Securities Commissions Scholarship Award 2012 – Stage 2

Assalamualaikum,

Alhamdulillah, yes, I got to the second stage of the scholarship interview. It was a shock to me ’cause I really didn’t expect to get through, with so many talented people during the first stage, I thought my chances were slim. But Alhamdulillah, Allah Gave me a chance to make up for my mistakes in the first stage and move on for a better second stage, insyaAllah.

I don’t have pictures with me at the moment ’cause the pictures that we took are either with Marc or Wawa. (more on this later) So I’m just going to wait until they upload it later 🙂

Technically we’re not supposed to tell what happens during the ‘interview’ process ’cause it is private and confidential. So I’m just going to tell you roughly what happens during the second stage process. This is what happened today 🙂

I reached Securities Commission’s building at about 11:55am. Sat in the lobby, talked to Marc (an ex-KYS, a friend of Muizz) while waiting for Wawa (ex-SSPian) to come. Then Kelvin (another candidate) came and the four of us got talking. We didn’t realize that the other girl (Yu Han) who was supposed to be in our session was sitting right behind us as she didn’t join us beforehand. But never mindddddd.

So a few minutes before 1pm, the lady (okay, not lady, the akak more like it) and the abang came to invite us upstairs into the previous room we were in – the meeting room. We sat around the meeting table and saw pieces of A4 papers, pencils, erasers, dictionaries and water bottles in the middle.

This is it. Writing time!


Each of us were given two pieces of paper containing our instructions for the day. The first page is the same for everyone as it contains the same instruction and introduction to the problem we were trying to solve. The second page differs as different people has different angles to the problems.

So what we basically do for the next half an hour was to come up with ideas to support the recommendation that we had, and to include the views of the people we were assigned to. Our topic was ‘Addiction’, and I had the summary of the research done on parents. My recommendation? Government’s new policy should provide help and support to the community to cope with the drug problems… something along that line, I couldn’t remember.

The other angles include Lawyers and magistrate, Youths, Social Workers and Police. After the half an hour of brainstorming, it was time to go and present our ideas to the interviewers. It was a one-on-one presentation, where you’d just basically present all the ideas and solutions that you got.

After everyone was done with their individual presentations, it was time to get together again and decide on a policy that everyone agrees on. So that took up half an hour, as everyone took about three-four minutes to talk about what they think of their ideas, and then discuss to come up with one that includes everyone’s idea.

So when that’s done, everything’s done. 😀 Hehe. Yep, that simple. So after that we snapped a few pictures, and, well, it was mostly Wawa, Marc and I ’cause the three of us got along well (obviously. Wawa and I knew each other since Form1, Wawa and Marc knew each other since Form3, and Marc and I have a mutual friend – Muizz. So, yeahhh, we get along well :D)

Oh, here’s Marc 🙂

Okay. That’s all for now. Need to go and sleep. I have Statistics trial tomorrow morning and I didn’t even study for it. Better rest my brain and wake up early tomorrow *hopefully* to study. Good night all, Assalamualaikum 😀

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Edited (September 15th, 2012)
I’ll post the 1st stage of my SC scholarship application here as well, since the original post was attracting a lot of spam comments for some reason -.- So, yeah, the first part of the interview was like this:

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I was in Panel 5 (If I’m not mistaken) My interview slot was at 10:00am. For those who were there (and I met some of you!) I was the Malay girl in kinda-peachy blouse, black slacks with white tudung, wearing glasses and the die-hard fan of the Gunners (Y)

So I applied for the Pre-University scholarship. My intended course was MORSE (Mathematics, Operational Research, Statistics and Economics) [Just fyi : I’ve already started my A-Levels in Kolej Tuanku Ja’afar, Mantin.]

My two interviewers were really nice and friendly, especially the lady from the HR department. So don’t worry if you’re having your interview soon, they won’t make it hard for you. It’d just be kinda like a chit-chat, but a serious one.

