It Has Been A Year ...

since I'm studying at UCSI University ... I've been forcing myself to sleep on the bed that i've made. I would actually prefer studying about Health & Fitness and Sports Science. But, whatever now ...



Every end of a semester, getting to strike off the subjects with red highlighter makes my heart rate goes very high, excited to get all strike off and then graduate with my BA(Hons)Psychology.

Hueahuhea ... 1 year to go baby ... 1 year !!

Because so many people asked ...

Why did transfer to UCSI University instead of UTAR or continue Advanced Diploma in TARC and subsequently to LJMU for a Degree.

I've decided to make this a post, to make things easy for me :)

Firstly, I never liked the study environment in TARC. They have very good campus facilities, very impressive on first sight when I was at their open day. However, only to realized that their classroom was worst than my secondary school classrooms, it was too late to regret. Then, it made me realize that the campus is overcrowded, therefore facilities are considered lacking. Student:Facilities ratio cannot balance lah! And of course, the main language used in campus is English, but majority of the students doesn't. I seriously felt and know that my English was dropping.

And most importantly, the reason I did not choose to remain under TAR's umbrella was because of internship opportunities.

If I were to remain at TARC, the only internship is during Diploma level where we had a 7 weeks attachment, and only to be posted once a week. Meaning 7weeks x once a week, with a total of 7 times/days. How much can we benefit from that? And I got feedbacks from my coursemates that during their posting, they did things that are not related to our field; cleaning up centre, data entry etc. Luckier ones get to do survey, which is indirectly preparing them for thesis writing to a certain extend. And I was the luckiest to think about it, I managed to get myself posted to the Psychiatry Ward of UKM Medical Centre and experienced many things first hand.

As for UTAR, internship is only done once, which is the last semester if I'm not mistaken.

Institutions that I shortlisted to top up for my Degree such as HELP University College and UCSI University, are compulsory to have 3 internships done before graduating. Although it's only 2 months per-internship, but the opportunity to have it done in 3 different places/companies strucked my mind, and this is one of the main reasons.

So now, you know why? :)

Hmm .... Where to ?

Remarks

You are required to resit AHLA3154.

Results were released on 29th May, I wasn't too surprised with my results.

So, I am required to resit one subject in order to obtain my Diploma. TAR College do not practice offering supplementary paper to their students, therefore I'll have to wait until this coming September to resit the only paper that is holding back my Diploma.

Initially I was thinking of transferring to HELP University College to complete my Degree in Psychology, but for the past few days I've been contemplating should I continue my studies in the current field or switching to Sports Science which was my second choice after Social Science (on papers). Deep inside me I know I have the desire to pursue Sport Science back then, but I think the reason I choose Social Science as my first choice was due to my parent's discouragement to pursue Sport Science.

Even my two years in College, I hardly did any extra read ups in regards to Social Science. My library book borrowing record shows that I've borrowed 80% of books in regards to Sport Science. I have a deeper interest to understand and know more about Anatomy, Physiology, Biomechanics, Kinesiology etc.

Hmm ... pretty much in a dilemma.

Course Preview - 6th Semester

The last and final semester for our Diploma year started last week, 3rd March 2008. I'm looking forward to end what I've started back in May 2006, to graduate with my Diploma. 3 subjects to be completed within 7 weeks.

Abnormal Psychology
Our senior told us once that when we study this subject, we'll somehow go abnormal as well.

Well yeah, literally. I'm glad that Miss Aggy Hooi is teaching us this subject. Like what I've mentioned last semester(4th semester) on Industrial & Organizational Psychology, she can make a dry subject to be very interesting with her unique way of teaching. In her tutorial classes, we can just walk in without any pen and paper. It's all about application questions discussion in her classes. She never believes scoring in exams based on what's on the textbook, but she believes in critical thinking, what is applicable in the real world.

But personally I think that this subject should be taught in earlier semesters, or probably replace some other languages or nation building subjects. You'll know why I think this subject should be taught earlier later.

Methods of Research in Psychology & Counselling
This subject will lay the foundation of writing thesis in our degree level education.
Lectured and tutored by Mr Ooi Boon Kuan, whom I heard that he's a former military guy. Not sure about it, just hear say. While practical will be guided by one of our course all time favorite, Mr Phillip Chung.

