In The Name Of Allah, The Most Gracious and The Most Merciful

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Scholarship

The Information Age which we are living in forced us, especially the youths, to pursue greater heights as we grew older. In the 60s, it's easy enough to get and secure a job. There weren't many people, and the jobs were just limitless, or should I say near infinity. Yet, as time passes, the whole scenario changed. When the world left the Industrial Age and go into the Information Age, one of the main problem faced is the number of jobs available. Birthrate in many countries were as high as the exponential graph, while the number of jobs available were the same, or had fallen a bit.

Now, even a degree isn't enough. You have to obtain a Masters, or Ph.D, to secure a good job. Else, you could always refurbish your Personality Ethic and Character Ethic to be put in your resume. Communication skills, teamwork, leadership, and all other soft-skills are now important as they are looked as the no.2 aspect by all interviewers around the world, apart from academic performance.

That's perhaps why many people are seeking for the best place to further their studies. Not Malaysia, but United Kingdom, Germany, United States of America, and other better places than our Mother Nation. That's perhaps why the number of people demanding for scholarships are increasing without any full-stop. Yet, the seats available weren't the same with the number of applicants.

So, people get to their leaders, and begged them to appeal to the responsible to give their kids a chance to further their studies overseas. My question is, are they worthy of getting scholarships. This is just my personal point of view. Yes, their kids may be scoring 9-11A1s. If we look on the aspect of academic performance, yes, they do qualify for the scholarships. But, what about other aspects ? Communication skills? Leadership skills? That is why the PSD did interviews before giving out the scholarships, to the worthy ones. Imagine if you sent someone with 11A1s to UK who couldn't be independent. Surely he'll dies straight-forward before getting his degree.

To obtain great marks is easy thing. Concentrate in class, attend tuitions, special classes, summer camps, and InsyaAllah you'll score. Or some others would cheat or do a foulplay to obtain great marks. Still, it's not the same thing for the soft-skills. You can't cheat in displaying your soft-skills. Though you may say that you have great leadership skills, or great communication skills, your entire body shows everything. If you say the truth, they (the interviewers) know it, judging by your appearance and your body language. If you lie, they still know it, by the same judgement.

Yes, I agree, I am no man to say this thing. Well, at least I obtained my scholarship (MARA) through my pre-SPM results. And I didn't pursue universities such as Warwick, Oxford, Purdue. I just continued my studies in my own beloved country.

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