Assalamualaikum and welcome back to another episode of Winging It : Scholarship whereby our main character went to her second scholarship assessment + interview, this time for MARA.
Interview room with Durrah, with black background behind, off-camera style:
There was a complication in the beginning actually. I originally registered for JPA-MARA (note the word: register only), maybe for Social Sciences without filling up anything, and not expecting it to be counted already. Later, my parents and I agreed that I should apply for MARA's applied science (biology) but I couldn't even sign up because I was already registered with JPA-MARA and its website cannot be accessed for me to cancel it as it was past the deadline! In the end, we went to the MARA headquarters ourselves and cancelled it with the help of the Pengarah for the education sector.
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Soz I give up, writing like that is tiring. I found out about my application results in my room in Lanai Kijang after the Kijang assessment. They said that there will be a psychometric test I had to take by the end of the week followed by their assessment/interview two days later. Fast forward to the test. Before that, I was discussing with Shelly on what kind of questions they will ask and we ended up reading our Sejarah Form 5 books ahahhaha and I did some numerical/logic/verbal question examples I found online. Won't reveal the questions, but some of them related to Malaysia made me go ???? and when I told my parents about it later, they said oh maybe it's just to test the students' honesty and loyalty because maybe they could tell he/she was cheating by Googling the answers through their phones if they got all of them correct suspiciously.
In the interview form I was supposed to bring along later, it was stated that we were required to wear sports attire and sports shoes with no school logo and again I was like ???? PLUS I READ ON SOME BLOGS THAT THERE WAS A BLEEP TEST (THE STAMINA CHECKUP) SO I PANICKED. Anyway, The night before the interview my father tested me with some questions and even in the car on the way I was talking quietly with an imaginary interviewer the stress really--
Reaching the place of interview - Kolej Mara Banting on the 26th of March, the registration hall only allowed us students to enter and not the parents. There were a lot of sessions actually, like at 7.30, 9.30, 12, 1.45, and mine was supposed to be the one from 9.30 to 11 AM. While lining up, one of the helpers asked us to separate into medic and non-medic. THE MEDIC LINE WAS SO LONG. After registering, they gave me a lanyard with my group and number so I sat according to those. Saw some familiar faces from Bank Negara. Then us non-medic groups were asked to go into this lecture hall where we sat in groups, each group comprising of 8. There was like a whole hour of waiting so we just talked among ourselves, and helping each of us with facts of current issues and of MARA. My group leader who was from Sri Cempaka and who has a sister in SA was actually born in 1999! We were informed that there would be two checkpoints we had to complete.
In the first one, we had to go this place that reaaaallllyyy reminds me of my school's cabin class. Going in as a group, we had to sit according to our numbers, mine was the second last. The first assessment was more like a game, something like passing phrases and acting it out and guessing it and drawing it on the whiteboard. There were 6 roles and 9 phrases, where we had to switch roles after each phrase in a limited amount of time. We did 9 different images which we found out in the end, should be just ONE image which combines all of them together ahahhaa oh well. As there were still some time left, the assessor asked us all to sit down and she asked each of us different questions, in random order, like "Sell yourself, why should we pick you?" / "What if we offer a course different from what you asked for?" / etc. etc. Mine was "Give your opinion on students who continue living and working overseas after studying there." I thought that these questions were just preparing us for the next checkpoint to be honest :|
For the second checkpoint, we moved to another room and sat again. This time, our group was separated into two, where we were given this paper about the decreasing value of the RM1, how years ago you could buy 5 curry puffs with RM1 and now you can only buy 2. There were no specific instructions, just that after a certain amount of time (around 10 minutes maybe?) we have to present it in 5 minutes. My subgroup discussed the factors and ways to handle the issue. Did the presentation. Done. Just kidding. Next was the real interview questions, and yes, the questions were mixed in both Bahasa Melayu and English, and you could also answer in either languages. Again, it was one question per person and they were like, "What do you think of the usage of social media among company workers" / "How do you manage your time" etc. Sorry for my bad memory. HOWEVER. Alhamdulillah, the question I received was the same one as I was asked in the previous checkpoint! I don't remember what I babbled, but it was something like I'm sure they have their own reasons to do so, but it is not the best thing to do as they only got to study overseas with the help of the government's money especially if they're a scholarship student, so they should give back and contribute to Malaysia, plus it was in Malaysia where they were given the foundation of a good education that allowed them to study overseas anyway. If they insist on working overseas, maybe just come back and work here first? BLEGH IDK.
