QUOTE(ken_zie @ May 4 2021, 11:15 AM)
Is anyone attending or applying for any postgrad programme at USM's KL Campus? Would like to know how's the environment and the lecturers at the campus.
I applied for an upcoming intake in October 2021 and was accepted for Masters in Sustainable Development Practice, part-time.
I actually went there for the orientation last year. Applied Master in Cognitive Neuroscience. I withdrew from the program right after the orientation.
Can't tell much, but it's literally like rented space in a big building. Seems like only few floors are accessible by the students. The entrance is not noticeable since you have to walk a bit to the back and take a lift going up.
I can't say much about your programme, but at the time, I'm aiming to do either CN or Clinical Psychology. The place does not look conducive at all for both of these programs. First, there's no lab available to study CN here. As the name suggests, CN students need to at least have access to tools to measure brain activity. MRI is a bit much to have, but it seems even portable equipment like EEG also they have to borrow from other uni (or was it other USM branch). They provide cadaver brains for the students but given the amount of students during the orientation (around 25-35 people?), I feel like they will ask us to share the brains as well. My biggest dealbreaker that lead me to withdraw was my final year paper. Apparently, they don't allow students to do the paper in KL because... surprise suprise... no equipments. So the lecturers said we have to go to either HUSM in Kelantan, UPSI in Tg Malim or USM Penang to do our research. Listening to one of my friend who's studying this programme now, he had to fork out money and pay everything himself to stay in Kelantan. Not only that, of course, HUSM will not provide him the priority of using MRI just because he's a student in CN, so they are times where he can't do his measurement/ research and there are times where the equipment is available but the patient is not. It irritates me that we have to go all the way to other states and stay there, just to finish up our research. Ironically, we are in the middle of KL, where supposedly all the advanced equipments should be centralised here.
Even for Clinical Psychology, the most basic facility doesn't exist - counselling labs. So the students are using empty office/classroom to conduct their therapy session. If there's no lab to do therapy, I'm not even sure whether they have psychometrics available at the campus or not.
Lecturers are good though, especially for CN. It's being spearheaded by Prof Dr Jafri, one of the leading neurosurgeon in the country.
It feels so weird that I'm studying a full life science course, at a place where no equipments given and no lab set up. And worse is, I have to pay 32k to take this Master.
Ironically, this year I'm applying for their Clinical Psychology programme.
Again, this is very specific to these two fields available, so not sure how it impacts your programme. But I really hope they improve all this.