Some of the questions that I remembered were:

1. Tell us a little bit about you, your family and your achievements back in school.
So basically just give a little introduction about you, where you come from, which school, what you do in school, what clubs you’re in, etc. Talk about your parents and where they work at, and also about your siblings.

I was talking about joining the school basketball team and becoming the co-captain for the girls’ team when they bombarded (well, kinda) me with questions. How hard was it to handle the teams? Did we go for any tournaments? What were the challenges we faced in school?

2. Why the SC? Why not any other scholarships bodies like BNM, Khazanah, Petronas, etc?
Be honest. I did say I applied for other scholarships like BNM, Khazanah, Petronas and all, but I mentioned that my top three choices were BNM, Khazanah and SC. And since I got rejected by BNM and Khazanah, SC is my top choice for now. (not that I have any other choices, since I got rejected by mostly all the other scholarships, -.-‘)

3. Why you?
Mention why you’d like SC to sponsor you. What can you give back to SC after your studies. Why they should sponsor you over the other candidates. This is where you show your strengths. Tell them what makes you special. Maybe you’re a national debater (ehem ehem)? Or maybe you’ve represented the country in an international tournament?

4. If we sponsor you, in which department would you work in after you graduate?
I got stuck on this question -.-‘ I kinda forgot to look through the departments (or I did, but I might have forgotten) so when they asked me this, I had no idea what to answer. Just have a look at the SC’s website, read through their structure, and have an idea which area you’d like to work in.

5. Say, if we sponsor you, but it’s not for MORSE, but we put you into Finance or Accounting, for example. How would you react?
This was a trap question for me, ’cause I told them I was supposed to be at Petronas’s EduCamp on yesterday and today, but I chose SC over Petronas because Petronas was offering me Finance, and I specifically said ‘I don’t like Finance.’ It was a mistake, so I was caught when they asked that question. The only thing I could say was, “Well, if the SC thinks that I have a better potential do excel in Finance that I couldn’t see in myself at the moment, then I’ll just have to adapt and let the potential shows itself.”

6. What does MORSE stands for?
Mathematics, Operational Research, Statistics and Economics. [this was easy. The next was kinda tricky]

7. So you know that MORSE has Mathematics, Operational Research, Statistics and Economics. Out of these four, which one do you like the most?
Mathematics, of course. I love Maths.

8. You do know that there are courses like Mathematics and Statistics, right? Why do you choose MORSE instead of that?
I kinda stumbled on this question, but thankfully I remembered one of the things I said to my friend about the differences between MORSE and Economics (I think) so I said “Well, I might think I love Maths now, but there’s no telling if, in the future I’d end up hating Maths or got bored by it. So if I do MORSE, I have a wider range of subjects to study instead of Maths alone, which would allow me to go into various fields.” [phew, saved!]

9. Tell us about your leaderships skills.
Since I’m now leading our club for a service with Make-A-Wish Malaysia, I ended up talking around 5 minutes about this. About how hard it is to get a meeting among the committee members ’cause everyone have different timetables, how we get the funds, how the project is going, etc. [They’d ask you about the problems that you face while handling an event/project]

We wrapped things up about half an hour afterwards. They asked me if I got any question, and I asked one on behalf on my teacher : If I get the scholarship, am I still able to continue my A-Levels in KTJ? Because (for some reasons) my teachers, juniors and friends were worried I’d leave school like my brother did two years ago. Thankfully they said if they were to give me the scholarship, they wouldn’t force me to leave, which was a relieve to me. xD

And yep, like Andrew said, they didn’t take a look at my certificates or anything. Just show your original and photocopied certificates to the receptionist outside the waiting room, and you’re done for the day!

Just relax, and be yourself. Drink some water before you go in ’cause your throat will get dry. But don’t drink too much or you’d be feeling like going to the toilet in the middle of your interview. Smile, greet your interviewers, shake hands with them(if you can), and please don’t turn around on the chair (like I did the first few minutes) -.-”

Good luck and have fun guys! Results would be out probably next week (or even this week, according to them) so let’s pray for the best for everyone. (Y)