Hi,
I'm currently a chemical engineering undergrad from UTP and am doing my internship @ Petaling Jaya now.
I welcome any form of inquiries regarding student life / timetable / etc.

Edit: I'm also currently a PETRONAS scholar. You can ask me about the interview and contract details BUT i don't guarantee it will be the exact process that happened to me (which was 3.5 years ago - the process changed a lot since then but I'll try to keep this updated )

This post has been edited by l4nc3k: Mar 24 2014, 10:41 AM

Hi Eric.
1. I applied for the sponsorship (note: different from scholarship. PETRONAS does NOT offer scholarships) using my SPM results of 8A+, 2A, 1A-.

2. I used to be a roommate with 2 final year Petroleum Geoscience graduates (PGS) and I'll try and pinpoint some difference between the two (especially common mistakes within SPM graduates).

(i) Chemical Engineering, as a matter of fact, has NOTHING to do with chemistry (please cross away Chem Eng from your wishlist if the reason you chose it is because you are interested in chemistry)
(ii) PGS is not an engineering course. You'll get a bachelor in science (BSc) instead of a bachelor in engineering (BEng).
(iii) PGS is the most expensive course offered in UTP (might not be an issue if you are a scholar)
(iv) The general conclusion I've drawn from PGS (looking at my roommates' assignments test papers etc.): you need somehow good memory (memorizing stuffs), somewhat -okay- drawing and coloring skills (you'll be drawing A LOT of graphs, stone structures, land composition graphics, etc.) and an above-average analyzing skills (which of course, can be nurtured in the future). For Chem Eng, however, requires you to have a strong foundation in maths (especially the calculus part). Basically what I did in my 3 years of Chem Eng undergraduate have been maths, maths and maths, with a little bit of other stuffs inside.

3. Yes co-curricular definitely affects the selection, I believe this is true for all scholarships worldwide. My co-cu wasn't that good either but I guess I still managed to join some worthwhile events during my high school life
(iirc I got around 7.5~8 for my co-cu marks, not so sure about it)

This is a fact. And I don't think UTP takes a lot foundation students from other Uni in the first place, cuz foundation programmes are designed for future undergraduate courses in the same university.


I would say it is indeed a good environment for studies. But if you are looking for entertainment.. I guess no well at least there is a cinema just nearby the campus (5km I guess)

Yes just try your luck.
The management is.. I would say inefficient in some ways

Most people (including me) only get to know what is the course about after studying for 1~2 years. I won't say much about the best personality to study certain courses as this is quite subjective. However I can safely say that without genuine interest in PGS you won't go far (unless you're a genius who does not need to study and still get good grades - not me)

Practicing does makes perfect IMO. (I am a lazy dude but I know a lot of people that fare well through consistent practicing and attending all classes)

How minor is your color blind? Just being very frank here that PGS needs to differentiate color quite well (at least the basic colors. No need lah to know what type of red what type of blue but at least know this is purple, this is green, etc.) And they are the only course that needs color pencils for final exams

And yes PGS students go to a lot of field trips. Heck, there is even a 3 credit hour course that is 100% based on a 1 week field trip. ChemE people, on the other hand, gets no academic based field trips (I've personally been to nil), there are a couple of plants visit though, hosted by various clubs and events in UTP.

Job perspective (note: very generalized comments below, read with cautious) - In general, you can have this equation in mind: The higher the potential pay of a programme, the narrower the job scope of that particular programme. In your case, ChemE has a wider job scope compared to PGS. ChemE people can be involved in OnG, food processing, pharmaceutical.. just to name a few. PGS on the other hand.. you get the idea. There are so called 'tiers' in the OnG industry, in which tier 1 includes PGS and petroleum engineering, tier 2 includes ChemE, MechE, EE, and tier 3 includes ITIS, CV, etc. the smaller the tier, the higher the pay and the narrower the job scope.

77% is still better than mine. Just apply for it. and be sure to perform well during the interviews

Both yes and no.
35 mins drive - I'm assuming you're from Ipoh/Menglembu or somewhere there. You can live outside the campus but you'll need to provide the management with proof that you are capable of travelling daily (I have not heard of people travelling to and fro Ipoh on a daily basis, but those that go back every week are everywhere.) and I would strongly go against the idea of staying too far (>10 mins from campus) because you will be dealing with quite a number of group assignments, night tutorials (especially foundation students) which require you to stay in campus for ease of discussion.

Hi Ash96,

Petroleum engineering (PE) and Petroleum geoscience (PGS) are different and similar at the same time.
(i) PE - you get BEng. PGS - you get BSc (refer to my post above for more clarification)
(ii) In Oil & Gas terms (since we're discussing about PE which basically works in OnG field only), PGS's job is to analyze and predict the source of energy (natural gas, fossil fuel, etc.) through various methods - seismic, sonar, sound waves, and many more which I can't name them. On the other hand, PE's job is to analyze how they should dig out the energy sources - they will be dealing with fluid flows, fluid mechanics, basic structural design, etc.
(iii) If you are worried about starting pay, both of them have the same starting pay potential IF you are in the OnG field. Their job scopes are also quite limited.

