didnt do my college enough justice if I didnt clear up something. Sekarang ni college aku dah takda problem dah. In fact they are doing well. Ever since JKP ambik alih, banyak improvement yang dah dibuat. Dewan kuliah baru, management baru and student pun makin ramai. And also, lesen francais pun dah dapat balik.