2.1

YES!!!!!! 

YEAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!

WUUUAAAZZAAAHHHH!!!!!

So it has been concluded. The 5 year journey at Imperial College. Not the most pleasant of experiences but surely the most meaningful. 

I guess things paid off. The many nights toiling away in the RT lab, the non-existent 2010 Christmas Break (Comms Systems), the unusual Artificial Intelligence course, mixing of economics and power distribution and most of all.............. developing an insulin dosing algorithm. 

My parents come first for making all this possible and for being the 'propellant' which enabled me to embark on this journey not once..... but twice in a lifetime. Thank you for supporting me both financially and emotionally. I am your son and I am forever in your debt. 

Swan comes next for having waited 5 years for my return. Skepticism was undoubtedly but has been proven wrong all this while. Thank you for being there with me and yes also for the night before your Bukit Tabur hike. I'm sure you expected this night of mine to be a rather restless one :P

My family nonetheless for giving me the support and for always making this country a place which I call home. Yea it ain't perfect but its home for me and that's irreplaceable. 

Friends! YEA! Thanks Will for being that figure which reminded me of my goals and to always stand my ground at times. Not the largest bunch of ppl back in Imperial but I'm grateful for the opportunity and support :)

So yea, that's a wrap for this chapter. Time for a little chilaxing and on to a start of the next chapter.

Until next time ;)

DnB

DnB = Drum & Bass

Kinda developed a liking for this genre of music lately. No reason really... but it just grew on me.

Anyways, it's been awhile since my last post. Exam ended a little over a week ago. Decided to stay in the day after my final exam after the brain fry. I think I actually stayed in the next day too. lolz. Talk about being anti-social. It was the final 3rd/4th year exam of the year so I was one of the 3 fourth year student who actually took the subject which makes us the last 3 to finish. 

On a brighter note, I met up with my supervisor 2 days later and we were just discussing about 'things we could do' in the summer term. Basically I've done the bare minimal of the project: i.e. implementing a second wave insulin infusion which was a little shaky at first. I've made 3 new enhancements to this method and the bulk of it SHOULD be pretty much done now....... I hope %-)

Went over to Canary Wharf on Friday to meet up with the usual bunch. Vietnamese was on the menu for dinner and MIB3 just right after that. Oh and some eye candy during dinner as well :P Holy molly. lolz

London has been heating up late. No literally... HEATING up. Kinda miss the winter cold weather a little you can't argue with a little more *ahem... * eye candy once again. Its summer babehhh!! It's funny that the UK seems like a much more lively during the summer compared to the all gloomy winter months. opps no that came our in the wrong context. It should've been the half year gloomy winter period. 

Hi London =.=

Oh HI london :P

Oh and talking about MIB3

Well the movie wasn't great but it was pretty good. J & K has aged quite a bit but man Will Smith is still as lively as ever! As a matter a fact, he was just over at Imperial shooting some hoops with the Britain Olympics team apparently when I was about to sit for my first exam paper this term.

Kinda makes you think how time flies. I've been slagging my @ss here to complete my degree for almost 5 years already! "Won't you miss London?" A question which gets thrown around me a lot. The answer is yes and no. I've had many great memories over here in London which I could've never happened elsewhere. Conversely, having gone through the struggles and deferment of a year has really detriment-ed my self-esteem. It's mainly due to my own self consciousness. Regret is inevitable but more importantly it seems as if I am punishing myself for my past mistakes. Nonetheless, I am praying for this final month and a half that things go well. I pray that my 1st class in my final year is still at hand and that my final year will continue to progress smoothly as it is at the moment, I hope. 

So yea a couple of jogs around Hyde park really opens up my mind to think about my work on my FYP. Just hoping that Dr. H isn't pulling my leg when he says he's happy with progress. 

Follow your heart or go with the Flow

It's been sometime since my last post coz of exams. But thoughts on careers, growing up etc never cease to deliberately "Take Control" of my day especially when I just really need that extra focus on my studies. Zzz.....

So as the date draws closer, it bothers me to think that I have not made the best use of my time here. Well ideally from the eyes of the 3rd person, the epitome of success after completing studies overseas is to of course OBTAIN a job overseas and perhaps settle there or come back home after 2-3 years of experience.

What most people do not know about is the journey towards getting a job here in the UK. It is to no surprise and I myself AM a victim this stereotype. 

So let's go over a couple of key criteria's in which people hope or intend to achieve by gaining occupation here in the UK:

(1) Highly skilled professionals would most certainly find a greater avenue of opportunity here. Life sciences for example is a highly valued skill here and the government highly funds this area of research unlike back home. So there is no doubt skilled professionals would find greater solace by ensuring themselves a better opportunity of growth knowing that there is a ladder for them to climb. 

(2) The $. Yes $ is perhaps the most enticing of rewards (considering the conversion rate) but truth to be told, is $ really worth the toil and labour? It may be overly naive of me to say this but will a back-office support role bring you far in a year or 2 knowing that all you are after is the 5X after conversion salary increase? Ever thought of what's left after income tax, council tax, RENT and other necessities here in the city? More on this later.

(3) Experience. True it is a one off get it now or probably never get the chance ever again to work here in the UK.

Personally I have no reason to side with point (1). Having diversified my skillset (and also bluntly de-emphasized my depth of expertise), I have chose to embark on more corporate roles within the telecommunications industry. 

