JPA 2010: Interview Experience Sharing

[Window7]

Since the jpa interview for year 2009 begins tomorrow (5 april), i thought this might be the right time to start this thread. those who attend the interview process this year earlier, like tomorrow, please feel free to post your experience, questions asked during the interview and advice to those who are about to attend the interview on later date so that everyone can benefit from it. i know, there are already a lot of post about jpa interview... but this one is specifically for this years interview exp by candidates who attend the interview from 5-9th april....and try not to post questions, just exp, opinion and advice...strictly regarding this year's interview. finally, good luck everyone...

Anyway, jpa interview candidates can start posting from tomorrow(5 April).

[zarionette]

Let's have a posting format here so things will look neater, just like the previous years' thread. So, i suggest we use this format:

Course Applied:

Venue:

Experience: (Include everything here la. eg intro, topic of discussion etc.)

Rating: x/10 (How much do you rate your performance.)

Advice/Additional info: (if there're any.)

Any better suggestions?

[TearsInMemory]

Course Applied: Medicine

Venue: Pustaka Negeri Sarawak, Kuching

Experience: Introduction in BM (Name, school, family background) They will ask you
more if they want to know more.

Questions from interviewers (Eng/BM) Choose one language which you can
answer well. In my panel (2), mostly the one in the middle will ask you the
questions. The two beside her will ask/shoot you based on your answers and
they are writing most of the time, not sure what are they writing. Consist of
3 interviewers, doctors or officers form health department. My group consists
of 4 medicine & 1 dentistry with 3 boys and 2 girls which includes me. They
asked about what we learned from the Program Pendedahan Kerjaya Seorang
Doktor except for the one applying for Dentistry and why we choose this
course. Then they asked about which country you chose to go and the
reasons for it. The questions that they asked us were mainly about our
career. Our interview lasted less than 1 hour. I think our interview was quite
relaxing as there was not group discussion and they didn't give us any topics
to discuss. I think maybe mostly our group members are applying for Medicine
so they asked more about our career. By the way, there are 2 rooms for the
interview, I am in Room 2 so I'm not sure about how the interviewers will ask
for the Room 1. That's all for my experience that I can share with you all,
hope it helps.

Rating: 8/10

Advices/Additional info: Just try to be yourself when you are answering the questions
and you have to really know what you really want and yourself,
always smile and be confidence in your speaking and they are
testing your maturity when they ask you questions so make sure
you answer maturely. For your information, there are 8,610
interviewees and only 1,500 will be selected. The results will be out on
May.

All the best for those who are attending the interview & May God Bless You! ;)

[choopc2]

Course Applied: Dentistry - Putrajaya

Experience: I was in panel 14, 1st group.. there

[Gordorca]

Course Applied: Pharmacy

Venue: Intan Kampus, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah.

Experience: Our interview group happened to be the first of the day. In a way, can be said as lucky. My group consisted of 2 males and 3 females. 3 applying for medic, 1 for dentistry and another for pharmacy (Me!). The interview panel consisted for 3 officials. 1 was a doctor, the other 2 I wasn't certain as they didn't quite introduce themselves beyond their names. Introduction was done in English but it was just a very brief one. We were then asked to introduce more thoroughly, that is including our parent's occupations and co-curricular achievements as well as what course we took. Each of us took sort of a lengthy while. The interview panel was especially keen to 'shoot' us if our mothers' happened to be a housewife. That is, ask us if a housewife is really considered a job, how we can we pay for our mothers if it really is a job, etc.

From there, the interview panel then asked each of us in further detail why we chose our course. Personally, I felt I messed up this part as I mentioned that pharmacists can both prescribe and dispense drugs to patients... One of the interview panel advised me to read up more on the roles of pharmacists and how they differ from doctors >.>. Got rather embarrassed there. I did manage to save it (I think!) when the interviewer asked me further details on pharmacy. For example, are traditional medicines a good thing and should they be stocked in pharmacies? I answered yes to both, and elaborated on it a a a bit. I used the "Mata kuching" as my example, stating it is said to cure diabetes and can be used as to 'buang angin. Also, i was asked this partly in English, and partly in Malay. Another person who mentioned his inspiration to be a doctor was because he had a lot of ailing relatives, one of them happened to have passed away from hepatitis B. One of the interview panel who happened to be the doctor pressed him on this. Asking him how much he knew about Hepatitis such as how it is transmitted and how many forms there are... the guy only got the transmission part right. There was then another, a girl also aspiring to be a doctor, who mentioned she initially wanted to be a nurse. The interviewer pressed her on this and asked her how important is a nurse's role in health care and from there pressed her on the role of infection control. For the final part of the interview, we were then reminded that we will have to return to nation to serve the goverment as there have been many cases of graduates refusing to return after they finished their course. We were also very briefly asked which country we wanted to study in and why.

