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Amz 2

Friday, October 26, 2012

Life at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia(UTM) International Campus Kuala Lumpur - PROLOGUE

I've finally finished my first semester at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM). Now let me tell about it :D

To start it off: the ESSENTIALS!!!!!! (to starting your life at any public university of your choosing of course)
  1. All personal documents(I.C., birth certificate)
  2. The documents you printed from the website when you applied for IPTA. NOTE: Remember to accept the offer to your respective learning institution at the same website
  3. Documents on your health e.g. X-ray or any other that they request.
  4. All daily-used items and things you need to live (XP)i.e.toothbrush, toothpaste, cloths, water bottle, blanket, pillow, mattress cover, soap, etc. NOTE: I'll mention what they provide in your room (based on mine of course)

NOTE: The rest of this article will be based on my university, UTM.
Registration Day
All fresh undergraduates are to register on this very day. On the day itself, I had some issues getting there. Left from Semenyih and wound up at Yayasan Selangor(UTM branch). Had to pay RM 4 worth of parking fees there just because we entered the building's parking lot for a few minutes. After rerouting, I finally head to the right direction, although not the right entrance. Ended up entering from the back entrance. The registration station is at the Dewan Besar which is located near the FRONT entrance. I had to walk like 500m instead of 100m(not thanks to GPS >.<). Once there, I was required to wear formal(minus tie), so off I go to my family car and back again to the hall zzz. In a short while, registration was completed. They then handed to me the key to my room before paying a deposit for a T-shirt and was directed to check out my room at Kediaman Siswa Jaya(KSJ) - there's another one called Kediaman Siswa Semarak(KSS) right beside the UTM campus; I'm unsure of the difference other than the location itself besides the fact that a majority of the new students are allocated at KSJ .

I met greeted my roommate as I unpacked my stuff. In a few hours time there held a small meeting with the head of the hostel where I stay. I remembered how he intimidated most (if not all) smokers - the fresh intake of course. These smokers really did hand over their stash in fear of being caught with them.

The following 2 weeks are as follows:
Week 1 - Minggu Transformasi Mahasiswa/Mahasiswi(MTM)

The rest of the week continued with meetings with VIPS of the university, university lecturers and officials. They did a brief Introduction to university rules and regulations, university programmes of various faculties, cocurriculum programmes and even a tour of the campus .Moral classes were held throughout the week at about 7.30p.m. almost every night at Dewan Jemaah(congregation hall). Officiation of MJIIT(Malaysia-Japan International Institute of Technology) was done on this week as well. We new intake graduates had to wave flags to welcome the VVVIPs of Japan and Malaysia. Some photos:

Sports day came on Thursday. We started it off with a Senamrobik session before moving on to the main events - Tug of war, soccer, volleyball and others. Participated in tug of war and man was it fun. I became the 'tank' as I called it way behind the line as I was the biggest(and baddest) fella in my team. As the whistle blew, so did the hard part. I kept pulling as hard as I could but they fought back hard causing my team to lose footing and me to land on my butt. I tried a simple tactic of placing planting my feet in holes in the ground(made by the other players) but still another butt landing with bonus slide. Overall its a fun game :D

Malam Budaya was held on Friday, at the end of MTM. Performances include Tarian Satu Malaysia, Tarian Gombak, Silat, Tarian Nyaman and Budaya Masa Kini - all performed by us new undergraduates(who volunteered that is). It was all good, some a lot more funny than others. The hosts were a couple of seniors who I must admit have great acting skills. Based on my experience, the performances were on a different level from what I've seen; guess this is the capability of university students.

Gotong-royong was done on Saturday - pick up rubbish, clear fallen small trees, paint mosque, clean pond area. Started at about 8.00a.m. and ended my part at about 10.45a.m. and went to the TV area coincidentally to watch Kung Fu Panda - the series. The rest of the weekend became our free time - I spent some of it at Suria KLCC watching MIB3.


One important thing to note is meals are provided by UTM starting from dinner on the first day of admission until Saturday lunch covering breakfast, lunch, dinner and supper.