So why not here in the UK you may ask? Well let's perform a bit of a checklist. I am specifically looking at management associate programmes or roles within product management/strategy. OK lets look at the MA programmes. From my search, only Vodafone is offering such a programme. The catch? You'd had to be a UK/EU citizen. That's right people. Like the majority of firms (affecting mainly the more technically inclined industries to say the least) there is no incentive in hiring a foreign talent. This would just mean extra cost, extra formality and most importantly....... this would not address the local unemployment situation. Yea it's probably one of the strategies employed by the government to address the unemployment rate especially in the recent year on. First they took away the post-study work visa and now that limits UK companies to hire local graduates and only be allowed to hire a foreign graduate if they have exhausted their efforts to source a local hire. I can't comment on how effective this has been but from experience, I have been receiving rejections all year long and it seems to apply to my peers (bar the exceptional few who had internships last year or the really really really golden 1 or 2 individuals who secured consultancy or IB jobs). As for the other telco's here, they're pretty technical based and managerial roles are limited for experienced hires. 

So what about the money? If you're earning at least 3000 pounds a month in London then yes you're off to a pretty comfortable life. Unfortunately the average salary for a fresh graduate in the UK is approximately 22000 pounds per-annum. That's about 1800 pounds a month. The basic income tax rate for the lowest salary bracket is 20%. So that leaves around 1500 pounds? So I'm paying 600 pounds a month for a ROOM. That's right a room. So let's say you're able to source a cheaper place to stay. Say 500 pounds a month. Let's put in 100 pounds worth of bills so that makes up 600 pounds. That leaves you 900 pounds. Lets deduct 100 worth of transport costs. So 800 purely for food and expenses. I may have sparsely approximated the facts and vaguely assumed very little from so much.

 But I'm still thinking that working in the UK isn't as pretty as it seems. More importantly, happiness. There isn't just nothing like home. Most will disagree with me and say that I'm too pampered and that I have just shut these doors without even taking a peek to see what's behind them. Well that's true to some extent but what if I was just held back by other factors which just put locks on those doors? No one has ever thought of the fact if it would be hard to secure job opportunities having repeated a year of studies? Well to the few firms which put me through to interviews I am very thankful and it is my fault to have not made it past the recruitment. It is all part of the learning process and all I am hoping for is to learn for my next undertaking. But the rates have been lowered considering my grades. "Please send us your latest examination transcripts". The dreaded phrase which I have no intention of expecting even at this point of my examination. Well from experience, I practically receive rejections the next day after submitting my transcripts. Yea the ugly truth but not many will understand. 

So I dare say that the main issue here is with perceptions. Most people think: You're spent the time and $ studying abroad. You should stay abroad. Personally I have this perception that EVERYONE in Oxbridge must be the brainy top scorers. I was probably right until the UKEC recruitment stages. I met this girl in one of the AC's. Lets refer to her as L. I've met L before in Imperial back in November through a friend. She was invited for an interview with company M which I really wanted and wasn't aware that they invited candidates for interviews. Unfortunately I never got any invitations from them and that really put me off a little but it motivated me to approach them personally :P Anyways, L received the invitation and I was really impressed. She struct me as a very brainy person and perhaps were among the top percentile in her course.

I met L once again in March and yes I still had the same perception. Intimidating in a way since we were more or less competing for opportunities in the same pool. A couple of days later it appears that L did not get through the assessments. I bumped into her a day later after the final interview rounds and we chilled a bit over lunch. So we talked about our so called "search for the dream career" goals etc and ended up spilling about my rumble through with my experience here at Imperial. Somehow the conversation developed  into a less cheerful situation where she started to err.... tear up. She was very frustrated that she never got any offers from the fair. I tried consoling her by saying that her Oxbridge degree is an award enough to place you anywhere upon graduation. AND it was her turn to spill the beans. She was on a second lower and L says that she totally understands my feelings about being deemed an 'ugly grape' because of our pasts. 

That conversation by itself made my whole day worthwhile. It made me realize that even great people screw up and it is through such experiences that we realize the more important meanings in life. In addition, it also made me think more on another person's perspective and to not put perceptions directly into judgement. Everyone has a story to tell so let us lend an ear. People have their reasons and lets not live our lives chasing another person's shadow. For the 3rd person saying "Man if I had the opportunity like you I would ensure that I would be working in the UK". So here's the question back to you, 

"So what are you doing standing here and not making an effort to get there instead?"

Remember that there are always 2 sides to a coin ad you might only know what's on one side. Try flipping it over and you'd find a greater meaning by itself.

Until next time ;)

A time go give and take

Decision; Influence; Constraints; Uncertainty

These are a couple of factors which I tend to overlook yet speculate upon especially at times when I really don't need to! Frustrating yet crucial. 

I have mentioned before that my goal was to build my career in the telecomms/mobile technology industry with hopes to shape this industry in the future. That is my ultimate career aspiration period. 

But why is it that I lost track of this goal? Did I forget? No! Did I just lost interest? NO!!

It was due to several factors:

PERCEPTION: I had the perception that it was all techy stuff which shaped the industry. IT IS NOT! It is true to say that people may build the largest boat with this being on the the greatest feat of mankind. But what use is this boat if it was never used in the first place? What use of it if no one ever knew or was unable to use it at all? 

I see this the same way in the telecomms industry. We serve not only to give you the best technology, but also to ensure we do it in the best way possible and in the most creative yet novel manner you could ever imagine. 