Also, here's a funny thing. We didn't have a group discussion in the end. Our interview ended sorta abruptly as it seems like the interviewers have misjudged how long the introduction and personal questions part took and hence decided to omit the group discussion part. Could be because we were the very first group to be interviewed.. I had a bad feeling it might reflect badly on ALL of us though. Lucky us perhaps as well, but I can't help but feel a bit disappointed as I felt it could be a better chance to shine for me and also because I actually put a fair bit of effort getting to know the current events and likely topics they'll ask.

In a nutshell, the interview went alright. The interviewers were rather friendly folks, adding a few jokes here and there to lighten the mood and perhaps ease the tension. And I didn't happen to lose all my words at any crucial period. At the very end, I was the only one who shook hands with the panels, but they said it wasn't necessary... Not sure if that was a good thing...

Addendum: The whole interview was 80% English, 20% BM for our group.

Rating: 7/10

Advice/Additional info: Conclusion? Careful with what you say, seems like it WILL be used against you one way or another later in the interview, so better know your stuff instead of just spitting out whatever you have in mind! Read up on your course's roles, how and where to study it and such among other things. Also, one of the persons interviewed didn't alter his language when the interviewer altered his and that got him nicely told in the end. So, please bear in mind that if you're asked in BM, answer in BM and same goes for English.

And one more thing, don't be shy to chat and get to know the others who are going for the interview as well. Not only will this perhaps train your tongue and confidence, it'll also roughly help you judge your chances of nailing the scholarship. My batch had a large majority of aspiring doctors and dentists, and only a small handful of aspiring pharmacists... could be a good thing, but one can never be sure with assumptions like these.

Final notes: All the best for the rest who have yet to take the interview!

[Calculator]

Ketereh
8.00am
5th of April 2010
PILN


7.15 am Just a few souls wandering around.

8.00am Getting more and more crowded as students and parents all stand around the front door

8.15am Announcing the arrivals of the interviewers!

8.20am Scrambled up the stairs and elevator.

8.21am Waiting waiting waiting...

8.30am Handed in my clear folder at the table in front of Bilik Baidurah (or something I
can't remember)

8.32am My name was called and I was given a tag with the number 4. Pinned it on my Baju Kurung.

8.33am Sat down in the chair outside Bilik Baidurah and chit chatted with fellow interviewees. All of them chose medicine while I chose dentistry.

9.00am Still chatting, getting more and more nervous.

9.10am The people from the first group walked out of the Bilik Baidurah telling us to answer in BM if they asked in BM, and answer in English if they asked in English.

9.15am Our turn!!!! Walked in, said "Good morning." Managed to force out a smile. Well I hope it was a smile. Too nervous.

9.15am to 10.30am

"Good morning."

"Yes, good morning. This session will last for approximately 45 minutes. We will now begin with a short introduction of yourselves. Anyone can start first." Said the first interviewer who was an Indian.

I can't really remember what language he used so I answered him in my own Rojak style. One sentence with half of it in BM and the other in English.

After that, he said "Please answer the following in English. If you were to be selected by JPA and after your studies, JPA wants to send you to work in rural areas where you have to climb hills, take sampans and all, are you willing to do so? We'll give you two minutes to jot down your points and then we'll discuss."

After 15 seconds, or so it seemed to me, he said,"Anyone can start first." I didn't start first. I was the third one or the second one to answer. Can't remember. Well of course everyone said that they are willing to do so. My answer? I said yes too. Even though pacat is one of my worst phobias, I would go hill climbing or whatever to reach my destination because those challenges I'll meet is nothing compared to what our patients are facing. I was thinking,"wow, where did that come from. LOL" Then he says,"you have to realise that you are there for not only two or three months but maybe for 6 to 10 years. Everyday kena pacat gigit." I said,"I'll spray spray lah. An obligation is an obligation. JPA has given me education and I'll definitely pay it back by contributing to the society."

Then, it was another Malay Lady's turn to ask. "Why do you want to study overseas? Why not Malaysia?" There we had a small debate. More like a discussion. We, the interviewees were quite united actually. We supported each others' points and sticked to why we wanted to go to overseas. Among the reasons we gave were "1. Experience 2. Exposure 3. To be independent 4. Malaysia is home, we feel safe here. 5. To be more adaptable in different surroundings" The interviewers were united as well, they kept on saying that medicine in Malaysia is not bad, Malaysia produces the best doctors in Malaysia. (Yes, I revised the sentence already, that was what she said.)