Week 2 - Bored and Skipped Lectures Week(not entirely)
Group activities were conducted. These groups are actually compilation of various programmes. For example, mine's ComStars, a group for all computer science students; same goes for engineering programmes and so on. Activities I've seen include telematch(games and stuff) and some sports.
UTM SPACE - lecturers start introductions and explanation of courses and programmes al though not entirely.
Meeting with college leaders, helpers and advisors. These people will help you during your stay at UTM college. They're like our mentors.
Lecture on PTPTN - wasn't much use to me. Wanted to skip but was afraid of missing something of utmost importance(too bad I didn't). Here's my guide of what I REALLY did to apply for PTPTN:
  1. First off I've enrolled in a higher learning institution of Malaysia(UTM), obtained their offer letter.
  2. Once at UTM, UTM helpers helped me to buy a RM 5 PIN to open a SSPN(Skim Simpanan Pendidikan Nasional) account(PIN is used later).
  3. I then went to Bank Islam Malaysia Berhad(BIMB) branch and requested to open a SSPN account. There they will help you to get your SSPN account number. A SSPN card will be sent to you by mail.
  4. Go online to the page as shown below to fill in your details to apply for PTPTN. Everything filled there MUST be precisely as proven in your documentation.

Enter the middle one that says 'LamanPTPTNOnline'

Here is where you login to your SSPN account
     5. Finally, prepare all required documents(I.C., SPM result slip, offer letter from learning institution, parent(s) payslip, birth certificate and others if necessary). You'll hand in these docs once you are successful in applying for PTPTN loan.

Lecture on CICT and ICT skills - explaination of Academic Computing ID(ACID) account. This is the account you will use to access the Wifi at college and the e-learning programme. Skipped this one cause I've found out about it through friends.
Lecture on PSZ(Perpustakaan Sultanah Zanariah) skills - Not sure what's the point of this. For me it was games on Malay proverbs. Luckily I attended it and won a few prizes thanks to a good team :).

Last two lectures: Program Kaunseling dan Kerjaya(PKK) and Taklimat Harta Bina - Totally skipped both of them. No idea what's it about but I don't care XP .


Medical Check-up and PTPTN Apllication
Medical check-up for the new intakes is settled within these 2 weeks as well. X-ray have to be done outside the university at a public hospital whereas the rest (eye test, colour blind test,etc. but not blood test) is done at the university's clinic. Supposedly we can do it before we arrive at UTM but I thought the procedure would be more precise and smoother over there. I was wrong. The issue was the time to do the medical check-up and X-ray wasn't announced. I went to theclinic to do the medical check-up first as I thought the X-ray could be done later but I couldn't as they needed the X-ray first for some odd reason. Imagine that I had to wrong to the back of the campus to the clinic and then back to the front to catch a van that will send me and a few others for X-ray scan. Chest X-ray to be exact. The cost for the whole thing wasn't much of a difference back at my home town too. Should have done it with my friend back home.

As for PTPTN, you actually needed FOUR(4) stem hasil to complete the entire PTPTN application. 2 for when you want to apply for it and another 2 for when you want to send the required documents to complete the whole thing. I only brought 2 with me at the time but luckily I have friends who was out and live within KL area to help. Getting the PIN to open your SSPN account can be helped by the UTM seniors and staffs.

It was quite hectic but at least it's all over.



Other Aspects:

Hostel here's pretty cooling mostly likely its because of a pond right next to it

Can see people running,jogging and playing sports at night, I mean REALLY late at night like 10+

Facilities provided: various sport courts - including futsal, badminton, tennis and volleyball, public TV with ASTRO, mini mart, top-up machines, pantry, laundry room, water dispensers with hot and cold options, FREE gym services both at campus and at college, FREE computer lab(at college) usage and lots more.

Normally at around 11pm, a lot of people would have gathered at cafe and activities peak then from surfing the web to chatting to playing futsal.

But when it rains, it gets real quiet - :)



I've decided to use SlickPic (instead of Flickr due to issues) to post images starting today. If there's roughly 10 images only, I'll display them here. But this particular article has hundreds so if you're in need to know more about UTM or interested to see(and admire) UTM, feel free to browse my gallery on SlickPic. Most of the pictures are self-explanatory so the rest of the story pretty much tells itself. If you want to know more just comment and I'll reply.URLs:

UTM KL Hostel
http://www.slickpic.com/s/MyuT,N,QTMFYzw/UTMKLHostel?preview

This should go here:
                                                       Funny Cat

Meals
http://www.slickpic.com/s/z1zDMcMIjQNw51/Meals?preview
 
UTM KL Campus

http://www.slickpic.com/s/NGUxjMMOOTQ01c/UTMKLCampus?preview
 
Minggu Tranformasi Mahasiswa

http://www.slickpic.com/s/N2NuNGR0UjNDF2/MingguTransformasiMahasiswa?preview
 
Miscellaneous

http://www.slickpic.com/s/ADMDYMUiwxZNZL/Miscellaneous?preview