well haha...sharing some of my experience during JPA interview...

before interview... taken 11.00 am 2nd april 2009

I arrived at Pustaka Negeri at 12 pm... I met Kelvin and Kok Liang who had just finished their interview at the hall entrance once I arrived there. so I started chatting with Kelvin :

Me: hi! just finished interview?
Kelvin: hi! yea... just finish... yours is also today?

Me: yea.. start at 2 oclock....
Kelvin: haha.. you are too early liaw la....

Me: (swt... I also know... it's only 12...) haha.. my mum say she is not familiar with the route here so we come here earlier... so how's your interview?
Kelvin: you better prepare in Bm cause if you got panel 2 later... one of the interviewer will suddenly say " SETERUSNYA ADALAH DALAM BAHASA MALAYSIA.."

Me: lol... than how was yours??? (OMG.... BM... sigh... luckily got do some preparation... but don't know my Bm will be fluent enough or not)
Kelvin: haha.. good luck to you then... see ya....
Me: bye...

than I started wandering around at pustaka...
nothing to do cause arrived there too early haha..
luckily a moment later...
I met a guy dressed similiar to me.... means I finally got a companion haha....
he's a student from Batu Lintang applying for engineering course...
while talking to Willian (the Batu Lintang student)... I found that many of them started to arrive...
saw Whung Xiang and June...
and then something funny happened haha...

Me: eh Whung Xiang.. didn't know that your interview are today... why your sister didn't tell me??
Whung Xiang: I know you same day as me leh.. one of my friend told me...

(suddenly a group of scout approach us, taking an I.C with them)
Scout: erm.. is that yours?
Whung Xiang: yea, it's mine.. thanks a lot....

Me: walao you so careless... luckily they found it and return it to you... if not later you tiam lo...
Whung xiang: yealo yealo... so lucky haha

Me: haha (laughed at him)

A moment later....
a girl approaches me....
The Girl: er... I think this is yours ( handed me an I.C.)
Me: lol.. thank you...
Wiliam: see JunWei.. you drop your I.C also... (laughing)
Me: .... ( speechless)

Lesson learned: DO NOT laugh at other people as the same thing might happen on yourself...

haha so at around 2 pm... the urus setia started to call us to register ourself....
so I signed my name at the list...
lol then they straight ask me to take the name tag and go to one side....
OMG.. suddenly realised that I'm the 1st batch interviewed by panel 2 for the session...

so five of us (the only one I know in there is Whung Xiang >.<) followed the urus setia to a room... sort out the documents needed to give them and went to the room where panel 2 interview was held... when into the room.. the 3 interviewer were already inside.... well everything was not going as I planned to do.... This is what actually I planned to do after reading from A Big Thread On JPA Scholarship (My experience and tips) at recom.org:

1) Knock the door and ask before I go in
2) Shake hand with the interviewer
3) ask for permission before I sit down

but when we entered the hall.... none of the others same batch as me did any of the things mentioned above...
they just go in straight and sit down....
Lol.. what can I do??? do I have to be the odd one to do these stuff???
so finally I just go in and said good afternoon before I sat beside Whung Xiang ( well.. thats all I can do to show my politeness)

Luckily... the interviewer are also the nice one... they didn't take out their M16 and shoot at us for this..
They just smile at us and said :" Dun be nervous... I know you are all bright students... we just want to know more about you all..."
haha... that really calm me down a lot lol... haha they are not as strict as I think...

After that... its our self introduction part... so everyone started to blah blah blah about themself....
when its my turn... I tried as hard as possible to "introduce" myself to them haha...

Me: good afternoon sir and madam.. I am Liew Jun Wei... I come from Smk Kuching High... blah blah blah....
Interviewer: so do you play games?? ( er... does it related to my self intro?? I have no idea why they ask me this... haha)
Me: well.. yes... chess online haha...
(simply mention one to them... can't expect me to tell them : " yes I played DotA.... First blood.. HolyShit!!!" lidat ma.... if I did this, I'm sure they will kick me out ASAP..)
Interviewer: *laughed* (entertained by my answer I guess haha)

then we came to the general issue part... We were asked if we had the chance... what would we like to change on our school life...

after brainstorming for 2 minutes.. the interviewer asked us to answer according to our sequence...

so the 3 girl before me talked about how they wished that they can participate more active in sports and co curriculum activities.. one of them even mentioned that she will work hard to achieve better result as she only get 9a's and 2 b3 in her spm (lol... are you trying to tell the interviewer that you are lazy before?? haha)

lol... next is my turn... well actually I am quite satisfied with my school life... What should I change?? Zzz

so I began to answer them with my imagination...

Me: well.. actually I am quite satisfied with my school life... as you see I did quite well academically and also in my curriculum... BUT if you really wanted to me change my school life... I guess I would like to be more active in sports (copycat xD) ... as you see the only sport I take part is international chess.. and its not really a sport (lol WTF am I saying?)... I would like to play badminton maybe.... next I think I would like to reduce my time on playing computer games... *they laughed* (lol am I too honest or I said the wrong thing?) ... but I always try to control myself from playing games during examination period.. that's why I manage to get 12 a1s in my spm and I was quite happy with it... ( lol.. seems out of topic... but they don't really seems to care at all and smiled at me haha)

well.. later.. as what I've expected as Kelvin already reminded me... the Indian interviewer said to us :" SETERUSNYA ADALAH DALAM BAHASA MALAYSIA.."

then he started to ask us do we agree that corruption occur because of the power and responsibility given to someone...

well another five minutes of brainstorming... the interviewer asked us who would like to start 1st... so I raised my hand... and be the 1st one to start talking....

Me: saya tidak setuju dengan kenyataan ini.. pada pendapat saya.. walaupun kuasa yang diberikan kepada seseorang membuka peluang kepada seseorang untuk menerima rasuah.... namum sebab utama mereka menerima rasuah adalah kerana sifat mereka sendiri yang tamak... blah blah blah...

then... the girls started to talk about their opinion... all of them agreed with the topic... which make there are two side in the room: the boys (me n Whung xiang) disagree with the idea while the girls agreed with it...

but what I found funny is... maybe one of the girl did not listen to the instruction clearly... she answered it in English lol (what a funny one... can't she realised that I am using Bm to answer it previously... why she still use english to answer?? haha as what chinese saying goes : " 女人心海底针..." )

after that, the interviewer look at the clock in front them and said:" well... seems like we still have some time... so I will ask some general questions..."

Interviewer: "so if we offer you the course, but in local university, will you accept it?"
Me: "err... yes" ( of course yes la... who will be so dumb to say no to them... to show that you are choosy?)
Interviewer:" if we gave you the course oversea... but not the same country as what you applied... will you accept it?"
Me:"yes.." (what to do?? of course say yes lo... zzz)
Interviewer:"so if we offered you other course, will you accept it?"
Me:" depends... if it's the course I am interested in.. I will definitely accept it..."

well... after this... our interview ended... I went home after saying : " thank you," to the interviewers....

well... what I draw from my experience here is... the interview is not as tough as I expected... the interviewers are kind and even crack jokes with us....

before I forget.. Thanks to Whung Xiang for accompanying me during the interview.. I feel lucky as we are grouped together... at least I will not feel so stress as I have a friend to share the tense with me haha....

well.. good luck to those who are attending the interview tommorrow...
stay calm and don't be nervous...
=)