So what happened along the way? I was weak in the technical discipline. I lost focus and perhaps it also skewed my career aspirations. I seeked alternatives which I never considered before. Yes I would agree this is a form of which an individual grows and develop. Well this happened to me and I started looking into management consultancy. The incident which sparked this was the talk by Accenture back in 2009. I sat in for the company presentation and I was astonished by the contribution of a corporate firm not only in the corporate world but more importantly in the telecomms industry. Food for thought at that point. Adding to that, Mr. Stockley (Entrepreneurship fellow) inspired me by telling us that consultancy is a channel to open more doors. So that was a very compelling factor that I COULD find what I am passionate about then.

I started looking into consultancy jobs for the next 2 years. The result? I have failed in every single case interview. I felt as if I wasn't fully equipped. My mind was not tweaked to fully accept this method of critical thinking which is crucial for all consultants no matter his field of interest. In a sense, I was INADEQUATE. I believe all I can do for now it so practice and practice but the doors have seemingly shut itself or rather....... I have allowed the doors to shut. Bummer T.T

On a brighter note, I soon realized my long term goals (concurrently to say the least). Even if I stepped into the world of consultancy, I would want to see myself contributing in the telecomms industry as an end game. So the question is...... WHY not just do it from the start? And I have gotten my answer. 

To the ME in a few years down the road. Did you realize your dreams? Or did you let your dreams manifest YOU instead?

Nevertheless, I am very grateful for the opportunity with blue-green. I have heard that it is a really awesome programme and I am truly looking forward to it. Adding to that, the people are just astoundingly fantastic! These are the people who have made such a great impact in my life within just a short time frame. I am truly thankful for this opportunity by itself.

Time to hit the books for the final show down.

Until next time ;)

:D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

There is a saying that passion overcomes all obstacles. And I am a believer.

The past couple of days has by far been the most memorable and cherish-able moments of my entire life period. Here's just me throwing a couple of keywords to recap the whole experience:

(1) The PEOPLE: I've met some of the worlds most extraordinary individuals. Yea they were great achievers, highly capable and most importantly, they loved what they did for a living and that is something I admire most. 

(2) ACCEPTANCE: There are some who touched me on the inside; the people who accepted me as an individual. No lies, no acts, just pure old me and I have never felt this feeling for a long long time. It just softens me up on the inside and I have learnt to that I don't need a shard of prickly spines protecting me. I have learnt to open up.

(3) CONFIDENCE: It is true when they say the only way to learn to carry yourself better is through sheer hard experience. In the past couple of days, I have never pushed myself so hard, to think, to be confident and to influence. More importantly the need for coalitions which blossomed into friendship at the end of the day. 

(4) IMPERFECTION: I have learnt to realize or perhaps a little self realization that behind every success lies a certain degree of imperfection. It took me awhile to realize this today but I started to comprehend both as an individual and to consider the adversity of a situation similar to what I have gone through. Sh1t happens to me and everyone else too. 

Overall, it was an awesome awesome few days. The UKEC career fair was awesome^20. It made all this possible and reminding me of my goals once more. Focus, appreciate and NEVER go astray. 

Until next time ;)

The Bigger few of the Big ones

Small time period for lots to happen~

Quite a bit has been going on in the past couple of days. For a start, I've been rejected by pwc. lolz. Kinda expected from the outcome of the case interview. Ah well. Like what mom and dad says, it's just not meant to be. Citi isn't replying me at all. Screwed. Deloitte just sent me their version of a 'rejection' as well. Sigh. So that's 3 down the drain.

On the bright side, ACN has put me through to the final stage of the assessments. Case interview and yes one for the road. Will be giving it my best. Also lined up = interview with Sunway and Proton. Still on the wait for Maybank. 

Well big big big day tomorrow. Interview with the big Blue in the morning and Blue-Green assessment center in the afternoon. Sure hope I'll be alert and proactive throughout the day. Might come home for a bit to get some rest and freshen up. 

Oh man the nerves. Put logic aside and make the impossible possible.

Until next time ;)

Final few days of Undergrad

What a week!

It's Thursday! Wait ok it's technically Friday now which means...... its the last day of Spring term! 2 more lectures to go and 1 SES report to submit hopefully by Saturday evening or Sunday. Yosh!

I spent the whole nite last night finishing up my background report. Well its not compulsory but I guess it'd make a good impression since my other supervisor has probably not much of an idea on what I've been up to since we've only met twice in Autumn term and not even once this term. Busy busy man so I understand. I managed to get my draft ready at 4.30am. lolz. Good thing my meeting was at 4pm the next day so I slept in and continued touching up in the morning. Or should I say in the afternoon :P

Dr. Herrero seems pretty pleased with my report (or at least I think so) and as usual he pointed out one of my really silly errors which I seem to commit ever so often. Zzz..... Other than that we had a casual chat and that was it! That's that for this term.

Headed to the EEE labs to finish up my report and received my Marketing presentation mark. 'A' all the way baby!!!!!! Take that Imperial business school students! Really glad with how things turned out and most importantly, I'm glad I was the one standing in front giving the presentation on behalf of my team. Something I've always wanted to do at least once for a business module in Imperial and I've done it. 

Spent the evening finishing up the report and immediately sent it off to my 2 supervisors. Surprisingly my other supervisor replied within a short period of time. I guess he's still working at his desk at 7pm. Says that he's pleased with the progress of the project. Great stuff. Well worth the effort even if this report counts for nothing :P

Yeap that's that for the 2nd last day. Another day 2mrw and hoping for it to be a really productive one. Chao outside!

