JPA oohh JPA Interview

bismillahirrahmanirrahim

so last thursday the name list for those going to JPA interview(Engineering Japan, Korea, France, German) was out and alhamdulillah i was included. although there was a lot of conflict going on, today, i still managed to attend the interview. and it was unexpectedly fun! i mean, come on i was nervous too but everything is made to be enjoyed LOL

based on my experience of getting called to scholarship interviews, there are a few scholarships which give you longer time to think, but like JPA, the time is kinda short. they gave me a week to confirm the attendance. as far as i know MARA gives quite a long time to prepare for iv. meanwhile my past UEM interview, they only called me 2 days before the interview LOL so yeah, be prepared to whatever can happen and decide properly.

the night before, i searched for any JPA interview experience on the net so that i can be prepared more. it helped me a lot and i suggest everyone to do so to prepare for the interview. check out the common things they asked and the picture of how the iv is done

Tuesday, 15th of April 2013

this morning, cuak gillaaaa. my session was in the evening so i had free time in the morning n i really used that time a lot to search for any info that i can get; well mostly bout current issues. thanks a lot to atiqah (*wink) for helping me A LOT, she even said "haa cepat2 ko nk suroh aku cari ape lagi" lol 

the session started at 2 pm so i went there with my mom at like 1 am from home (we're supposed to arrive half an hour earlier), and i went for registration. here is some tips, walk confidently into the hall coz people's first impression on you is very important. the thing is if people see you walking like selekeh gilaa they'll be like ugh and nobody's gonna friend with u or u r just not gonna have good teamwork coz remember the interview is fully done in groups

hmm sidenote, mak tanye ade kawan x, and when i was just about to say no tetibe nampak fahim xD

so at the registration place, we had to hand in all the documents to and it took me a while coz i didnt really arrange the documents in order so yeah one more tip, make sure you have all the documents in order from home so that u wont waste time n downgrade your image nk daftar baru nk susun file LOL

after that i asked the person in charge "may i go to pray first?" and she said "5 minutes" i knew the session will start at 2 pm so i knew i had the time to do it. when i arrived back at the place, it was 1:55 pm and people were already lining up. so one more thing, please be PUNCTUAL or else people will have to wait for you, and yeah they will stare at u if u're late

going into the first session, that was done in the first room, i saw two interviewers; a man and a woman. in this session, the main thing is to be creative. they give you problems and you need to solve in groups. my team was split into two and everytime the question changed, we needed to change our teammate. so yeah

at first i thought the interviewers wanna see our creativity as in how we're going to solve the problems(i have to admit the problems were hard but it was fun), but as i was very observant at what the interviewers wanted to see actually, i learned that they wanna see how we adapted in a new environment. so yeah, dont be too shy but dont talk too much. be comfortable

after that, they asked each of us to talk bout ourselves. hmm an advice for this session is, try a different thing. i mean if everyone's starting with "i want to be an engineer. i learnt a lot at school" wouldnt the interviewers be bored? so i started to be creative different for everyone's sake haha

"since i was little, i believe that everyone's meant to change the world. the life is not just having one career and work recklessly over it blaa blaa" and they basically 'wow'ed at me. make the interviewers attracted to you, and talk about everything why you choose this and this. they will also ask you as they want BUT if you talk long like me, they wont even have much time to give any killer questions so that's how u can avoid questions you dont want

for the second session, it was the debate session. i think i shouldnt talk about this any longer, cause.. it was just a pure debate? lol. it was done in malay but after that (after the debate ended, if they have time they will give you the chance to talk) you can choose the language. as i wasnt comfortable debating in malay, i chose english. at the same time it impressed the interviewer, so do as u are comfortable.

the title? hmm i dont dare to expose too much things on public xD after it ended i shook the hands of the woman interviewer and thanked both of them and they asked where i'm from and i said maahad hamidiah they were like "haaa dah agak dah" lol so maahad IS famous :D

and there came the third session which was also the last one. the moment i entered the room, one of the interviewer was very handsome >< (haha lol no kidding but he is good looking so yeah) so we were seated in a circle and we had to discuss about a topic with the interviewers listening.

something like this?

as the discussion started everyone was like going in circles and talked about the same thing so i couldnt stand being bored (haha) so i said "should we like talk about sumthing out of the box?" and everyone kept silent. everyone's like what in the world is out of the box bout the topic and the interviewers laughed. i wondered why but after that i got to know the reason

they stopped us and said "omg we cant carry on like this i mean it started well but after that you're like spreading all over the place and did not focus on the things that you really want to talk about" so i was like ohh that was why they laughed when i said out of the box. "u, what do you mean by out of the box? i mean you did have the effort to make it out of the box but it was still on the same lorries" LOL

so i answered him "we've been talking bout the advantages and the disadvantages blaa2 but i believe the topic can be more than that"

"so what is it? what is more than that?" they're like emphasizing that it was the only thing we can talk about?

so i answered "many things, like we may discuss how was it used in the past or how did this start and what we can do in the future"

"............" everyone got silent haha i dont even know what i talked

in my team, there were 10 people. 5 girls, 5 boys. among the girls, 2 were chinese(1 speak cantonese 1 not xD), 2 malays(me and fast track upm one), and 1 indian (the only one person i didnt manage to speak to). among the boys, 4 malays and 1 indian. and they were all good i miss them already =3

so that was how it ended. here are some tips tho

- dont forget to be calm before the day come and keep on praying that you'll get good interviewers 

- wear clothes that you are comfortable, i wore a hijab that i rarely used and ya allah it disturbed me alot

- be prepared. just prepare anything you can prepare for a good interview :D

- stay calm. nervousness wont take you any further either

- be confident. BUT at the same time dont be arrogant and look down at the others 

- make friends, people are more friendly than what you think. if you dont start to talk, they wont either

- try to stand out, but not in a messy way. since it's done in groups, if u think u've talked much, give some 'screen time' to other friends too

- respect the others when they're talking. i have THIS problem that i will react to every single thing people say so i have to control that a lot. i mean you can laugh at jokes but u need to know how

- be close to your teammates. this is also one of the things they wanna see if u can make friends quickly or not

- enjoy yourself! make it fun because it's YOU who determine how the interview's going to be

last but not least, good luck to all! especially to all my beloved friends, good luck for the interview and in your life insyaAllah! May Allah Bless :)