3 December 2007
The candidates from other faculties will only need to get through this hurdle. On the other hand, we, the candidates from Faculty of Accountancy have to go through the assessment conducted by our Faculty level first (conducted on 16 Nov 2007), before we can get through this round.
It was scheduled at 8.15 am. I left my house at the wee hour of the morning to ensure that I can reached there before time. Luckily my beloved wife was willing to take a day leave just to accompany me.
We reached in Shah Alam at 7.15 am. Stopped by at Section 3 Shah Alam to have a quick breakfast and we then left the place heading towards Bilik Mesyuarat Aras 3, Bangunan Canseleri.
It seemed that I was the first candidate who reached there. Nobody else was around at that time. I took the oppportunity to peep behind the door to have a close look how the session would be arranged. At the door, I saw a namelist stating that there were all together about 30-34 (can't exactly recall) candidates from our own faculty. Half of us were scheduled for the morning session while others were arranged for the evening session.
Then the candidates arrived one by one. Some I am familiar with, while some don't. They came from various campuses all over the country. As we were waiting for our turn, I took the opportunity to mingle with some of them while at the same time trying to figure out on my chances to secure this scholarship.
The only advantage that I have is the Letter of Offer from ECU plus with some of my research papers and publications to back me up. From the conversations, I try to figure out from them, information such as where do they intend to pursue their study and whether or not they have been offered a place.
Then two staff from JPbSM arrived and started manning the session. We were told to go into the meeting room in a group of five. I was made the fourth group.
As the first group exited from the meeting room, the rest of us surrounded them to know about the conduct of the session. We were made known that this time around there would only be 6 places bound for overseas.
It was a major setback. I expect that the portion will be more or less similar with last year (about 2/3 from 20 places). At that point of time I thought that my chances were slim.
The first group also mentioned that, out of six places, 1 are bound for UK while the rest is either OZ or NZ. These six places are for full overseas scholarship, which means that the candidates can bring along their spouses and children as well.
The not so good news was that there are also split PhD programs that would be conducted between our uni and a uni in UK. This program only offers single allowance to the candidates (you'll have to go alone). Furthermore, the structure of the study requires the candidates to either spend the 1st year in M'sia, 2nd year in UK and the 3rd back in M'sia or vice versa (from what I've heard from one of the candidates).
As my turn came up, we were actualy made the last group for the morning session. There's only three of us - AH (Shah Alam), N (Terengganu) and myself. The panelists were - Prof I (our Dean) , Dr R (our Post Graduate Coordinator) and the Chairperson was Prof A (a Dean from one of engineering faculties).
In the meeting room I sat between AH and N. The most talkative person would obviously be the chairperson himself. During the session he seems to be interested only with the two ladies, AH and N as compared to me. It was basically an informal chit chat session resolving around - what were our contribution towards UiTM?, Do you hold any admin posts?, do you actively involved in research and publication? Have you been offered a place? Would you consider the split program?, Why do you like to study in overseas? and the likes....
After we exited the room, I said to AH and N, "aku rasa mcm aku tak dapat la..dia macam layan korang aje...." which amused them...
