Assalamualaikum, hello.
I have just a little over an hour left of my super long graveyard overnight shift, and I thought I could write something up for the blog. I mean, it’s a little overdue, and I kind of have quite a lot of things to write down, even though I might not be able to write / share all of them to you [yet].
So, it’s April 12th [almost April 13th back home in Malaysia], which means that I have a month left to graduation [my commencement is on May 13th]. Now that I think of it, seeing how graduation is just around the corner, it forces me to think about what I actually want to do in life, and what I want to do after graduation.
Remember how last time, I talked about my interest in attending graduate school? Funny how I said it was going to be an ongoing blog series, but it ended up only being one blog post. I guess I owe it to people [if not to my blog, even though it’s heartless like me and wouldn’t care a bit if I don’t tell it everything] to let you know of some of the things that happened in the past couple of months since that original post.
To recap: I applied to a couple of universities in the US (and one in the UK, out of the blue and completely random) for Student Affairs in Higher Education (or similar programs). I got accepted to University of Rochester, NY [which was my first choice right now if I’m considering graduate school, and the one I went for my interview and all]. I was also accepted to Anglia Ruskin University [in the UK, one-year program, kind of new-ish program] and University of Wisconsin-Madison [well, admissions is not finalized until I send them my financial statements, which I have not up to today because I don’t think I’ll be pursuing this route for now]. Colorado State University [my other top option if I were accepted] and Michigan State University both rejected me, as well as the Human Ecology program at UW-Madison [partly because of my non-existing GRE scores, among other things, I presume?].
So there’s that. I accepted Rochester’s offer, but deferred to January 2018 so I would actually have time to rest and spend time with my family back home in Malaysia before spending another two years in the US. Plus it’d give me time to look for funds and everything [since MARA is not funding postgraduates anymore, and scholarships for higher education (or education in general) is bloody limited].
But, right now I’m also considering whether or not I should look for a full-time job in Malaysia before actually going to graduate school. The career that I’m looking for myself [say education counsellor, education consultant, academic/career advisor, that sorta thing], won’t actually require me to have my master’s if I’m just starting out in the career (especially in Malaysia). Plus, the master program that I was looking into (Higher Ed, Student Affairs, etc) is only a big deal in the US, and not much elsewhere. So I figured, if I can find a decent job back home, why not go for it and see if I really need the masters, maybe a few years down the road?
So I did [look for jobs, that is]. I’ve probably submitted 20+ job applications on Jobstreet to different colleges / schools in Malaysia, as well as private education consulting companies, to name a few. I actually was supposed to have an interview with a university in Selangor a couple of days ago, but somehow they didn’t get back to me for some reasons. I do have another one lined up this Thursday night (Friday morning Malaysia time), so hopefully that would go well (do wish me luck people!).
[side note: if you know of any colleges/universities/schools in Malaysia that are hiring, especially in the student affairs department like admissions officer, academic advisor, higher education support, etc, please let me know! 🙂 ]
So, yeah, that’s kind of where I’m at with my life at the moment. It’s not great, and I don’t have a solid plan yet as to what I will be doing with my life after graduation, but at least it’s something, right? *le sigh* I’m also facing internal conflicts with myself, between wanting to take easy way out and choosing something that gives me a clear idea of what I’ll be doing for the next couple of years [i.e. graduate school, that sorta thing] and between having to wait and see what the future holds [which is exciting in a way, but I hate not knowing what I’ll be doing two/three months from now]. Ughhhhhh.
Life.
That’s it, for now, I guess. I don’t know. I can’t think of anything else to write, so yeah. Thanks for reading.
If you are free, please either next time. I’m also opening up requests for Eid cards early this year, considering how I would only probably be back in Malaysia in early June and that’s not enough time to think about Eid cards at home, so yes, if you want an Eid card from me, !
Okay then, until next time, stay awesome!
T-31.