Counselling Practicum
Once a week thinggy, which I personally feel it's not adequate for us to be exposed to what we need to be exposed to. I'm currently having my practicum attachment with Ezra at HUKM Psychiatry Department/Ward/Clinic. Under guidance of Counsellors, Medical Officers and Doctors (depending on who's free on the day we are at our practicum site). I shall not reveal too much on this due to confidentiality issue.

The reason I said that Abnormal Psychology should have been covered in earlier semester is because of our practicum placement. Be it in any NGO, Psychology,Psychiatry or Counselling centre, it would be good for us to cover that subject earlier to somehow or rather help us during our practicum placement.

Ezra and I for instance, sometimes we are lost during our discussions with the Psychiatry department staffs. Luckily we've made our own initiative for read ups before practicum started, else we'll probably look real stupid during our practicum.

And for this last and final semester, I'll have to resit Interpersonal Communication Skills from last semester. That was the only paper that I got C- . I probably paid too much attention on the hot lecturer and tutor instead of what they are teaching.

4 subjects in 7 weeks. I wish my course mates all the best! Let's graduate according to the expected time frame :-)

Practicum Placement

I first approach National Sports Institute hoping to get into the Sport Psychology Centre for my practicum placement. NSI accepted us with the condition of having our practicum done 5 days per week. However, our college rationale only allows us once per week. There goes my opportunity have a taste of working in NSI and more specifically the Sport Psychology Centre.

To be honest I was pretty pissed off that it's because of the college rationale that stops me from getting exposure in the field of Sports Psychology. External factor rather than internal factor. Oh well, at least I get to step into the National Sports Institute building. *shrugs!*

This morning, just hours after answering my course mate's question as a post entry in regards to our education, I received a text message from the Social Science programme leader, asking me to call her back. I thought I was in deep shit for criticizing the programme, or failed her assignment. You know, usually those who received phone calls from her, it's never good news. Those are people who fail in coursework, got barred from exams and the list goes on.

I called her up, braving myself to face whatever consequences for my action.



And indeed, I'll be facing the consequences for sending the practicum opportunity request letter to HUKM. They accepted our request and I'll be posted to HUKM Psychiatry department along with Ezra in our last semester of Diploma programme for our practicum.


Till then.

Course Preview - 5th Semester ( Changes made )

I started my new semester last week, where I got involved in an accident on the first day of my new semester itself. We only had lecture on the first week, whereas tutorial and practical starts from second week onwards. There are 5 subjects this semester;

Interpersonal Communication Skills
I was quite surprised to see the lecturer and tutor who is teaching us this subject. She taught us before in our very first semester of our course, and that was like 1 year and 14 weeks ago(roughly) ? She was teaching us Introduction to Information Technology practical classes back then. Judging from her first tutorial class, it's going to be interesting to have her teaching. Discussion without a one sided answer and learning from each other style.

Another lecturer walked into our lecture hall today. She introduced herself as Miss Kik, a lecturer who usually teaches Advertising courses. She told us that there is changes in the course programme, no idea what exactly the changes were, but she just follow orders from the college to lecture us. 1st lecture with her, and my name was already been called by her to answer question. A question on Johari Window and I gave the wrong asnwer. Anyway, she has a very interesting way of conducting her lectures and without using a mic to get her student's attention.

2 hours later, in our tutorial class of the same subject, a pretty tutor walked in to our tutorial venue. She introduced herself as Miss Cheng, a TAR College graduate in Advanced Diploma in Media Studies, attended LJMU's Summer Semester Programme for her Degree and got her MA in International Journalism from Liverpool John Moores University last year.

Group Dynamics
Teaches us how to conduct group counselling. We'll have to work in pair with a classmate, and get at least 5 people who are willing to help us to help them. Taught by our head of school, Dr Chai. Previous year, our seniors seeked our help to help them to conduct their group counselling experiment. But my group's session ended up as a yam cha session with our seniors.

