The 18th Malaysian Career and Training Fair

Recently, on the 8th, 9th and 10th of January 2016, the 18th Malaysian Career and Training Fair, co-organised by Jobstreet.com, was held at Mid Valley Exhibition Centre from Friday until Sunday. I went to the fair for 2 days only which were on Friday and Saturday. Personally, I have to say the fair was exciting, full of vigour, and most importantly crowded with people from all walks of life to search for that one job that can either feed them or more than that, their dream job. Interns, fresh graduates, as well as veterans flock the booths available to send out their resumes to be interviewed and get the job.

A lot of companies were available during the fair but I can't help but notice some of the big industry players were not around namely Shell, PETRONAS, Schlumberger, Intel, and many more. But nonetheless, what this fair has to offer was not short as well. Reputable companies both local and overseas were there in search of competent talents to be absorbed into their workforce. Despite being available for only two days at the fair, I have to say, I wasn't even able to finish visiting all the booths at the fair. But having said that, being able to visit a fair number of booths, I was pretty much content although unable to drop not even one single resume was such a waste of time, yet, it really taught me a lot.

The next time I'll be attending a career fair would be to be well prepared with tens or hundreds of resumes at hand to land me that internship that I will be content with. As one of the speakers at the fair said, "You need to be READY before you can get a job." What the speaker meant by 'READY' here is that it is an acronym. It stands for Resume, Energy and Excited, Appearance, Develop soft skills, and Yes!(which I deduce as confident, capable, and grateful). He even went on to stress on how important it is to come to this fair with at least more than 30 copies of your resumes, which no one even went on to admitting they (the visitors) had more than 30 at that time!

The interesting bit about this fair, as I had mentioned earlier, was that not only there were booths for eager jobseekers to drop their resumes but there were also talks and a dedicated resume clinic booth so that jobseekers could get feedbacks regarding their resumes that they have written. But despite all that, If you have been to a career fair before such as Technology Education and Career (TEC) in UTP or any other fair, you will find it quite familiar.

I really look forward to another similar career fair within Malaysia and by then, I will be prepared to drop off my resumes to get the best internship on offer.

Sarawak ICT Expo 2015 in Miri

The Sarawak ICT Expo 2015 is currently being held at Miri Indoor Stadium. The expo is currently being done on Friday until Sunday on the 20th to 22nd of November 2015. This expo is almost similar to PIKOM PC Fair and it is also organised at the same place every year in Miri. A number of new PCs, laptops and electronic gadgets are on display for sale.  Other than the usual consumer affair, corporates and companies can also benefit from the Sarawak ICT Expo as there are some local firms that provide IT solutions to ease and simply IT related tasks for corporates and companies.

For the average consumers, a number of gadgets, PCs, laptops as well as 2nd hand computers are for sale as well. The discounts on offer are not that much but it's worth to get now rather than get it later on regular prices if you really need them. On our outing just now, there was an Oppo mascot to promote Oppo smartphones and liven up the expo. Nonetheless, the expo this year has some interesting offerings but may not be that lively since there is no interesting new product yet.

Majlis Restu Ilmu 2015 Kolej Tun Datu Tuanku Haji Bujang Miri

On this blissful Friday of the 30th October 2015, my alma mater, Kolej Tun Datu Tuanku Haji Bujang Miri organized an event for students who will be sitting for their SPM and STPM this year to seek blessings from their teachers and their parents.

The event's tentative begins as early as 7 am in the morning for the religious slots up until 8:30 am. Then, the event continues in Dewan Perdana (the new hall) from 9 am until 11 am. After the religious session, the students begin their walk towards the hall.

Students, teachers and parents gather and sit freely in the hall to hear from each student representatives from both the form 5 and form 6 who will be sitting for their SPM and STPM respectively. The students express themselves by showing gratitude to their teachers for teaching them for almost five or six years at school and nonetheless thanked their parents and peers for guiding them towards the path of success. Furthermore, some of them took the opportunity to motivate their peers before sitting for one of the most important exam in their lives.

Amusingly, the opening speech by the headmistress of Kolej Tun Datu Datu Tuanku Haji Bujang Miri, Hajah Hasimah Binti Abang Zen was supposed to be done first before the students' speeches but they were given priority. The headmistress told the parents, if possible, to support the students by helping giving moral support during the exams later on which will be lead by the teachers.

After the speech, teachers, parents, students, and guests were treated by throwbacks photos of students throughout this year which includes classroom photos and teacher's day photos and various other photos. The montage ended with wishes by previous Kolej seniors for current students to ponder upon and feel more motivated before the exam begins.

The event ended with students shaking hands with teachers and parents to signify their gratefulness to them for all of their efforts in nurturing and teaching the students. This moment is full of tear-jerkers so female students had prepared early with tissues with them. The writer would like to take this opportunity to thank the teachers of Kolej Tun Datu Tuanku Haji Bujang who are currently in service, as of 2015, for teaching me back in 2010 and 2011 as well as to those who had leaved Kolej. Without them I may not be able to reach where I am right now.

An Unofficial Statement by ITMS Department

Thursday, 29th of January 2015, a meeting was held between each representative of clubs and societies in UTP with the UTP ITMS Department, one of the staff members representing disclosed to us was what is being something called ICT Blueprint or something similar. The details of this particular has yet been decided on whether to disclose the information to students or not.

Despite that, some informations were shared to us mainly regarding certain exciting and optimistic issues that include:

1. By June 2015, UTP's internet speed will be increased from 200 MB/s to 2 GB/s.
2. New switching system from Cisco will be installed. This will also improve tracking.
3. By March 2015, Block 1 and Block 2 will offer printing services at cheapest prices compared to other service providers.
4. By December 2015, UTP Prism will be replaced by a new system.
5. Discussion with TM and Celcom has been carried out to provide internet services without going through UTP hence students will bear the cost with the internet service providers at student's pricing and the current ethernet port will be used.