Until next time ;)

Oh btw.... goodbye pwc. Screwed. lol

Y U POST 2 POST IN A DAY???!!!

You know what they say, those that give it their all shall be duly rewarded. 

I got an email about 2 hours ago from Maxis!~ It was an invite to their recruitment day in London this 30th!! ZOMG. YESSSS!!! I got through!!!!!!! 

I'm guessing it's gonna be something like an assessment center. Currently trying to get some info on this event to get prepared. Anyways, imma gonna give it my all! Yata!

Until next time ;)

Y U NO NEW POST?

Interesting interesting? Interesting week!

Ok so here's quick sum up of what happened in the past week:

(1) Of course my week started with the case interview at pwc. Zzz.... thanks for the experience

(2) Marketing coursework is due in less than a week. It's just a presentation so no biggie. Well that's not really a problem if you're not the presenter. Well... I AM TEH PRESENTATOORROR. Lolz. For some reason my team has to point fingers to the Msian guy with no proper accent to wow the crowd. Yay!~

(3) Made a start on the SES cw2. Uncertainty and more uncertainty so nothing much that was achieved. Will need to wait for further explanation hopefully during this Friday's lecture.

(4) Weekend was purely contributed towards the Marketing presentation prep. And I just remembered that I was required to complete the MMAP online assessment in 10 days from the previous week. Oh man. I didn't want to leave a bad impression by completing it on the 10th day of course so I was practically practicing the regular SHL numerical and verbal reasoning sample questions which I got off Vai and that was practically my whole Thursday-Sunday. So I decided to get the assessment done on Sunday night thinking my home internet connection would be pretty stable at that time of the day. Well that appeared to be the least of my concerns. The questions were FREAKIN HARD. The difficulty was on par with the assessments I had at Oliver Wyman in the previous year. More of the "complete 24 questions within 20 mins" type and I NEVER MANAGED TO FINISH IT. The questions weren't numbered but I definitely did not finish them. SHITZ..... imba to the max. Imma just praying for the best and that they were looking not for completeness but rather in terms of competence. 

Pray pray pray. Dear g0d. I pray that you put me through to the next stage and I promise I will make up for everything then. I PROMISE! 

So the other concern was with regards to the Marketing presentation. I was never the "salesman" type of guy and I never had much experience in front of large crowds. Not to mention business students this time. Imagine putting an engineer in front of a crowd of business students asking him to sell them something. lolz

It went pretty well actually. I had one of this "when your mind just blanks out" kind of moments during my first 30 seconds of the presentation. Literally after listening back to the lecture recording (lolz yea I was kinda recorded) and there was about 1-2 seconds of silence and that's when my mind decided to make me look like a fool. Haha but it was smooth thereafter. Good stuff. I'm quite glad I was the one to present on the day. Something to build me up towards my next challenge.

So yea. Great korean dinner with Kwang, Wai Yee and Zhi Jian yesterday. Will probably be seeing them more often around uni nowadays ;)

4 more days till end of term. 1 more FYP background report and 1 more SES cw2 and that's it!!!! It's just jobs, exams and FYP in summer. Work work for now. Better get off my lazy @ss.

Until next time ;)

Case Interview eh?

Case interview FTW!!!!!! Well no.... it's Case interview WTF!!!!!!!!!

Feeling all spruced up in the morning I woke up at 6.30am and made my way to Embankment at 8.20am. So I was actually about 15-20 mins earlier than my expected commencement time which was at 9.15am. 

The PWC office was rather discretely located but cool looking nonetheless. Arrived and checked-in at the reception. No they didn't even offered me a seat. It was ----> print name tag ---> off to the conference room. Fak I didn't even manage to take a piss but eventually I did anyways. Haha. I was put into this tiny conference room which was fit for probably only 4 people. Really nice concept and equipped with its own hot beverage dispenser. lolz. 

So the receptionist attending to me handed me a pile of notes. It was the case which I had to work on and it was FREAKIN 25 pages! lol. I jumped right in considering that I only had 40 minutes to go over the content and formulate a solution. 

The case was about a water filtering/distillation system services company which suffered from reduced market share and annual turnover. So obviously from the material it illustrated some customer relation problems which gave rise to their initial downfalls. So the COO came up with a Super Customer Programme which was tailored to address this problem. Well it didn't work out very well and that was essentially what I had to do. To find out what went wrong and how it can be fixed. 

The case was pretty dense and I had some trouble deciphering all the information. Well it was my 2nd even case which I have attempted period so it pretty much equates to a big LACK OF EXPERIENCE. Well I tried my best at the time and I used VC's framework to work through the case. It helped in a way that I had a direction rather than diving in blindly and randomly suggesting solutions which didn't solve any of their problems. Am I right?

Well 40 minutes passed as if it was only 20 minutes. I was sent to the waiting lounge and I quickly collected my thoughts and prepared my material to be properly presented. The interview was conducted over a video conference with Malaysia by these 2 consultants in Malaysia. So they mentioned it would be a role play and that they were about to enter a board meeting in 20 minutes. My task is to brief them about the problems and suggest them my solutions. Well... I went down the typical route in explaining EVERYTHING based on my framework. Well.... they stopped me and told me to cut to the chase. lolz. Probably my fault then. But so I went on telling them the problems and why these problems arose. Then I gave some suggestions but they didn't seem to pleased with my responses well.... namely from one simple phrase which they questioned me: "Is there anything else?". LOlz fak. That's like code for "dude...... tell us something we don't know". 