Edit: Forgotten to add in some similarities. They share a lot of courses together (geology, petroleum economics, some maths subjects and core subjects which are learned in 1st and 2nd year, etc.) and they also have some common grounds in doing cross-course projects such as Exploration and Production (some final year thingy, not too sure about that).

About R&D and designing.. I believe that most undergraduate programmes does not require much R&D and stuff. You can venture more into it when you are doing your masters.

Getting into UTP and getting PETRONAS's sponsorship are two different matter. I hope you are aware of that. In recent years UTP has been recruiting quite a number of new intakes since we are now heading towards the direction of a research university.

Hope to see you there!

This post has been edited by l4nc3k: Mar 24 2014, 11:49 PM

Hi 4896la (I like your name lol) and thanks myroy for the answer.
Like what myroy explained, just find your high school PK to sign them. Alternatively, you can also find the state parliament representative (those YB and Datuks) to sign them. Or if you are really in need, you can visit some lawyers specialized in this matter to certify your certs (cost you a lot of RM )

Just ignore the DG41 thingy.
PK = penolong kanan aka the assistant headmaster. how you survived 5 years high sch without knowing all those
in chinese its 副校长.

There are around 500 new intakes every semester (might be off - long time din catch up with freshies). It used to be around 180 during my time. Whether getting into UTP is easy or not is quite dependent on how you performed during your interview and also luck - which is kind of subjective.
sponsorship is kinda hard to get recently. I've only heard of a handful of students on petronas sponsorship among the new batches.

I'll have to leave this for you to venture yourself
I used to roam around ReCom.org for tips after my SPM. Well I think it became inactive over time.
I recommend you to read a lot of recent events. PETRONAS likes to use these stuffs during interviews.

Yes it is very possible given that you have your own transport.
Last I checked the rental around Tronoh is around RM400 per month per house, fully furnished. Not so sure about utilities, internet etc though.
As I've mentioned you need to provide proof to the maintenance that you can manage to go to the campus everyday without any problem.

Schools with bigger names and the IPTAs (especially UTM USM UKM and UM) tend to get more attention.

During my time was 100% in English. Not sure about the system now tho.

Don't bother calling UTP management. They simply suck in most cases.
I think you can print a copy of the digital receipt when you did the online cash transfer to UTP (which was what I did previously). But I think it will be better if you can bank in through ATM machine.
And about petroleum depleting in 10 years.. Well the fact is that it will not be that fast. Petroleum is everywhere - its just a matter of whether its profitable to dig it out or not.

There are generally two kinds of foundations:
1. Foundation in Engineering (taken by ChE, PE, EE, ME, PGS, CV0
2. Foundation in Technology (taken by ICT, BIS)

but of course your schedule will be further separated into smaller parts, but the courses taken inside the foundation programs are the same, i.e. foundation in engineering all take the same subjects, foundation in technology all take the same subjects.

Yes its UTP management problem
ask your friend to chill and wait for the sms


aircond or air ionizer? the latter can be brought. fridge can't but i think a mini bar can. there is a certain voltage/power value that cannot be brought in (I'm a poor guy so I never have all these stuffs anyway, so i don't care lol)


yes very random. I've been in UTP for 4 years and have yet to kena once. but some of my friends kena like 2~3 times already.


because they brought in illegal items?

This post has been edited by l4nc3k: May 12 2014, 09:05 AM

for those who wish to see how does UTP looks like, here's a panomatic view of UTP
http://www.panomatics.com/nextgen/my/unive...gipetronas/001/

better bring a table fan if you can't stand the heat, it gets quite hot in the night especially during sept - december. for foundation guys you will be staying in V6 - the largest dormitory around UTP. the room is way bigger compared to the other rooms around UTP.

Yes you will register your room together with your roommate (not sure about the system now, but last time its possible to choose your roommates.) and the hostel management will try to find a same race roommate for you if you don't have a friend. Its not being racist, just that staying with the same race will make things easier (culture, wake up time, etc.)

You will have a few hours to 'check-in' before orientation officially starts - to clean up your room (arachnophobia people beware).

The circulation outside the library. but I doubt anyone would want to walk there just for dota2.. (ok I did that before but only once/twice during events)

Its UTP management. They recently just screwed up the hostel registration, causing many parents to rage lol.

Hi,
sorry for not paying attention to the thread all the time, I hope I can answer your questions.
1. Yes you definitely have a chance to join Petroleum Engineering, depending on how your sponsors in Egypt manage to collaborate with UTP. as far as i'm concerned UTP welcome a lot of Egyptian students (I have a few friends from there)
2. Of course there will be more local students compared to international students. I believe that is true for ALL universities in the world.

Yes its possible. You'll need to get a car sticker from the security department within 1 month though, so please bring the car grant. I'll try asking around just in case the administration changed the rules recently.

haha I hope you are still doing well for orientation week