Counselling Methods & Techniques II
Continuation from Counselling Methods & Techniques I from semester 3. I enjoyed the practical classes in CM&T I, and I'll continue enjoying this one I guess? Lectures and Practical conducted by Miss Eva Li, while tutorial by Aggy Hooi, another lecturer/tutor whom I enjoy her class a lot. She was my class's tutor for Introduction to Psychology in our first semester. She's someone who challenges her students to think out of the box and not to rely too much on textbook.

Ethical and Legal Aspects of Counselling
I won't comment much on this subject. All I can say is I'm praying hard there is improvement in this subject's lecturer teaching style. Senior citizen Mr Kuan Ah Kan is the name of this subject's lecturer.

Industrial and Organizational Psychology
Taught by Miss Aggy Hooi. Need more I say about her?
I'm glad that she is teaching us. According to our senior, their batch got a part-time lecturer who isn't very good in teaching and made the subject very boring.


Sometimes, a dry subject can be fun if being taught by the correct person.

Although there are 5 subjects this semester, but I'll be sitting for 7 papers in total for finals.
I haven't pass two subjects from 4th semester ( notice that I did not say I fail, I said I haven't pass! ), Basic Management Principles and Family Counselling. Rumours are saying that 1/3 of the course ( around 40 students? ) did not pass Family Counselling and majority of them are pointing fingers at the lecturer. But for me, I'll take full responsibility for my own actions.

I've been hired by the college to coach at Co-curricular Gym-Workout Programme again this semester. I wasn't hired last semester because the Sports Coordinator of Gym-Workout Programme was on maternity leave and a guy took over and hired an all girls team of student assistant.

Course Preview - 5th Semester

I started my new semester last week, where I got involved in an accident on the first day of my new semester itself. We only had lecture on the first week, whereas tutorial and practical starts from second week onwards. There are 5 subjects this semester;

Interpersonal Communication Skills
I was quite surprised to see the lecturer and tutor who is teaching us this subject. She taught us before in our very first semester of our course, and that was like 1 year and 14 weeks ago(roughly) ? She was teaching us Introduction to Information Technology practical classes back then. Judging from her first tutorial class, it's going to be interesting to have her teaching. Discussion without a one sided answer and learning from each other style.

Group Dynamics
Teaches us how to conduct group counselling. We'll have to work in pair with a classmate, and get at least 5 people who are willing to help us to help them. Taught by our head of school, Dr Chai. Previous year, our seniors seeked our help to help them to conduct their group counselling experiment. But my group's session ended up as a yam cha session with our seniors.

Counselling Methods & Techniques II
Continuation from Counselling Methods & Techniques I from semester 3. I enjoyed the practical classes in CM&T I, and I'll continue enjoying this one I guess? Lectures and Practical conducted by Miss Eva Li, while tutorial by Aggy Hooi, another lecturer/tutor whom I enjoy her class a lot. She was my class's tutor for Introduction to Psychology in our first semester. She's someone who challenges her students to think out of the box and not to rely too much on textbook.

Ethical and Legal Aspects of Counselling
I won't comment much on this subject. All I can say is I'm praying hard there is improvement in this subject's lecturer teaching style. Senior citizen Mr Kuan Ah Kan is the name of this subject's lecturer.

Industrial and Organizational Psychology
Taught by Miss Aggy Hooi. Need more I say about her?
I'm glad that she is teaching us. According to our senior, their batch got a part-time lecturer who isn't very good in teaching and made the subject very boring.


Sometimes, a dry subject can be fun if being taught by the correct person.

Although there are 5 subjects this semester, but I'll be sitting for 7 papers in total for finals.
I haven't pass two subjects from 4th semester ( notice that I did not say I fail, I said I haven't pass! ), Basic Management Principles and Family Counselling. Rumours are saying that 1/3 of the course ( around 40 students? ) did not pass Family Counselling and majority of them are pointing fingers at the lecturer. But for me, I'll take full responsibility for my own actions.

I've been hired by the college to coach at Co-curricular Gym-Workout Programme again this semester. I wasn't hired last semester because the Sports Coordinator of Gym-Workout Programme was on maternity leave and a guy took over and hired an all girls team of student assistant.

Course Preview - 4th Semester

In our 1st semester of our 2nd Year in Diploma in Social Science(Counselling), we''ll be covering 4 very interesting subject, and 1 not so interesting subject.

