Student Life

Assalamu'alaikum readers.

I just wanna write about my experience undergoing the 2nd stage of the Khazanah Watan Scholarship 2011 last week. This stage is divided into 2 parts. In the morning there's the interview with a panel and in the afternoon there's the group work/presentation. The venue was at PNB Darby Park. The interview was at level 3 while the group work was at level 4. The time we should register is at 8.30am but I arrived there around 7.55am. I met and chatted with the other candidates while waiting to register. There were a total of 32 candidates who came that day.

Ok so we were asked to go to level 3. There were 5 rooms there and each of the candidates will be called for the interview in one of these rooms. Some waited long and some didn't. I was one of the earliest to be called and i got into room 5. I brought my documents of certificates to the room with me. My panel were two malay ladies. My guess, their age range were like around 30-40. One of them offered me a handshake as I walked in but in the politest way possible, I rejected the offer and she understood. I sat down on the office chair.

Basically during the whole interview they just want to know what can we offer to them. One of the questions i remembered they were asking me is, "Tell us one thing you want other people to know". They're also trying to find your weaknesses in your documents and want you to explain why did it happen and how are not gonna make the same mistakes again. For example in my case, I got a D in Business Studies for my O' Levels. They brought that issue up and really "interrogated" me. Honestly, I felt kinda stressed at that time. They also asked me to imagine what will I be in 10 years from now. That question was OK i guess though they still asked me if my career choice was right for me and all.

Cup of coffee anyone?

After about 15 minutes my interview ended. I left the room with a sign of relief on my face. Overall, I think that I could do better with the interview if I have made better preparations. So I just waited at the hallway until 12 o'clock for lunch. Some of the other candidates there really took their time in the interviewing room. One of them took like AN HOUR inside there! I really don't know what they were talking about -.-

The waiting hall

So at 12, we went up to the top floor, which is the 39th floor to have lunch at a restaurant there. It was a buffet! There were all sorts of delicious food. Chicken, beef, fish, mushroom soup, fruits and of course, desserts! It was heavenly. I felt very grateful towards Khazanah for treating us lunch even though we haven't even been selected as their scholars yet! Then the muslim brothers went to Masjid Asy-Syakirin (KLCC Mosque) to have their friday prayers. Then we went back to Level 4 of the PNB Park to have our next session.

View from the 39th floor. You can see the KLCC Mosque.

We were divided into four groups, Orange, Yellow, Pink and Green group. There were 8 candidates in one group. We sat on a round table. In the beginning there was an individual english test! All of us didn't know there was going to be an english test! It's just a 2-page single paper test. There was a short comprehension question, we also have to paraphrase a given sentence and lastly we have to find find grammatical/spelling errors in a text. After that, the group session began.

Each of the groups are given an industry, and we have to introduce that industry to MARTRADE so that they will help to promote that industry of ours to the international level. Our group got the industry Health Tourism. Haiyoo.. Just listening to these words made me kinda dizzy already. So our task is to make a 4 slide powerpoint presentation and present it to a panel. The 1st slide have to talk about introducing Malaysia, next slide about background of the industry, next slide is about value propositions and last slide is about key development. We were given a laptop and a few info about the industry, Martrade, etc per group. The time given were 45 minutes to prepare the slides, 5 minutes to present and 25 minutes Q&A session. Yeah, wow.

The 39 Restaurant

As soon as we start we unanimously voted for the leader. He appointed 2 people to work on one slide. I was working with this one guy to do the 3rd slide, Value Proposition. Honestly, that was the first time I heard those 2 words go together. Thankfully, before we begin, the panel explained briefly what do some of the terms mean. Value propositions are the benefits that we can offer to our target country for involving themselves with our industry, or something like that :/ We didn't have much time so we just skimmed through the papers and brainstormed to find the ideas. Then we just typed the points in our slide in point form. The other 3 slides were in point form as well. Our team were the first one to present -.-

Awesome-ness from the 39 Restaurant!!

We appointed the leader to be the only one who has to present, to save time because were were only given 5 minutes. So he read and elaborated the points as he go through the slides. Then when the presentation was finished, all of us were called to the front for the Q&A session. Surprsingly, all of us got "worked" pretty good. Our presentation was a disaster. The panel said that our presentation got derailed even since the beginning. Our leader was the first one to be thrown by harsh words from the panel. I don't remember the exact questions they they questioned him but mostly all of them were provoking :/

We were all asked one by one. Some of the questions were related to the presentation and some weren't. The questions that was given to me was, "Do you feel stressed when doing this task?". I don't know what to say, If I say yes, then they might think that I'm weak and feel stressed out very quickly, So I said, "No, not really". Then she asked me, "What would make you feel stressed?" "I would feel stressed If I was doing the task individually rather than in a group work." She said, "So during the 45 minutes just now you were just relaxing and relying on your groupmates?" That question was kind of a sudden shock to me and I was still trying my best to defend myself (I'm not going to write the whole dialog here). Basically all of us were asked these kind of questions. Even in other groups. As a matter of fact, ALL of the other groups did bad in their presentation and each of them were asked these kind of questions. Is this how is it really supposed to be? I don't know.

Left - The PNB Darby Park

Then after everyone finished presenting, we were all given a piece of paper to write a short essay telling why we did bad in our presentation just now. We were given 5 minutes. So basically this is like our final plead. Then it is the final task for the day. It is an individual work. We have to write an essay about a topic similar to the above (Martrade) except this time, we have to choose our own industry. During the group task we were given the industry we have to work on, but this time, we have to choose our own industry and write an essay about why do we chose this industry to be delegated to Martrade. We were given 15 minutes if i'm not mistaken.

Then it's all done. We can all go home now with relief. On the LRT I felt kinda sad, because I don't think I did really good. But after deep thought, I think i don't mind if I didn't pass this stage, I have made it this far, becoming the top 32 among the other hundreds (or thousands?) who applied for this scholarship throughout Malaysia. I never thought that I have made it this far. This kind of motivated me that I can go further and to actually become the best at my studies :)