Dammit. No matter. I guess that case didn't go too well. Oh well at least it's good experience for my next case and I'll just pray for the best la. Haha.

Just got put through to the next round of assessments for Accenture and Maxis. Time to get the gears moving.

Oh and my blardy marketing group.... had to point at the Msian guy to present on behalf of the group in the coming group presentation. Zzzz..... I guess its good experience nonetheless. Just hope I do a decent job.

Until next time ;)

Y U no better suit my schedule??

My current situation is rather ironic. In a sense, I've been complaining that I've never been getting any job interviews/assessments in the past few months. All I've gotten were just the generic 'we have screened through many applications though we think you are highly capable for the role, regretfully we do not have the capacity blablablabla'. Yea well this time...... it's quite the opposite. 

Remember the missed call I mentioned in the previous post? Well I wrote in to pwc and they got back to me almost immediately informing me that they would be contacting me once more. Thing is..... THEY DIDN'T SPECIFY A TIME!!! I was in the labs the next day discussing about our marketing coursework. I was just about to leave the lvl  5 labs for another meeting on lvl 3 and then ...... it happened. It was the same Msian number. I wasn't even out of the labs yet! 'Greeting' said the other end of the line. She introduced herself and said if I could take a few minutes to talk to them. It started with Ms. Teh informing me about their visit to the UK via the UKEC careers fair. Cool cool its general news at this time of the year. So the conversation continued unlike my other phone interviews, she asked questions like:

- have u applied for jobs in the UK?

-Why not stay back and work in the UK?  (answer is pretty obvious........ )

And there came the final blow: 'Are you free to attend a case study interview tomorrow morning at our London office?' ZOMG big NO. Why? Well I have a phone interview scheduled for that morning with Accenture. The other reason being it's a freakin case interview! Imma not prepared at all! A pretty good analogy of this would be akin to asking a primary school student to answer an A-Levels exam paper. 

So I was scheduled for the next slot which takes place on the following Monday 12th March. That gives me a couple of days to get my act together. Not hoping for a miracle but it's definitely better than marching in unprepared. 

Well I had my phone interview with Accenture this morning. They actually called me up at 7am UK time to schedule the interview. 7am! Seriously? Don't you know students are nocturnal creatures? Even 8am sounds much more reasonable a time to compared to 7am. The interview went pretty well. I applied for an analyst position under management consultancy but I was interviewed for a role in technology consulting. Wtf? The interviewer, Ms. Lee kept emphasizing that they do not have vacancies for management at the moment and that my skills would complement tech consultancy much better. Like duh....... I'm an engineer. 

Ultimate question of the phone interview: "What's your expected salary"

Bear in mind that this is like the first phase of the interview process and she talks about salary? WOW. I played a little safe noting a realistic figure (approx RM3500) but mentioned that I was looking for experience and that salary is highly negotiable in my opinion. 

So that's that. Oh and one annoying thing I've noticed:

It's near end of term, there is a coursework submission on Monday next week, multiple scenarios of :

'That awkward moment when someone who doesn't speak to you a lot suddenly calls u up to ask for your copy of the coursework so that he could LEARN how to do it himself'

Nice try.

Oh and did I mention I am being reconsidered for the Celcom-Axiata eXperiental Programme (previously called the young talent programme). I lolled. Interview here I come!

Until next time ;)

Hope and prayer

On the 2nd of March I sent Maxis an email to request for an update on my MMAP application. I was greeted the next morning with a message inviting me a 1st phase Part A online assessment. WOW!!! Well I am most grateful for the opportunity but I remained a little skeptical regarding how I would fare completing the assessments myself considering I've usually had help from my housemates last year. But things have changed and I wan't to work things out with my own effort. There ain't no more free riding and it's only one way forwards. So I've told myself to practice the SHL online assessments daily. Well today's an exception since I've got a coursework submission the next morning.

So last night I headed into uni to do Part A of the assessment. Part A assesses my personality and profiles my work character. Well the assessment was familiar in fashion but unlike any I've done before. I tried to answer as instinctively as possible whilst persisting towards a leadership profile. But there are questions which I just felt as if there was neither a total positive to an answer nor a wholly negative character depiction. An example was a question which asks which described me best. It was between choice A or B:

A: You are more of an enterprising individual who works better alone as well as a risk taker and you would run your own business one day

B: You work well with well described aims and corporate structure, stick within rules/boundaries, friendly, loyal and work well within a group

I picked B instinctively. There were 2 ways to go about this. Choice A would probably depict a leader much better but I probably paid more attention to the part about working alone and running your own business. Would this be perceived as: "Why bother working with us then? I think there are two ways to it when looking between the 2 choices. 

Anyhow, its one question contributing toward a cumulative profiling tool. I can only pray that things will work out and hope that the committee would thoroughly consider my overall application justly. 

On and I've just completed EES CW1 and CW2! Well CW2 was done mainly by my group mate Laurence. Really awesome dude. Hope I could've contributed more but we all owe you one. So that's one presentation, one SES CW2 and FYP background to go! and that's 3 weeks including this coming week!!!! 

Until next time ;)

That little bit of FEAR

Fear. During the Stamford Commencement Speech in 2009, Steve Jobs mentioned about fear being a driving factor for people to live life to the fullest. On the contrary, living in fear of death day by day as cynical as it may sound, might just turn out to be true somewhere down the road.