We'll talk about the interesting subjects first.

Developmental Psychology
Lectured by everyone's favourite lecturer in the School of Social Science, Mr Phillip Chung.
Tutored by a part-time lecturer, an alumni in our course. Which means, she's our senior. She's young, very pretty and of course, very fun to be in her class. ( I mean the way she teaches ok, not her physical looks. ) In this subject, we learn about how we ourselves develop, physically and psychologically. A very useful subject for those who are interested to be involved in pre-school education.

Family Counselling
This subject sounds boring to many. But to me, it sounds fun! At least it allows me to explore more about the various types on family, family conflict and so on. An old man, retired 10 years ago is teaching us this subject. He's so old that sometimes he forget where he put his things, but thankfully, he still knows his stuffs to teach us. He's no other than Mr Kuan, or better know as Kuan Ti to mischievous students who give people names.

Vocational & Career Counselling
My ambition is to be a Sport Psychologist, or anything related in the sport field. However, according to our lecturer, the lovely Miss Eva, with this subject, it MIGHT change my thinking. We'll see by the end of semester. Besides learning how to counsel people in this field, it also helps me to explore what I really want as a career.

Leadership Skills
It was one of the very few subject I was looking forward to when I browse through our college prospectus. It's much more of a practical subject, plus with some theories. Theories do help us to see what are the kind of leadership qualities that we have and do not have, how to develop and sharpen your skills. Of course, theory without practice is useless. That is why we have practical classes to conduct activities. This subject is taught by one of the top leaders of the School of Social Science itself, she's no other than Dr Cecilia Chai.

and ... the not so interesting subject...

Basic Management Principles
From the name itself, it's a Business subject. And taught by a lecturer from the School of Business Studies. Boring to me, but still, there's always something useful to be picken up from there. The reason we have this as our subject is to equip students who do not want to major in any Psychology field, but in Human Resource instead.

Interesting... but it's going to be a very busy semester after I read all my assignment task.

besides, I was secretly hoping that the college sports coordinator would call me back to be our college’s Co-Curricular Gym Workout programme assistant instructor. Until now, there's no phone call.

My 1st year in college

Time flies and without realizing It has been more than 1 month since I promised for a review on m y 1st year in college.

At the very beginning, I was hesitating should I or should I NOT enroll into TAR College?
My first thought was, it's too crowded, secondly, how good is their Psychology course compared to other private institutions? After a long hesitation, I decided to give it a try due to two reasons;

1. I might dropout halfway through my course, and enrolling into TARC which is subsidized by the government, I won't really be wasting THAT much of my parents money.
2. My course has a special 2+1 twinning programme with UniSA.

My first semester itself was where I already started to enjoy myself. It took me sometime to get adjusted to new way of learning and coping with works. We were supposed to take 6 subjects including 2 language subjects(English and Bahasa) in our first semester, but I was exempted from both language papers due to my grade in SPM. The remaining 4 were Introduction to Psychology(Mr Phillip Chung), Introduction to Counselling(Miss Eva Li), Introduction to Information Technology(Mr Ng) and Tamadun Islam dan Asia(Sorry sir, I forgot your name, I hardly even attended your lecture after knowing that your taking of attendance to give us extra bonus marks for finals was bullshit).

Besides that, I joined First Aid Unit(FAU) and involved in organizing blood donation campaign in College, and during first semester itself I claimed my compulsory 2 credit hours for sport co-curriculum, Which I choose Gym-workout. Being a committee in FAU is not easy. I somehow quit after not being able to cope up with the amount of work I had.

1st semester, I passed all my papers except Tamadun Islam dan Asia, which I hardly attended lecture and did not even buy it's textbook(I photo stated instead).

During my second semester, I was hired by college's sports department as co-curriculum's Gym-workout programme Student-assistant/assistant instructor. I've already mentioned the nature of my job back in my welcoming post.