And that was that. I'm not joking. We gave back our tags and later asked for each other's social media accounts and took pictures hahahahha. Shelly who applied for medic however said that her assessment was kind of more difficult and her story of the first checkpoint made me go O_O. Her interview session too, they asked more than one question per person, with everyone having to answer the same question before proceeding to the next, like "Why did you choose to study in Ireland? Why not India or just Malaysia?" And that bit of having to wear sports attire? I guess it's to provide a casual, less stressful environment and so that no one feels superior or inferior with their blazers high heels etc.
Anyway, the experience was definitely a fun and way less stressful one compared to Bank Negara's, although my experience in the latter definitely did helped me a lot in improving and preparing myself. At least I was less scared? Regardless of the results, I learned a lot more about the course I want to apply for and I made new friends yayerssss, That is all, thank you for reading this!
update: I got the scholarship! But sadly I didn't accept it because my family and I think I am more suited to be studying something else even it is done locally, although I did cry because of the studying overseas part and I was considering to study Applied Science in Biology too but InsyaAllah this is the best decision <////3 Being the one rejecting hurts a lot too TT_TT
For more post-SPM scholarships/assessments experience: Bank Negara, Petronas, Yayasan Khazanah + Asasipintar UKM
Interview room with Durrah, with black background behind, off-camera style:
There was a complication in the beginning actually. I originally registered for JPA-MARA (note the word: register only), maybe for Social Sciences without filling up anything, and not expecting it to be counted already. Later, my parents and I agreed that I should apply for MARA's applied science (biology) but I couldn't even sign up because I was already registered with JPA-MARA and its website cannot be accessed for me to cancel it as it was past the deadline! In the end, we went to the MARA headquarters ourselves and cancelled it with the help of the Pengarah for the education sector.
----------------------------------
Soz I give up, writing like that is tiring. I found out about my application results in my room in Lanai Kijang after the Kijang assessment. They said that there will be a psychometric test I had to take by the end of the week followed by their assessment/interview two days later. Fast forward to the test. Before that, I was discussing with Shelly on what kind of questions they will ask and we ended up reading our Sejarah Form 5 books ahahhaha and I did some numerical/logic/verbal question examples I found online. Won't reveal the questions, but some of them related to Malaysia made me go ???? and when I told my parents about it later, they said oh maybe it's just to test the students' honesty and loyalty because maybe they could tell he/she was cheating by Googling the answers through their phones if they got all of them correct suspiciously.
In the interview form I was supposed to bring along later, it was stated that we were required to wear sports attire and sports shoes with no school logo and again I was like ???? PLUS I READ ON SOME BLOGS THAT THERE WAS A BLEEP TEST (THE STAMINA CHECKUP) SO I PANICKED. Anyway, The night before the interview my father tested me with some questions and even in the car on the way I was talking quietly with an imaginary interviewer the stress really--
Reaching the place of interview - Kolej Mara Banting on the 26th of March, the registration hall only allowed us students to enter and not the parents. There were a lot of sessions actually, like at 7.30, 9.30, 12, 1.45, and mine was supposed to be the one from 9.30 to 11 AM. While lining up, one of the helpers asked us to separate into medic and non-medic. THE MEDIC LINE WAS SO LONG. After registering, they gave me a lanyard with my group and number so I sat according to those. Saw some familiar faces from Bank Negara. Then us non-medic groups were asked to go into this lecture hall where we sat in groups, each group comprising of 8. There was like a whole hour of waiting so we just talked among ourselves, and helping each of us with facts of current issues and of MARA. My group leader who was from Sri Cempaka and who has a sister in SA was actually born in 1999! We were informed that there would be two checkpoints we had to complete.