During my repeat year, I lived my last half a year before the end year exam with the fear that I might repeat the past once more... i.e. screwing up my academic year. I could not afford for that to happen anymore. I could not bear the guilt as to the amount of time and $ I had put to waste. And more importantly, how could I let it happen in the first place? I just couldn't live with that face. 

Fear, at the time, drove me to persevere. I can't recall the origin of this story but dad mentioned about a war general bringing his troops onto the enemy's shores. They were out-numbered and his men were far from confident in facing what lies just beyond the hills in their sight. The general ordered his men to burn all their ships. So the ships were decimated to ash and the men were furiously thinking of a way for them to get home! The general told his men that there is only one option left and that was to more forward and succeed in their coming triumphant battle. This sparked an intense determination among his men and they were as united as ever. Because, they had NO ALTERNATIVE. 

This fear back then reminded me that I had no alternative but to get through the year. I've used it in 3rd year but with the hustle and bustle of internship applications and massive amounts of project work, this fear was not as intense. But this fear of mine was a double edged sword. Yea it reminded me of my lowest moments and it also haunts me as I am reminded of the misery I went through back then. This feeling just creeps around the bottom of my heart as I am busy with work in the foreground. I could feel it and it is distracting.

It is 2 years since then and I can still feel it holding me back and really affects my self esteem. Part of me just wants to get past this hurdle as fast as I can and part of me wants more time to work (hah yea weird but that's the feeling). Part of me just wants to get a job and part of myself just wants to do my best in my Exams!! Yea the smarter fellows would tell me to toughen up and do what matters in the short term first and cross the bridge as we come to it. 

But I must not forget why I am still standing here in London. The reason I am going through this miserable life style and the reason why I had to in the first place. And that is to excel in my exams. I cannot screw up. I can not and I MUST NOT. 

I'm just hoping that this coursework month would tide away this coming weekend so I could get a proper start on my revision. Exams are just about 2 months away and there is still the whole job search coming within the next few weeks. I pray for wisdom, a whole lot of luck and I pray for your blessing.

Until next time ;)

Hip Hip......!!!!..... Hooray?

Well I've just got home from my usual weekly meeting with my FYP supervisor. For once he mentioned that I've sort of fulfilled the main criteria of the project which is to essentially implement a bio-inspired bolus algorithm coupled with a meal library. I'm sort of in the improvement phase so that's pretty good to know :)

So last weekend was a bit of a disaster. I had to head in to uni on a Sunday to work on my FFM project with Edwin. Well thanks to William's copy of last years work (THANK YOU WILLIAM!!!), it ain't the same thing but we managed to use some of his info and sort of completed our chunk of the work. Really good stuff.

Later that night I had my usual internet browse and I decided to pay the Accenture Malaysia Careers website a  visit. Oh looK! The Return Home Program is open!!!! That was around 10pm and I started working on it ASAP. The tough part was structuring the cover letter. I decided to make this cover letter different from my usual generic versions.The cover letter practically took up my entire night. I think I finished the application at approximately 1am. Fingers crossed. 

Well that's not the only issue. According to Jonathan, the interview process would involve a couple of phone interviews prior to the careers fair. He mentions that the phone interviews were very much like HR type of interviews. I was afraid that it would've been case interviews over the phone I guess HR interviews would make things a little more interesting.

Nope that's not all. I did a search on Google and it appears that some candidates which applied via the fair (management consultancy) had case interviews over the phone! In fact, 2/3 case interviews!!! Oh man. Is it time to panic? Well I don't think I am prepared for the cases and with the amount of work to be done before end of term, it's gonna be a pretty rough ride.

You know what they say, no pain no gain right? And it's now or never.

Until next time ;)

Scumbag brain

You know one of those time where you just think too much and it practically ruins the rest of your day?

Haha well this happened countless number of times especially whilst I am tucked in bed trying to fall asleep. 

It's 11am now and I was just doing my usual browse on the web when suddenly it dawned on me once more; THERE IS ONLY 4 WEEKS LEFT UNTIL END OF TERM.

End of term. The significance? 

• There are only 2 terms of lectures in 3rd and 4th year so that makes this end of term my final 4 weeks of lectures as an undergraduate.
• It also means there isn't much time left to complete my work before end of term. Here's the checklist:
  - EES coursework 1 & 2 both falling on the same day
  - FFM coursework which seems to be a b1tch coz I haven't been revising and the coursework seems  quite extensive. Will be working on it this weekend onward
  - FYP background report. Not too sure what I should be writing about but I'm guessing some sort of an update report on the status of my project. Mostly noting the changes and challenges.
  - SES coursework 2. This shouldn't be much of a prob coz Chester (tqtqtq :P ) has handed me a copy of his work from the previous year. It's pretty much the same or perhaps only the date has been altered. But I will be working on it as soon as I'm done with my FYP background report.
• UKEC careers fair is almost here!!!! Time to step up my game and end it with an ultimate finish.
• Exams are just around the corner!!! Hopefully the few courseworks above would add towards my revision regime which should take place as soon as I get most of the work out of the way

And most importantly, a time to GROW UP!

