First of all this is more of my personal recollection of how I studied in PASUM and thus take everything I wrote as one way your own experience could turn out. I just want put this out here so that one day I can look back on this moment of my life, 'kay? Okay! Let's get into it.
I'll divide this post into a few sections.
I. Living Condition
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| Roomies |
The facilities available are sufficient. The dorm is divided into blocks in a building that has an open courtyard in the middle. Think of a rectangle shaped donut. Each block consists of four rooms, and then there is a communal bathroom for the four rooms to share. So there isn't that much competing for stalls happening in the morning. But keep in mind that other blocks have different layouts.
Also, on each floor we get ONE washing machine that runs on coins and bank notes. It costs at least RM2 to get your clothes cleaned. My advice is to either place you clothes in front of the machine and keep track of the time until other people finish using it or to wash your clothes really late at night on a midweek rather than wait until the weekend.
Here's a living hack special for you guys. In the Awana block we have foreign and graduates students living on the ground floor and there's actually a pantry for them to use. Personally, I think it's for the whole block but it seems that the graduates students gets special perks. Anyway, there are two fridges and two microwaves that you guys can utilize! So if you have leftover food you can store them in the fridge and reheat it later with the microwave muahaha. Not many people know of this pantry so keep this secret well haha. Just fyi though, during my stay someone freaking left some fish bones in the microwave and left it to rot for about a week! Yummm *pukes* The pantry is not necessarily clean :( But hey beggars can't be choosers, yeah?
II. Studying There
Now we're finally on to the juicy parts *wiggles eyebrow*
One thing that might not happen to everyone is that I actually went for my umrah right after the orientation week so I missed one of the most crucial period which was the first lecture. So I'll just lay down the basic daily routine once you get past the first two weeks which are mostly introductions. You will have two type of classes; the first one is lectures. It's as simple as it sounds, you sit in a lecture hall an hour each for each subject and you learnnn. But if you're me and my roommate this is when we take shifts on our naps. Hahah but seriously don't do this or you'll shit your pants on your midterm exams. It didn't help that on my first week after getting back from makkah and madinah it was my first lecture and also my first time fasting away from home. It wore me out quite a bit. I suggest that this is the time you jot down some notes or snap some pics of the slides up front. Or if you've read ahead and already know what the hell the lecturer is on about, you could definitely work on your tutorials while listening. Tutorials are just worksheets that you'll have to complete every week for every subject.
So speaking of tutorials you will need to have it done before your tutorial classes which you will have in addition to your lectures. You might have a few lectures and a couple of tutorial classes in a day. Essentially, this is the time you go over questions with your tutors and do a little discussion. Your attendance will be quite important for this since if you miss three classes they will strike you out and you will be barred from attending your exams. (Or so I heard, hmmm. Have yet to see this in action though.) Typically, you'll discuss your tutorial and that's it. But a few tutors are known to assign group projects and presentations, so make sure that you get on well with your classmates. They will be your family for the duration of the year so it's up to you how you want that experience to go. Fortunately, my class was pretty chill and we got along swell.
As for textbooks, I personally suggest to wait a few weeks before getting them. It could either be a total waste of money or a valuable investment. There were so many people who bought books on the first week as if their life depended on it and then left it to collect dust on their shelf for the rest of the year... A good idea is to team up with your roommates and each get a different textbook to share. You guys will be in the same room all the time anyway and your class schedule usually is different too. The subjects that I think you SHOULD get a textbook is definitely Chemistry and maybe Physics. For Chemistry, it's because there will be a lot of memorizing and understanding the theory that is explained much simpler in the book than in the lecture. For Physics, the textbook will provide you a lot of additional practices that you will definitely need!
III. Extra Curricular
Unlike matriculation, we are not forced to join any clubs or sports activities if we don't want to. You can easily get away with not joining anything but the chance is there WILL be something that you want to join, trust me! There are sooooo many activities throughout the year that you have to be totally anti-social not to join any. Most importantly, you will get merits for anything you join and this will contribute to your university application later.
Okay, so a few events are required for you to join. These are mostly events held by the college committees and you could get called to see the principal if you don't join them. There aren't that many of these kind of events anyway. For example, there will be a Ramadhan celebration, an Aidilfitri celebration, and talks by various speakers. They are quite entertaining so just go along with it :)
As for committees and clubs there are quite a lot. The most popular is the JTK. If you have a country, then you will have the politicians right. So in my mind I see them as the politicians of the college. They will be the ones who make all the activities happen and they do all the behind the scene work. I don't really want to get into them that much since I wasn't a part of it haha. But I do know for a fact that you have to be able to balance your time very well since this position will eat away all your sleep time and put a lot of responsible for others on your shoulder. Not some lightweight stuff yo. You guys can check out the website for some clarification.(http://www.kuaz.um.edu.my/jikjtk.html)
What I can elaborate more are the clubs. There will probably be a club that you are interested in joining or you could petition to have your own club opened. I think there was one student who started a pretty cool art club! Back in my days, I joined two clubs. One was a charity based club in which I was the treasurer and we had to raise funds to give away to charity and fund other projects that needed it. There were sooo many ups and downs being part of the club xD Another one was Green Rangers. It's more of an environment club where we collected recyclables and sold them every month. We did some campaign to raise awareness on the subject too. This club could be fun if you guys can come up with creative ideas to make recycling fun!
Pheww, I think that's about it. I think I've covered most of the things that I most people are interested to know. Sorry that it's a bit lengthy but this is more of my personal journal more than anything :) Feel free to ask anything that I have left out down in the comment.
