My Post-SPM Story.

Assalamualaikum,

As I work a lot with students and helping them through their post-SPM journeys, some may be interested to learn about my own post-SPM story. So, to make it easier, I wrote this post as a reference to anyone who might want to know about my education journey as I grow up.

My post-SPM story started in high school.

I attended Sekolah Seri Puteri from 2007 to 2009 (for Forms 1 until 3), and Kolej Tuanku Ja’afar from 2010 to mid-2012 (for Forms 4, 5 and part of my A-Levels).

In November/December 2011, I got my SPM done and over with. Then I straight away went on a school trip to South Korea with a group of friends. A couple of days after the Korea trip, it was time for a family trip to Sydney, Australia for a week or so.

January 2012.

Time to re-register in Kolej Tuanku Ja’afar as an A-Levels student (semi-sponsored by KTJ, semi-private) (and I said re-register because I did my SPM there as well). Started my A-Levels full of motivation, registered for four subjects: Economics, Physics, Mathematics, and Further Mathematics.

March – June 2012.

SPM results are announced, and Alhamdulillah, I got 9A+.

I applied for 7 scholarships (if I remember correctly) (MARA, Bank Negara, Yayasan Khazanah, Petronas, Securities Commissions and, ermm, I can’t remember what else -.-). Got rejected by most.

Invited to the Petronas EduCamp (but didn’t attend because of schedule conflict), and invited for interview at Securities Commissions and MARA. I went to the SC interview until the 2nd round and was rejected. I was also initially rejected by MARA for Actuarial Science in the US as well (figured, since I didn’t fill up the application properly and all). But I sent in an appeal to MARA (for Economics in the US) and my appeal was accepted.

June/July 2012.

Month of choices. It was either stay in KTJ as an A-Levels student (partly sponsored, partly private) or drop out and move to INTEC Shah Alam and take up ADFP under MARA. Long story short, I did the latter.

People have been asking, why did I move from KTJ, a place which is considered pretty prestigious for its A-Levels program, to INTEC, a place which is not as good as it was in its glorious years way back.

My answer is, I have absolutely no idea.

I mean like, okay, A-Levels is a good program, I know that. But I guess it’s just not the program for me. I had no idea why I wanted to continue my A-Levels straight away after SPM in the first place. I guess it was because I thought I wanted to study in the UK, and sitting for the A-Levels seems like the best possible option for me. And I knew that I didn’t want to have those months of break and rest at home, and being around A-Levels students for 2 years of my high school life makes me feel like I belong in the A-Levels world.

Man, I haven’t been so wrong in my life.

I mean, alright, A-Levels was fun. And I had great classmates and all. But I guess after three months or so in the program, I didn’t have that ‘feel’ anymore. When I first started A-Levels, I was so excited and hyped up and all. But I began to lose interest in it starting in March. I think part of this is due to the fact that I never liked writing the personal statement for UCAS. At that time, I didn’t really know what I wanted in life. I also felt that the UK system is a bit too rigid for my taste.

So I decided to drop, stop and start over anew.

And no, I did not regret a thing.

July 2012 – June 2013

American Degree Foundation Program in INTEC Shah Alam. My ‘home’ for one year. Alhamdulillah, although I was originally signed up for ADFP Economics in the US, MARA allowed me to change to ADFP Actuarial Science in the US, so all is well and good. Friends were awesome, studies were doing great, and, hey, I finished it off with a pretty solid CGPA in my hands, and some pretty awesome memories made with some pretty cool friends.

So, yeah, all is well, and I certainly did not regret dropping out of A-Levels and starting over (not to mention, it’s also where I met him, so yeah, no regrets there at all).

August 18th, 2013 – May 13th, 2017

4 years as a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, United States. I graduated with a Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) in Actuarial Science and a Certificate of Education and Educational Services.

You can read more about my Life as a Badger to learn about my experiences. I graduated in May 2017, returned home to Malaysia in June 2017 and started my first job at Monash University Malaysia. I worked as a Course Executive for a year before resigning.

September 2018 – September 2019

I then pursued my MA Education (Youth & Community) at the University of Huddersfield. You can read about my experiences as a Master’s student in this post. I completed my Master’s in mid-August, received my grades in early October and am graduating in mid-November 2019.

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So yeah, that’s my post-SPM story (probably in more detail than what I originally intended to write but oh well). If you have any further questions, feel free to read more of my study-related posts. You can also send your questions at my Ask.FM or reach out to me here.

Until next time, stay awesome & take care 🙂