It has been a pretty unusual week. Monday began with the commencement of Marketing which I find to be pretty interesting and intellectually engaging. Thursday's work on the EES lab work was pretty good in my opinion. I think I might have hogged the computer for a bit too long coz I was the one doing most of the simulations. Maybe I'm just trying to compensate for my lack of competence in this subject later on :P

Worst part was FFM. Zomg. The coursework was released today and my heart just sank when I first saw the question sheet. It consisted of 5 questions with unknown difficulty trends. All of them seemed technical (in terms of finance) and required quite a heavy amount of real data analysis from Yahoo Finance. It is gonna be sooooooo fun!

Had dinner with the usual bunch and Jonathan joined this time. He was working in RBS as well and I've heard that he's doing pretty well. But he kinda expressed his discontentment working in the company saying "I don't even know why I'm working there". lolz. He IS drawing quite a large salary chunk so I guess that's sort of a motivating factor. 

That put me in the thinking mood once more. Like where would I be in the next half a year? What will I be doing? Did I follow my gut feeling or just ride the waves and see where I end up? I guess most people would test the water and jump in hoping that the course of work life would bring them their plateau of specialization. As naive as I may sound, until that time comes, I will be sticking to my gut feeling and taking a step closer to my goal. 

So yea this is still another NOTE TO SELF IN HALF A YEARS TIME ----> How did things turn out?

Work beckons. Until next time ;)

M0ther Fukker who lives next to me

OK time for a weird post. There are 4 people living on my floor (including myself). Flat 10, 11, 12 (me!) and 13 :

Flat 10: Cool Indian (or probably middle eastern) dude who lives just opposite my room. We've never really spoken much but he's friendly and seems to be always smiling. Occasionally turns on speakers when he listens to songs or watch movies but it doesn't bother me much. 

Flat 11: Anna who moved in just a couple of days before I arrived. She's part Greek part German. Pretty friendly girl with a slightly snobbish character. Well because.... she IS pretty competent in terms of academics and she speaks very American! She's a Masters student in the business school under a scholarship. Respect! She talks pretty loudly at times but usually during the day or before 11pm to say the least. Still not that bad and doesn't really bother me.

Flat 13: ZOMG. Blardy scumbag! Indian fellow who I haven't seen much. We've only said hi a couple of times. BUT I HEAR HIM EVERYDAY. He speaks pretty loudly! We ARE living in bedsit units so loud noise are pretty audible across the rooms. He speaks as if the person on the other end of Skype is deaf!!! And almost always, he turns on the speakers! The main problem is that he does this almost every night after 11.30pm. It goes on until 1am or so. I can hear his 'OMAIGAWD!' and 'HAHAHAHAHAHA' rather clearly. I don't want to be rude so I've never mentioned this to him before. It's like saying: "Can you please not speak in your room". It's pretty annoying at times. But I guess we all have to bear with some of the short comings of living in bedsit studios. Also, there were occasions where I  found strands of body hair on the shower floor and I swear that he was the person who last used the shower. FUK U!!!!!

Anyways, I haven't done much work in the past 2 days apart from some programming and a few job applications. To add to that, I just remembered that I am supposed to submit my supervisor a 'Progress Update' type of report by the end of term. Hmmm..... that's like..... less than a month to go? Shitz..... and interviews would be taking place then. Talk about rough seas ahead. On the bright side, I should be done with 2 pieces of EES coursework within the next week so that leaves 1 FFM report, 1 Marketing presentation, 1 SES coursework and 1 FYP report. 

I love EEE Final year :)

Until next time ;)

A time to prioritize

Just another one of those days in uni. This time I had a new lecture: Marketing. Yea most people think of marketing as a form of advertising.

"Hi. Oh you're working in the marketing department? Could you show me your latest advertisement?"

Not exactly. There is more to it than just advertising. I'm thinking more along the lines of market segmentation and business planning. Really looking forward to the rest of the course.

I met A on the way back after the lecture. A returned to the UK after graduation to secure a job but things are not working out as planned. He's a pretty bring fella. Speaks well and more than presentable. Unfortunately the UK economy isn't as good as how it was a few years back. Most people have the mentality that you should work in the UK since you're from a UK university. Here's a pretty good analogy:

"You've just purchased a Ferrari. Why are you not driving it in Italy?"

I just lolz myself. Well yea the $ is pretty good in the UK considering the strength of the GBP. But that's not the case for work opportunities and even more adverse for centralized cities such as London. Job cuts have been conducted quite heavily affecting many of the corporate firms especially. And there came the question on why a firm would pay to hire foreigner if there is a readily available local graduate? I guess this applies to many other countries but the UK is really seeing some major downfalls due to this whole scenario. Unemployment is starting to become a major headline in some of the local newspaper as a matter a fact.

So I wouldn't find A's situation entirely surprising. I've tried applying to a couple of UK firms as well but as expected none of them got through even to the 1st round. But A's a readily employable individual since he's already graduated! Imperial College 2.1 and no one's offering him an opportunity. Kinda depicts how bad things really are over here.

Well enough about the UK employment crisis. Looking at projects, my FYP seems to be going quite well (at least in my opinion) all thanks to Dr. Herrero. I've made a couple of really minor and humiliating mistakes in some of my codes and he's corrected them for me. Talk about babysitting but I'm glad he's willing to help me out knowing that coding is not one of my strengths. Oh and I've also discovered that Dr. Herrero lives just about a street away from where I live. lolz

Oh and I've got a reply from UKEC with regards to my CV re-submission. It was approved so I sent in an updated CV earlier in the evening. Fingers crossed. Also, Sunway dropped a message in the morning inquiring if I could make my way to the UKEC fair and look them up for my management trainee applications. Good stuff :)

Another day closer, another 5 weeks and there goes Spring term. Looking forward to the UKEC career fair in April.

