My sincere advice to SPM leavers.

I was once at the same stage of leaving school and do not know what to do, sometimes choices are limited by

1. Poor SPM results/ SPM forecast results

2. Lack of support from family financially.

3 Lack of knowledge of the student itself on future ambition

4. No knowledge of the universities/colleges apart from knowing that is pretty famous and ALL my friends plan to study there

6. No guidance from teachers

7. Totally no idea what is JPA, UPU, IMU, MMU, UTP, TOEFL, IELTS, the list goes on

My humble advice would be most importantly knowing what you want, do not pursue what your friends are pursuing, if everything is going to do A levels at X College, do you really need to follow if your parents cant afford it. NO

When it comes to choosing on what to major, with the world wide web now, i think is pretty easy to google it up, the most common profession most student choose are

engineering ( countless type of it)
medicine
mass communication ( are you ready to work hard?)
art
IT ( everyone into it)
language ( not so many people, but is pretty good future to be teacher)
architecture
science
business
management
nursing
law
The list could go on pretty far but as far as I know, these are the few rather famous one that people choose or their parents would want them to be.

While I was at that stage, to be honest, I have NO IDEA what engineering is all about, all I know was I get scholarship for it, is a pretty good university, pretty good future, OK GO….

did i regret?

YES and NO, yes that I wasted 5 years studying something that I did not like it

NO that I did manage to get a very good job, meet really amazing people and the future is definitely there.

I met one financial planner last week, he told he was biomedical engineering graduate but never pursue in it, the famous financial blogger kclau was also engineering graduate but never pursue a career in it but yet found other things that he really loves.

Before applying for anything, please do understand the following few terms

Foundation- a one year course after SPM to prepare for undergraduate studies, some of the more popular options are STPM, A level, Ausmat, pre-u, matriculation

Undergraduate- It means getting a degree out of it, before entering undergraduate , one need to obtain foundation, matriculation, or STPM before pursuing it.

Postgraduate - It means getting a master of it, before entering postgraduate studies, one need to obtain undergraduate degree certificate, usually the recruit only the top 30 % , so one should obtain good results in undergraduate course

Doctoral- It means getting PhD , this requires additional 4 years after master studies, people who are really into research and education should consider getting one

Post-doc – It usually a paid research program for one year or more, it requires lots of research and thesis writing.

CV/Resume -a document that contains a summary or listing of relevant job experience and education. The résumé or CV is typically the first item that a potential employer encounters regarding the job seeker and is typically used to screen applicants, often followed by an interview

Reference Letter- It is very very important to have maintain a good relationship with your lecturer/ teacher, as you do require a letter from them especially for oversea application. Also you need to draft out a good one for them to sign it.

Essay – why do they require essay ??, most importantly is to test your writing skills and also your english skills, to me the essay is the key point is obtaining the scholarship, if your good results could grant you a university admission, your essay would be able to grant you a scholarship.

If you are SPM leaver, look out for foundation courses to apply, or certain universities also accept undergraduate application provided you do a one year foundation course with them.

I will update more on advice soon.