Although all this informations are being planned, we are yet to find out whether these deadlines will be met and probably how it will be implemented. So in a nutshell, once an announcement stating us to update any particulars are released, that means UTP has upgraded the system. For now we just have to wait and see.

January 2015 Semester Course Registration

An email excerpt stating online registration for January 2015 semester was open

Greetings everyone, I hope that all the UTP students who are currently studying for next semester is prepared. For those who are currently studying for the exams, all the best! Others who are on their 4 months break, welcome back and keep the spirit up!

As we all know, the online registration this time is scheduled from 31st of December until 24th of January 2015 starting at 3:30 pm. The registration website is performed at the usual website: https://studentportal.utp-prism.my/. But as usual, when you are registering at the earliest moments, you will be experiencing issues such as lags, unresponsiveness, logged out, any more. But it is important to register early especially if you are registering for courses that have limited seats such as Co-Curriculum.

This year's semester for both foundation and undergraduate roughly looks like this (excluding public holidays):

The foundation students recently has been getting a long holiday for their semester breaks. Sadly all of us has been enjoying the mid-sem break which has been forfeited.

Soon on the 5th of January, we are required to register for our hostel. Below is the fee structure for accommodation:

All the best for the upcoming semester!

Greetings January 2015 Trimester!

This 2014 has been a great but challenging year and that it is coming to an end. The September 2014 semester is coming to an end for the undergraduates as they are currently in their study week. Soon they will be facing their exam week and then they will be having a long holiday ahead of them (4 months of holiday is one heck of a holiday though).

Nevertheless, 12 January would be the beginning of lecture for the January 2015 semester both for the foundation studies as well as the undergraduate studies. The freshies shall begin their session on 8th January though as they need to attend the orientation week or Minggu Aluan Siswa (MAS) as we call it.

There have been new rumours though surrounding the foundation students. A good news for them but bad news for us undergraduates though. It involves their rooms to be installed air conditioners and that their hostel fees isn't as expensive as the V3, V4, and V5 counterpart with no air conditioners installed. That's quite a sad news for us old timers as we have been seniors and studied here longer compared to the freshies, if this rumour proves to be true though.

Whereas for course registration and hostel registration, the exact date for the course registration is yet to be announced by the officials but the hostel registration has been set on 5th of January 2015. The course registration must be done before the hostel registration for valid reasons and that the gap between the two processes probably is in few days or no gap at all. Students who wish to register for both must be quick otherwise they will have no unfavourable bedrooms and courses especially for co-curriculum subjects.

It seems that on 1st of April 2015, the government of Malaysia will be implementing the 6% Goods and Services Tax (GST) nationwide, thus prices will go up! Personally, I wonder how the fee structure for January 2015 semester will fare as most of the things such as operational cost may go up despite being exempted by GST. Hopefully, the university will not increase the fees but if it does happen, the sponsors will compensate for it.

Well that's all to it! I wish the new students all the best for their studies and that for those who are graduating, all the best in life! Keep on persistent in achieving the goal in your life until you draw your last breath. 

UTP Interns Win Awards at Mercedes AMG PETRONAS Formula One Team

An excerpt from https://www.facebook.com/UTPOfficial

Source: https://www.facebook.com/UTPOfficial

Eight students who received the 2014 F1 Constructors and Drivers World Championship
Source: https://www.facebook.com/UTPOfficial

An unforgettable experience for eight UTP students who had done their internship at Mercedes AMG PETRONAS Formula One Team (MAMGP F1 Team) as they received the 2014 F1 Constructors and Drivers World Championship.

They were Wong Yoong Xiang (Electrical and Electronics Engineering) as Car Build Intern, Lee Vuen Nee (Electrical and Electronics Engineering) as Aerodynamics Intern, Muhamad Faidsal Mohd Farid (Civil Engineering) as Aerodynamics Intern, Arvindran Gopalakrishnan (Chemical Engineering) as Purchasing Intern, Upenthiran a/l Ganeson (Chemical Engineering) as Main Inspection Intern, Muhammad Mustaqim bin Mustafa (Mechanical Engineering) as Machine Shop Inspection Intern, Chedtha Intachat a/l Somnek (Mechanical Engineering) as Machine Shop Intern and Magdalene Lee Jia Wern (Petroleum Engineering) as Planning Intern.

They achieved such an amazing feat during the course of 8 months of intern at MAMGP F1 Team from 30 September 2013 to 17 April 2014 at Brackley, United Kingdom. That was far a way from home folks!

Throughout their internship, the interns worked hard and made an all-out effort so that the tasks and responsibilities assigned to them in ensuring the winning F1 car, Mercedes F1 W05 Hybrid Car, was constructed and fabricated in its optimum performance level.

“We are very proud to have assisted MAMGP F1 Team with the technical and practical capabilities learned during our study in UTP. We hope that this internship program with MAMGP F1 Team will continue for many years to come and more students representing UTP will value the experience and knowledge gained from their internship,” said Wong Yoong Xiang.

For this remarkable achievement, they received tokens of appreciation from UTP Vice Chancellor, YBhg. Datuk Ir (Dr) Abdul Rahim Hashim. YBhg Datuk also presented medals and plaque to the interns on behalf of the MAMGP F1 Team.

So as you can see, UTP is very capable in producing high quality talents for the market and provide opportunities for students to work in exciting career. What are you waiting for come and study in UTP!