Until next time ;)

A mistake!!!!??!!?? NOOOOOooooooo!!!!

Another boring day and I was supposed to be finishing up my EES coursework.

Didnt happen :P

I did wake up particularly early though. But practically didn't get much work done even towards the end of the day. lolz

So I decided to take a peek at the CV I submitted to the UKEC careers fair. I was being all hyped up about the fair. Part of me wishes that the fair would come by in the next week but then again..... who wouldn't want more time to prepare?

Well I took a look at my CV once more. After my personal particulars I wrote a short stanza about myself and my aspirations. This is how it sounds:

"I am Final Year (4th year) MEng Electrical and Electronic Engineering with Management student at Imperial College London."

OMFG>>>>> 

I missed out an 'a' after 'I am'. ZOMG ZOMG. True it is a pretty minor mistake. The rest of the CV was fine. But this was the start! And a part which was meant to land an impression!! FAKz.......

There are two ways how this may turn out:

(1) The HR personnel would perhaps just skim through and not notice that mistake. This happened with Maybank I presume. 

(2) Reads first line. Discovers mistake. Dumps my CV into the 'unwanted' pile without considering the rest of the document. 

It's quite worrying considering I shouldn't have made such a mistake in the first place. 

Well I submitted the committee an email asking if I could re-submit my CV. 

*Fingers crossed*

Until next time ;)

Loneliness swallowing me up

My final year routine and I do really mean ROUTINE: Head off to lectures. Back home. The end. Number of face-to-face conversations in a week? A handful if I'm lucky.

Yes that's all I have been doing this past couple of months. Some say I brought this upon myself. Some tell me not to be a cry baby and whine about it. True in a sense, but does it hurt to have a little support to help me get through the day? 

The way fate works to put me in this position. FML..... I only pray that the dots connect in the end......

Seriously...... FML

Remembering our lowest when placed higher above

It's one of those nights where I rekindle some of the past 'at present time hardships' which has brought me to where I am today.

So its been about 2 weeks that me and Dad discussed about accommodation for the graduation trip in October 2012. We finally settled for Tune Hotel in Westminster London which wasn't excessively expensive (approx. GBP55/night). It appears to be one of the newer London budget hotels and rooms come equipped with air conditioners! So the $ was paid and no more scouring through lists of hotels/hostels. 

But that wasn't the issue. It dawned on me once again. I haven't got much time left in my final year. I've got a rather heavy load on my shoulders and I cannot screw things up. I WILL MAKE THINGS WORK!

The 15th February 2012. That's like the half way mark towards the end of my undergraduate degree. It feels as if EEE 1st year was a life time ago. Things have changed so much! 

Dad talked to me about his work in office not being appreciated by his superiors. I understand how he felt because I was in a similar position while working on my business economics coursework. It is very frustrating and all we can do is just be tolerant about the whole situation. Dad says that its just how things work in the corporate life. He then speaks about mom and himself looking towards retirement which is just around the corner. So it occurred to me once more that a lot has changed and will continue to change the moment I stepped into university. We are so busy looking for a path to develop ourselves that we forget about the times we are missing out:

I was young and naive to comprehend the adversity of current scenarios. Shrouded by short term goals I sidelined the crucial aspects which were not of my top concerns. One thing for sure, I never found out exactly how mom and dad is funding my education. Mom says that there is a reserve of funds and that I would not need to be concerned about any shortages which may cause mitigating circumstances in future. My priority was rigidly set: To make my way here and come home with success. At that point, success was simple. Success merely meant to graduate. Taking a deeper look into THIS success would mean to achieve at least an overall second-upper class degree. But that was just about all I the aim I had. It soon developed into shorter term goals which sounded like: "I just want to pass this year", "I just want to get to the next year and the next and so on" and "I just want to be eligible for a MEng degree". Because things were tough and I couldn't keep up.

I was following a compass without a known heading. 

I was never the studious type. Never the type who was good with exam papers (which essentially made up the majority of 1st and 2nd year). I struggled with exams. I failed; returned; got through and failed once more. I was a wreck. It was one of those times where I no longer knew what to do.

Escape was one option. And I considered it. But not for long. I gave it another shot and returned as a 're-examining' student. So I returned to uni once more, as a 'forced leave' student which was not enrolled for lectures but allowed to utilize the on-campus facilities. It meant time for me to catch up with what I lost before and to catch in on things which I never took the opportunity to look into.

That year, I decided to retrace my roots. To rethink of the reasons why I had put myself in that position. It was a long year away from class but it felt as if time passed twice as slow. It gave me time to re-position myself back on the far moving track but this time, with a destination.

That year, I attended company presentations, explored available career opportunities, seek career advice from the career advisory department and most importantly; catch up on my studies. 

Things are working out so far. I have retraced my passion and aligned it with my career aspirations. I am thankful for all that has gone by to define who I am today.

There is one last hurdle in this journey. A question to myself 5 months down the line:

""Is there anything more important than passion and determination? Fate maybe? And most importantly, wasn't it all worth it?"

I dare not expect my future to be laid out plainly right in front of me. Like what the late Steve Jobs has mentioned:

"Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

In the meantime, I will seize ALL opportunities set ahead of me and to give my very best for this final lap. This I promise you ;)

Until next time.