How is everyone doing?

I've just set up an account with Wells Fargo. Pretty simple process, just like mumeichan described.

Also, I just realized that most things, if not all, need SSN to sign up for - such as store membership cards, etc. It's definitely not fun not being able to receive additional discounts!

Does anyone know ANY major brands/retail outlets/ANYTHING that doesn't require a SSN to sign up?

This thread die liao? Where's everyone?

I'm doing fine, I wonder how the rest are doing?

Thread is dying! Are you guys too busy writing Yelp reviews until you've forgotten about Lowyat.Net?

LOL! I was just wondering, is there an American forum that is similar to LowYat.Net? It seems like every little thing has their own forum as opposed to LowYat.Net which has everything under its subforums, thus making it much more convenient.. I had to sign up to more than ten forums that cater to specific topics (e.g. BMW cars, paintball, frisbee..).

I almost forgot to wish everyone here a belated Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri! How did the celebrations go for you guys? The one we had in Los Angeles was quite large and were attended by not just Malaysian students, but members of the embassy and Malaysians residing in San Diego/Los Angeles. Some even came from as far as Boston, MA.

Oh, where are you now? Are you home for the holidays, transferred to a different state or are you done?

Which university did you attend?

A-levels are a waste of time.

Why not go to a 2-year community college and then transfer into the UC's as a junior?

I'm currently in Santa Monica College (SMC) in Santa Monica, CA. Fees are about $8,000/year which is about the same as Taylor's ADP (so my two Taylor's friends tell me, they both transferred from Taylor's to SMC). If you're already considering to join the UC system as a freshman, then I should probably not have to warn you about the living costs should you take the community college path; it is relatively cheap. And that's saying something, as I live in Los Angeles.

I'm planning to transfer to either UCLA, UC San Diego, or CSU Long Beach after I complete my 60 units here.

By the way, all the Malaysians I know that came from ADP programmes wished that they "knew about community colleges sooner" and would've come here straight had they known that the costs were pretty much the same, save for the living expenses, and they would've enjoyed the American college experience for a couple extra years. Do give it some though.

If you need more info about this, shoot me a message. It seems that you're interested in California, then I'm your guy if you'd like to know more about the cost of living, etc.

Hm, that's true. I guess it's more of a biased personal opinion on my side. But I stand my ground, I still think it's an unnecessary distraction as there are less 'torturous' ways of getting to the States!

As a matter of fact, SMC is the top transfer college in California and serves unofficially as a 'feeder' school to the UC system, as every year, over a thousand SMC grads were transferred in. In addition, students who are in the Scholars program in SMC are given priority admission to several universities including UCLA. You seem misinformed about this, so I'm just trying to clear it up. Simply put, it's exactly the same as doing a twinning/ADP program - you earn credits to transfer, except that this 'ADP' is within the States itself.

Where in the midwest are you? It seems that the Midwestern Malaysian students find themselves heading to sunny, sunny California in the summer in droves! Are you one of them? xD

Agreed. I applied for the US Diversity Visa 2016 lottery a few days ago. I reviewed the statistics from the results of the previous years and the calculated chances for a Malaysian national to win is roughly 1%. No harm trying, though.

That's what I thought as well, until I did some calculations based on the statistics.

There is a scaled percentage of winning, which pretty much puts every participant from an eligible country at a 0.X to 1.X% chance of winning. Malaysia has roughly 6000-7000 applicants a year (excluding dependents) and only 70-80 might win. Based on the previous year trends, the number of Malaysians winning each year seems to be going down. Meanwhile, in the 2013 lottery, 6029 Iranians won the lottery out of 369,118 Iranian applicants. That is 1.6%. I hope this gives you the general idea of what is going on.

Countries that have had over 50,000 selected entrants in the past 5 years are not eligible to apply for the DV lottery. These countries are called "high admission countries", and as you could probably guess, such countries include Mainland China, Bangladesh, India, Philippines, and Nigeria.

Mind sharing how you got your permanent residency? And I'm guessing you're from the East Coast based on your post time, unless you're an early riser.. haha. Greetings from the Lone Star State!

Oh, we're in the same time zone then! I'm still trying to get adjusted to being two time zones away from my girlfriend, as I just moved from California. Texas isn't actually that bad.. the gas here is a whole dollar cheaper than in Los Angeles, the Tex-Mex food is awesome, and the Southern hospitality is hard to beat! Now, as for the Midwest.. well, it's actually not too bad. I hated Nebraska though.

You probably read the conversations above wrong, actually it is me who is "from one of the UTs". Haha. Unless spunkberry is a former Longhorn. Or Roadrunner. Or <insert mascot of other UT campuses>.