In the first one, we had to go this place that reaaaallllyyy reminds me of my school's cabin class. Going in as a group, we had to sit according to our numbers, mine was the second last. The first assessment was more like a game, something like passing phrases and acting it out and guessing it and drawing it on the whiteboard. There were 6 roles and 9 phrases, where we had to switch roles after each phrase in a limited amount of time. We did 9 different images which we found out in the end, should be just ONE image which combines all of them together ahahhaa oh well. As there were still some time left, the assessor asked us all to sit down and she asked each of us different questions, in random order, like "Sell yourself, why should we pick you?" / "What if we offer a course different from what you asked for?" / etc. etc. Mine was "Give your opinion on students who continue living and working overseas after studying there." I thought that these questions were just preparing us for the next checkpoint to be honest :|
For the second checkpoint, we moved to another room and sat again. This time, our group was separated into two, where we were given this paper about the decreasing value of the RM1, how years ago you could buy 5 curry puffs with RM1 and now you can only buy 2. There were no specific instructions, just that after a certain amount of time (around 10 minutes maybe?) we have to present it in 5 minutes. My subgroup discussed the factors and ways to handle the issue. Did the presentation. Done. Just kidding. Next was the real interview questions, and yes, the questions were mixed in both Bahasa Melayu and English, and you could also answer in either languages. Again, it was one question per person and they were like, "What do you think of the usage of social media among company workers" / "How do you manage your time" etc. Sorry for my bad memory. HOWEVER. Alhamdulillah, the question I received was the same one as I was asked in the previous checkpoint! I don't remember what I babbled, but it was something like I'm sure they have their own reasons to do so, but it is not the best thing to do as they only got to study overseas with the help of the government's money especially if they're a scholarship student, so they should give back and contribute to Malaysia, plus it was in Malaysia where they were given the foundation of a good education that allowed them to study overseas anyway. If they insist on working overseas, maybe just come back and work here first? BLEGH IDK.
And that was that. I'm not joking. We gave back our tags and later asked for each other's social media accounts and took pictures hahahahha. Shelly who applied for medic however said that her assessment was kind of more difficult and her story of the first checkpoint made me go O_O. Her interview session too, they asked more than one question per person, with everyone having to answer the same question before proceeding to the next, like "Why did you choose to study in Ireland? Why not India or just Malaysia?" And that bit of having to wear sports attire? I guess it's to provide a casual, less stressful environment and so that no one feels superior or inferior with their blazers high heels etc.
dis is me casually ruining this pic
In case anyone is wondering, the pre-university programme they are offering is International Baccalaureate (IB) recognized internationally and not just in specific countries. Yes very uncommon to hear about it in Malaysia. It's for two years, where later there's the big exam in the end. This programme developed by Switzerland's aim is to develop well-rounded students and is perhaps one of the most expensive pre-u programmes around (which is why getting a scholarship for it is a major plus). You have to take 6 subjects, and also learn about this special subject called Theory of Knowledge, and then you can do a research about anything and write a 4,000 word essay of it. You also MUST participate in weekly social community services (which in this case will be set by the college) like visiting the old folks' home, going to creative/athletic events, etc. The list of people who went through this programme includes notable people such as Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Princess Raiyah of Jordan, King of Netherlands Willem-Alexander, actress Lupita Nyong'o and Marina Diamandis of Marina and The Diamonds just to name a few. While waiting for me too, my mum said she talked to at least 5 ex-SA-ians who are studying in Kolej Mara Banting.Anyway, the experience was definitely a fun and way less stressful one compared to Bank Negara's, although my experience in the latter definitely did helped me a lot in improving and preparing myself. At least I was less scared? Regardless of the results, I learned a lot more about the course I want to apply for and I made new friends yayerssss, That is all, thank you for reading this!
update: I got the scholarship! But sadly I didn't accept it because my family and I think I am more suited to be studying something else even it is done locally, although I did cry because of the studying overseas part and I was considering to study Applied Science in Biology too but InsyaAllah this is the best decision <////3 Being the one rejecting hurts a lot too TT_TT
For more post-SPM scholarships/assessments experience: Bank Negara, Petronas, Yayasan Khazanah + Asasipintar UKM
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