USM Interview 2018
It's 15 May 2018, rain pouring heavily outside the lecture room. I was patiently waiting for the Hubungan Etnik class to start while listening to some classical songs. "Message from 15888" popped out on my phone and I saw the word "USM" and immediately my pupils enlarged like the cat's. By that I would like to start my experience at USM Medical Interview. Some of you must be wondering why is he going for a medical interview when he is already in a medical school. One word: SELF-SATISFACTION (and bunch of other reasons).
25 May 2018 : Left Ipoh at 1.45 pm and reached Kubang Kerian around 7.00 pm. The most exciting part of the journey was of course passing the Tasik Temenggor bridge.
26 May 2018: So I woke up around 5.50 am and started to read some information on USM that I did not manage to cover yesterday such as the Chancellor's name, APEX 9 thrusts and also the difference between sympathy and empathy (this was later asked in the interview :D).
I had 2 breads for my breakfast and dashed out in my dad's car to USM. Upon arrival, I was looking at the buildings around the campus in case they asked, "Why did you choose USM?" I could answer - there are a lot of facilities around the campus such as football fields, netball field and others ensuring that students have a balance between studying and social life.
After arriving at the main building (not sure about the name), my parents dropped me and I went in to register. I was astonished that the queue was 5 times longer than Nasi Ganja usual queue (means it is freaking long probably 150 students in that line). I went to the back of the queue and joined the queue. Since the queue was so long, I was wondering whether to take a picture and post in on Snapchat but then I was afraid of being judged by other students, so that didnt happen.
After a hiatus of about 15 minutes, the queue starting moving and soon after I was already in the other small queues for registering. Basically there were 8 small queues and this will later become your group for the interview session. One more thing is that although they had stated in the interview letter that applicant are required to bring the certificates such as SPM, STPM, MUET and koko, they didn't ask for them during the registration.
After registering, they gave us an ID tag with the group, session and starting station and asked us to take a sit in the designated area. I think we waiting there until 8.45 am. Later, some of the USM staffs will then direct and bring us to the interview building. All the groups in one session will be brought up to the interview building. There we waited for another 45 minutes. Finally the interview started.
The interview consists of 9 stations (7 active and 2 rest stations). In that 7 active stations, 2 were essay writing and 5 were the one-to-one interviews based on the question given outside the interview room. And each station has 2 minutes to read the question and 5 minutes to give your answer to the interviewer.
Station 1: Rest
Station 2: Your neighbor went to see to a doctor and the doctor instructed her to do mammogram. There were several instructions given by the doctor but your neighbor and her child does not seem to understand them. You are still a student who is waiting to enter higher education. How will you describe the instructions to the neighbor's child? [This is the one that involves an actor and you need to interact with the actor] (Answer in English or BM) But since the actor (a senior I believe) started to speak in Malay I also continued speaking in Malay.
Station 3: Anda dikehendaki menulis langkah -langkah untuk memain salah satu Permainan Tradisional. (Answer in BM)
Station 4: Your friend lost his family and his 2 brother. He now stays with his uncle and wants to commit suicide. He tell you about it and asked you not to tell anyone. What will you do? (Answer in English)
Station 5: Rest
Station 6: Decribe the medical curriculum in general and also the curriculum in USM. (Answer in BM or English I think)
Station 7: Apakah pengajaran-pengajaran anda boleh perolehi dari video tersebut? This is the video
Beggar (Answer in Malay). This was my last station and the interviewer kept asking for more and more pengajaran lol.
Station 8: You are driving motorcycle and carrying an envelope with RM2000 on a busy road. However, the envelope dropped on the road. You saw an old woman picking up something from the road. You approached her and she denied taking the envelope. What will you do and justify. (Answer in English). This was my first station. It was really bothering me like what do they want us to write.
Station 9: Describe your talent or something you overcame or __________ (cant remember). (Answer in BM). I think I performed not so good in this station as I started off telling my talent is drawing and doing wooden crafts and then the interviewer wanted to know and then I forgot many terms that are used in wooden craving in Malay so IDK lol.
Group Work: You will be given 20 minutes to prepare and 2 minutes to present. My topic was to present to Year 6 students about Excess Sugar Problems. Here you need to be careful : Some individuals are parasites here, literally parasites - they will discuss with you everything but then during the presentation they will speak beyond their required task and taking people's point. So do WATCH OUT.
At the end, they will bring you down to a room for you to answer how was the interview, what can be improved, how was the group activity - More like a feedback. I don't think they will take into account this feedback as it had no name.
In summary,
* Prepare early and know about common situations and their solutions.
* Read a lot about USM - about APEX, their curriculum and etc
* Don't panic during the interview (Breath)
* Have fun! (Don't remember your points like a computer, instead know the main points and some keywords on the elaboration so you will seem more natural)
Don't worry they will give briefing before the interview.
