Let's go straight to the point.
My interview was yesterday. Mom escorted me to MARA office. Arrived there 45 minutes earlier. Saw some familiar faces.Went into the office and found out that there were already some other candidates and their parents. After waiting for a while, the officer called out a few names to come into the discussion room. We went through our resume; consisting of the downloaded e-form, certified true copies of personal IC, birth certificates, academic certificates, examinations results, testimonial, school leaving certificates, extracurricular certificates, parents' IC, birth and/or death certificates, payslip, BE form, pension slip and etc. If you wish to include you school report cards, you may do so.
Actually I compiled the certified documents into a folder but the officer insisted to take everything out of the folder and clipped them together. Then we went in to wait for our turn. While waiting, had some conversation with this kid who's taking Mechanical Engineering, while I chose Chemical Engineering instead of Aeronautical Engineering. Same goes to the kid sitting to my right. They were 8 of us; 5 guys, 3 girls. Then I realised that we were the future engineers group. I was quite thrilled to know that the interview would be conducted in groups. All this while, I've been to a few seniors' blogs regarding on this matter, turns out that they used to have 2 interviewers versus 1 candidate. We were given clip-on tags with numbers. I was #1 (Sounds so cool!).
Challenge #1:
When the time has come, we were told to leave everything outside, including the original copy of our resumes. So, we went into the room empty- handed and saw the 3 most powerful people in the room; 2 men, 1 lady, in the middle of the room; 2 tables with a gap between them and there's another table at the side of the room. There were 2 bundles of raw spaghetti(uncooked version) weighing about 1kg, a pair of scissors and a reel of black thread on the table. One of the "interviewers" read out the instructions. Turns out that we were requested to build a spaghetti bridge out of the items given only. The bridge must be able to support the weight of a 0.5kg object (sardine can) within 60 seconds.We were given 30 minutes to complete the task and allowed to communicate with each other only in English. Not to brag, but we didn't encounter any problems with that since everyone was very fluent. Great job, guys! =DDD
Everyone started brainstorming about the structure of the bridge and immediately got to work. Along the way we keep adding on ideas to improve our original ideas, applying different laws of Physics. At the same time we were assessed by the panels. I could see that all of us wasn't distracted by them. Basically, we tied the spaghetti into smaller bundles and tied them together; with a few bundles of spaghetti at both ends of the bridge and a thick middle part. We managed to complete the task in time. Then the object was placed in the middle of the bridge. Waited silently for the 60 seconds to end, in case vibrations might affect the stability of the bridge.Gratefully, our bridge managed to support the object for more than 60 seconds! We congratulated each other.
Challenge #2
Subsequently, after the small celebration, we were asked to stand in a row according to our numbers. The lady-interviewer gave us each a question regarding the previous activity and we were given 60 seconds to read and think about it and another 60 seconds to answer the question.
My question was: "Do you consider your group as an effective team during this activity?". Other questions were like, ( not in the exact words) "Who do you think is the leader in your group?", " In this activity are you the leader or the follower?", " Will your group be able to complete the same task within 20 minutes?" and more.
After taking turns answering the questions, we dismantled our awesome, stable and strong bridge and then were allowed to leave the room. That's it. I thought they were going to interview us individually, but no.Thanked the "interviewers", exited the room and collected my original resume. The next group waiting for their turn was the medical group. I wonder whether they're going to do the same thing that my group and I did or something different.
My conclusion: As a group, we got along very well in a short period of time, listen and accept everyone's opinion, have the knowledge and common sense, incredible teamwork even though there's no leader; the panels should give us more time to bond so we know each others personality and strengths. Although it was a little nerve-wrecking in the beginning, in the end I had fun. Gratefully the 3 "interviewers" were cool.
That's all from me, now. I'm sure that the "interview" will be conducted the same way nationwide.
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