I was a student of Matrix and I am a student of UTAR now. I can give you the experience you might face.

For UTAR, you will face Chinese. It's Mandarin or English. No one gives a damn to BM. You enjoy freedom, not much restrictions on cultures, events and things you feel like doing. Perak campus is like a peaceful town, not much of entertainment unless you want to seek something high at ipoh (30 minutes drive) or KL (2 hours). Things are not expensive and you have Tesco to get cheap raw food. If you don't drive, you can cyle and it is 5 minutes from East lake (quieter part) or 10 minutes from Westlake (very crowded but expensive). Accomodation is quite direct for other campuses.

The downside, of course: You need 80% attendance. Some lecturers are funny assholes. You can ask your friends to sign for you if the lecturers/tutors don't care. It's hard to score A as there are new policies ruling the quota of A's.


For local U's, in general, you get lower tuition fees. You get a lot of resources in funding.

The downside, of course:
1. racism. it is hard to avoid it. I went to Matrix and the first thing I heard from the president is "Dear non-Malay, you should be grateful because we Malay sacrifice 10% of our quota for you all...". Nevermind, but I bumped into some Malay assholes who told me the same thing, and told me that I should thank Allah. Perhaps it is about personal experience but I strong dter such strong racial sentiments, and despise those assholes who are the products of MARA brainwashing >> HOPELESS!

2. lecturer and tutor quality. You know well how well our secondary teachers are. Highly qualified teachers are rejected from the education sector by the ministry of education yet they claim we don't have enough good teaching force. you read the news and you know how well the umno administration is playing about.

3. freedom restricted. in matrix, you have stupid schedules. in local u, you can culture restricted. you have to respect their prayers, respect whatever clothings they wish you to dress, and respect their cultures by adhering to their ways and norms. in utar, you can just ignore them and live your way. but you've got to live with it if you go local U. it's not a big deal actually. it depends on the campus. but you certainly won't like someone calling you haram for eating pork or holding hands with your girlfriend (while they can do it and even have sex at their dorms).



i know the way i convey it is racist and biased. I assume that you are a Chinese and I give my opinion regarding my personal experience. I'm alright with Malay but I'm fed up of toleration when I don't see people respecting my cultures (and that's what I call dignity). If you are a Malay, well you are certainly free from your religous obligations if you are not religious or you don't even care a damn of it.


Good luck.

This post has been edited by grimwickleo: Jul 27 2011, 01:41 PM