In between the Indian interviewer and the Malay Lady was another Malay Lady who was a doctor. She didn't ask much questions but responded to our answers lah and also helped promote Malaysia and all.

They did ask where do we want to go and I answered "UK". They said JPA will not be sending students to the UK, Ireland or where ever that we said we wanted to go to. We were asked to choose between India and Indonesia. T.T Leaving us with no choice, most of us chose to go to India.

They didn't really "shoot" us that badly. We managed to survive unscathed. Before going out of Bilik Baidurah, we were allowed to ask a few questions. I asked how many students are going to be given the JPA scholarship this year. They explained saying that this year, there are about 10 thousand applicants and they are going to choose about 1500 students from each course applied? Not sure what I heard. (CITATION NEEDED)

So we shook hands, thanked them and walked out of the room. We couldn't go home just yet because they took our clear folder into another room for some people to check. Mysterious man~
So we continued to chit chat and we all agreed that it was fun and enjoyable, not as tough as we thought it would be because lucky for us, we weren't asked about current issues like H1N1 or so.

Note: The above experience happened in a blink of an eye. I'm trying hard to recall what had actually happened. The above story told might not be 100% true.


Ahhh!!! I hope I'll get it. *fingers crossed*

RAting? I don;t know. Can someone rate me?

Advice: Don't give lengthy answers but answers that actually means something. Does that make sense? It's not how much words you say but the message that you're trying to convey.


GOOD LUCK!

[ChiaYi]

Course Applied: Medicine

Venue: Sekolah Menengah Sains Tengku Abdullah, Raub, Pahang.

Group:
I was in the second group of the first panel. There were 4 chinese, including me, and my malay friend Fatihah! 2 medicine, 1 dentistry, 1 vet, and 1 pharmacy. I got a small number tag with the number 2!

Self-introduction(BM):
We can talk about anything we want. So I talked about my name, parents' occupation, course chosen, co-curriculum achievement, highest post held at school!

Questions:
Before they (there were 3 of them) started asking us questions, they told us that they expect us to answer in BM if we were asked in BM, and answer in english if we were asked in that language.

1) Why choose medicine?
2) Why choose overseas over local?
3) Quality of water in Malaysia
4) Common cancer in Malaysia
5) Stress management

These were one of the big topics that we discussed together. The interviewers tend to pop out some random questions, asked particularly to a few person.

For me:
1) Would you work in rural places?
Of course I said yes.
2) Would you work in Kuala Tahan?
I said yes!
3) Do you know where is Kuala Tahan?
I said... err, nope! (all the interviewers laugh like mad! )

Rating:
8/10
I don't know if I did well, or was it just an illusion. The interviewers were very nice to us but then again, they might just failed us all! (touch wood)

Advices:
For me, I think the most important part is to speak something that you are really confirmed of. For example, there was this group member of mine who talked about a particular information about something, but in truth, his fact was wrong and the interviewer had to correct him and his misconception in front of other interviewers openly. To me, this was really not a good impression to give. Just try to relax!

Important:
1) Don't shake you leg
2) Don't cross your leg
3) Don't look at the ceiling while you talk
4) Don't look at the carpet while you talk
5) Don't end and start your sentence with "errr.......i hor...."

Other than that, I think I did quite okie. Hopefully it is not just a dream of pure illusion to me! Overall, it was really a great experience! Even though I couldn't get it, I still think I had a wonderful time! (touch wood)

Good luck to all!

By the way, when is the result coming out?

[Nicholasng925]

Originally Posted by ChiaYi

By the way, when is the result coming out?

Middle or end of May.

[Glassylicious]

In the interests of a smooth flow in this topic, may I request that all interview-related questions be channeled to the JPA Interview Discussion thread? =) Let's leave this one for Experience Sharing only, mkay?

Edit: All posts asking interview-related questions will be moved to the "Big Thread On JPA Scholarships", so be warned.

[BattleBoyz]

I'm posting this based on my friend's interview held this morning.

Course applied : Dentistry - Ipoh

Self-introduction (English+BM): As usual, names, high school, parents' job, brief infos on coco

Questions:
1. Why dentistry.
2. Why overseas instead of local since Malaysia provide similar education as other countries.
3. Asked questions based on coco (e.g. my friend participated in national bible quiz, the interviewer asked her to compare islam with christian/also in her team got another soccer player asked about the recent soccer match)
4. Bincangkan konsep 1 Malaysia.
5. Lets say the 3 of us (interviewers) are children, can you tell us how to brush our teeth correctly. (my friend's friend that went in before her have to answer this question)

Good luck to those that will be going to interview tomorrow!!