I know, but I guess it gives an equally fair chance for all eligible countries. If certain countries had a high admission quota, I suspect that many applicants would try and adopt a second citizenship to double their chances of winning, or whatever illicit method they can think of. I'm not at all surprised by the fact that Iranians are flocking to the Land of the Infidels, because from my experiences of meeting all sorts of people from all over the world.. whatever you think you know about them, throw it out of the window right now. For example, I'm Malay, and although I'm afforded with various opportunities, 'shortcuts' and whatnot in Malaysia, I don't plan on going back to settle down. That surprised you? But let's stay on track, this is EE, not RWI. xD

I'm in San Antonio but every weekend I go back home in Houston. What sort of experiences do you want to know?

And conservativeness is well and alive here, but in the Southern parts of Texas, Democratic influences are a majority, since, you know, it being that close to the Mexican border, and the population demographics that live in that area.. there is a high job growth here in Texas due to the O&G industry and the recent tech boom in the DFW area. Honestly, as a student, I preferred the job market in Southern California, there were a lot of big companies, startups, and nonprofits that I wanted to intern in but I never had the time to. Here in Gulf Coast, it's pretty much all engineering stuff.

I agree on the corn part. As I drove across the Midwest, I remember particularly hating Nebraska because of the straight-down roads that offered nothing but endless fields of corn, as far as the eye can see. It also reminded me of 'Children of the Corn', and an English Literature class I once took that was taught by a Cornhusker. He forced us to read Nebraska-related titles such as Willa Cather's "O Pioneers!". Needless to say, I have something against Nebraska.. hahah. I liked Iowa, though.

A&M was my first choice. I completed my AA degree of 2 years at a community college earlier this year (Spring '14) and applied to be an Aggie. However, they were only admitting students for the Spring '15 intake. This was a mistake on my part for not being thorough. So the law dictates that if you aren't attending school full-time for one semester or longer, you have to return to your home country. I can't do this because my whole family just moved to Houston in summer! With that in mind, I winged it and applied to UT San Antonio. I would've gone to UT Austin if the tuition costs weren't so high.. so here I am in UTSA, knocking a few more classes out of the way for half the price that I would pay in UT Austin until I could be in A&M. If that fails, I guess I'll just jump over to UT Austin - the Jackson School of Geosciences is pretty good.

This post has been edited by latias93: Oct 8 2014, 11:25 PM

Yes, I'm a future Aggie/Longhorn! I'd better make up my mind fast about it though, I've got friends on both sides who are ready to pounce on me once I defect to the other.. I'm not sure if Boilermakers and Hoosiers practice this kind of rivalry. Do they? haha

Yup, Geology/Environmental Science! GPA 3.54 should be good enough, don't worry. What other schools did you apply to?

Today, I learned that Neil Armstrong was a Boilermarker haha. And as for the school rivalry - that's intense, but I've seen worse. Back in SoCal, the USC Trojans/UCLA Bruins rivalry certainly puts other schools to shame. I've seen Bruins hire private helicopters just so they could perform 'aerial attacks' by dumping yellow and blue paint over the Trojan statue. That definitely takes it to the next level. It certainly seems fun to be part of a big family and subculture associated with school teams - something I have yet to attain.

That is a LOT of questions.. damn, I'm not sure how to answer all of it. Haha. I'll try. I love being in (some parts of) the US! I've never faced discrimination before, a couple of incidents did come close, though. You can just look up how those cities look like on Google, but San Antonio has a beautiful historical downtown river walk and there's a couple of nice spots in Houston. But otherwise, they're just plain suburbs - boring, grid-like and consistent. Just like Damansara/PJ, I guess. There are a million reasons, big and small; on why I don't want to return to Malaysia, but I can go on and on about it that will span the length of several mamak hangout sessions. Most of them are purely materialistic and superficial, and this includes but are not limited to: the ability to own a bunch of kickass cars and such low prices, the fact that I have 2-day free Amazon Prime shipping, Netflix, cheap stuff, Netflix, beautiful national parks, great food, the Second Amendment, and did I mention Netflix?

If you really want to know, we can chat privately about the other reasons, because I don't want to spew out too much irrelevant stuff in an Education Essentials subforum.

Yup, Houston is definitely the mecca of the energy industry here in the Western hemisphere. My dad's here, in the oil and gas industry. So is my aunt, who lives a mile away from our house. I've met a Malaysian girl who's also working in the oil and gas industry here. And I found out that a Malaysian Boilermaker I met earlier this year at the Malaysian Midwest Games at IUB lived in Houston up until recently, as his mother was working in, you guessed it, the oil and gas industry.

I'm impressed. Best quote I've seen all week, and I've spent hours on Reddit. That's definitely something you can tell people! #BoilerUp

Sorry, I'm in the midst of several assignments, projects, research and.. MIDTERMS! Bet you haven't heard of that word for some time now..

Hm, good point. Never thought about that, I completely forgot that WTI is the benchmark for crude oil prices.
Btw, where did you grad from and in what major? How many years experience in your field?

Anything you want to talk about! I don't know what to talk about because my mind is preoccupied with academic-related affairs hahah deadlines deadlines deadlines!!