In our second semester, we covered Social Psychology, Sociology, Counselling Theory and Psychotherapy, Psychological Assessment, English for Communication and Bahasa Malaysia Kemahiran Berkomunikasi. No more exemption for language papers unless for former STPM students. We actually had to deal with 2 part-time lecturers. And it was one hell of headache during a first few weeks as part-time lecturers are not familiar with how we work things out(Note distribution, assignment group picking etc). We had to actually guide them with our college's system instead. Thankfully they were so down to earth and nice, very willing to learn from their mistakes although it was suppose to be the other way round. But yeah, we taught them how our college system works, they taught us academic stuffs. That's 1-1 .

Mr Yusoff, Miss Chew HY, Mr Phillip, Mr Hafiz and Mr Puspanathan were all very good lecturers with their own style sense of humor.

I managed to pass all my subjects in 2nd semester, including my resit paper of Tamadun Islam dan Asia from 1st semester.

3rd semester was one hell of a ride. Everything was done in a rushing manner. 3 subjects were covered, and all in 7 weeks. Sounds relaxing? Not really, it's actually the same thing as the 14 weeks long semester with 6 subjects. We need go attend 2 lecture, 2 tutorial, for every subject every week, and an additional of 2x2 hours of practical. The subjects were; English for Social Science, Counselling Methods and Techniques 1 and Malaysian Cultural and Religious Practices.

I have to say that Counselling was the subject I gained from the most in this semester. Thanks to a great lecturer,tutor and mentor, Miss Eva Li! I wish that she'll be teaching us every remaining semester in our Diploma year.

Cultural and Religious studies is the subject I've skipped lecture the most. Not because I'm not interested with the subject, but two reasons; it's a 8am lecture, and the lecturer deliver her lecture in monotone style. But, this was also partially the lecturer was too good to prepared us with her simplified version of notes, all geared up for us all the way for finals. By reading, It was enough for me I guess?

For the first time in my life, I experienced hell going through English classes. All thanks to a fat old lady teaching us. She's no other than Madam "CP". You don't need a rocket scientist to figure out who she is if she had taught you in TAR College. Not that I want to curse her, but...well, let me explain.

She adapts a teaching method like primary school, where she would call out students 1 by 1 to read passages. It's good for students who are weak in English(no offense), but students with higher grades in English would suffer to death due to boredom.

There was once she asked me to do a presentation, I decided not to get prepared and wanted an impromptu presentation. Halfway through my presentation, I ran out of ideas and decided to stop there. Of course I was being 'nagged' by the old bitch. After class I went to apologize and tried to ask for comment to improve myself, she just brush me off and said "too late to apologize". I "slapped" her back at her face saying "Nothing is too late, now it's all about giving chance" - I was referring that she did not give chance to her own students, and walk off.

I knew she was pissed. Other than that, I pointed at her mistakes in class when she spells a word wrongly. Her egoism level was so high that she did not bother to correct the word, she rubbed it off instead hoping to shake off the shame I brought to her. Once she threaten to confiscate my classmate's DVD for assignment, again, I asked her loudly " You think this is secondary school? and it's for assignment after all". She was pissed and said rules apply even in college.

But she got her payback during my presentation week. She gave me the lowest mark in class, which was so obvious to everyone that she had something against me. At least she didn't fail me, that was good enough. But I got the last laugh, during lecturer evaluation week, I did not save her face, I wrote every bad point about her, with valid reasons, things that really happened to me. You see, I'm a fair guy, I don't blame you if you are right, I only state facts if you are wrong.
The next thing we knew was, she started distributing chocolates and keep repeating statement trying to give herself credit to the next class of our's, right after our class submitted our evaluation form. I guess she was hoping for a better evaluation from the next class. Fat luck ! haha!


Conclusion; there's not much regret enrolling into TAR College. Facilities are good, lecturers are good, useful experience is what I gain the most. Especially working in the college gym. I'm hoping they will call me back again in 4th semester to work with them even if it's unpaid. Contacts and learning experience is what matters to me the most now.

However, I'm quite dissapointed to know the 2+1 twinning programme with UniSA is not safe for students who intend to pursue a Post graduate qualification. This is because 2+1 entitle us to a Degree without honours, and this lead to problem being accepted by Universities for their post graduate programme. And to pursue a Degree with Honours, you must achieve certain % of your results during your 1 year in UniSA to be entitled to a place for 2+2.