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An A1 in science and mathematics is not a prerequisite to get into engineering, said Fariny Shamsudin, senior energy and utilities technologist at Shell Malaysia.

Speaking at this year’s Star Education Fair’s career talk on engineering, she shared, “It is interest in science, not ability, that is important. Contrary to common belief, engineering is not as difficult as people think.”

Like other careers, she added, passion for the field is a must.

This year, engineering drew a bigger crowd than previous years as students and parents packed the conference hall to hear the experts talk about their respective fields. Surprised by the tremendous response to the engineering career talk, another speaker, Multimedia University Engineering Faculty associate dean Assoc Prof Dr Lee Sze Wei said:
“Engineering has always been a hot career choice but medicine was hotter. Perhaps parents are now more wary of the huge investment they have to make for their children to take up medicine.”

He added that parents can rest assured that the opportunities in engineeering are diverse.

“It is very difficult to predict the trends in the field but parents need not worry because engineering graduates are versatile and can get into any profession. The engineering field is expanding as Malaysia becomes more developed.”

He also advised parents and students not to be over-concerned abo[ut the trends in the field because the study of engineering is a training of the mind and provides enough basic knowledge for graduates to adapt to market trends.

The third speaker on the engineering panel, Ashaari Md Yakub, executive director with the Board of Engineers Malaysia, told students that they could ring the Institute of Engineers Malaysia to check if an engineering programme meets professional standards. Parent Lau Ah Chwee said she could not help worrying about the constantly changing trends.

“At the end of the day, we want our children to get good jobs. The information from this talk has been really useful to help my child choose his specialisation carefully.”

Technorati Tags: engineer job, shell malaysia, malaysia job

Malaysia Government has been urged to revise fuel prices in the country to ease the burden on the people, reported Nanyang Siang Pau.

The daily quoted Hua Zong (Federation of Chinese Associations of Malaysia) president Datuk Seri Lim Gait Tong as saying that Malaysia should consider reducing oil prices as the price of crude oil had fallen to below US$50 (RM175) a barrel.

Other countries, including China and United States, had already reduced prices.

“The Government, which raised oil prices in the country when global prices increased, should make a reverse decision now that the prices have dropped,” he said.

Last Friday, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said the Government would monitor the situation before deciding whether to revise fuel prices.

On another matter, the daily quoted Seven Major Clans Association co-ordination committee chairman Datuk Ng Teck Fong as saying that they had set up youth and women working committees to co-ordinate programmes and activities and not to compete with other organisations.

“There are a lot of activities that need a lot of manpower to handle but we are very short-handed, as we do not have our own secretariat to manage these activities,” he said.

He added that the setting up of the two subsidiary committees was to assist its main body and not to create factions or conflicts.

“We are not creating a fight here but trying to fulfil our responsibility to promote Chinese culture,” he said.

Technorati Tags: malaysia government

Maths and Science teachers in malaysia are set to be tested for their English proficiency by the Ministry of Education, and they may find themselves having to go back to school to polish up their English.

The test will commence next month, where the teachers will be tested stage by stage, before they can be allowed to continue teaching the 2 subjects competently. Accoding to Teacher Training division director, if they do not perform well, they will be required to attend courses in English.

According to him, the one-off evaluation is aimed at improving their communication skills and ensuring that they have a good command of the language in all areas, including vocabulary and pronunciation.

“We want them to attain a certain level of competency in teaching the subjects,” he added.

The test will have a written component, an assessment of listening skills and multiple-choice answers for the grammar section.

The teaching of the two subjects in English was introduced in Year One, Form One and Lower Six in 2003. But since then, many parents have voiced concerns over the quality of teaching the subjects.

Their children, they said, were unable to follow the lessons properly as the teachers were less than proficient in English.

Technorati Tags: malaysia education, malaysia ministry of education

Your profession and your career for the next 10 years or so has many to do with what you decide today. You should have a goal or objective of what you want to achieve in the next 5 years, 10 years, 15 years and so on. This is the essence of goal setting.

The school teach you the academic and passing the papers but it does not taught you to make decisions and create goals. However this does not mean you can’t learn to master goal setting. Sometimes we are being so obsessed and enthusiastics with our goals but at the end we realize that we do not achieve our objectives.

There seem to be something wrong with the alignment of your goal structure and the implemenation. And this was either contributed by external and internal factors, in which some of them we do not realize.

What could they be?

1. No black and white.

The principle of goal setting says that you must make your goals visible in the form of writing and documentation. If you store your goals in your mind they will diminish at a rate faster than you can think of. By writing, you have turned an imaginary thinking into a solid substance where you can see it over and over.

Off course, that being said, you can’t just write your goals in a page of a book, put it back in the shelf, and return to your daily routine. The goals must be viewed frequently from time to time to ensure at all times you know what you want to achieve and to ensure that you’re on the right track in achieving your goals.

2. You don’t have beliefs in yourself

Without believe and faith it is literally impossible for you to achieve what you want to achieve. Today you say to yourself you want to be financially independence in 15 years. Tomorrow you come back to the goal, analyze it and say that you can only achieve that in 20 years. The next day it becomes 25 years. On the next day the goal goes up in the smoke.
You will also not be able to capitalize your potential, strengths and talents to your advantage, because you yourself are unsure what you can do best. If you don’t trust yourself, then who will?

3. The fear factor

The feeling of fear. You think by having a goal, you’re putting yourself in a pressure cooker. You will be doomed if you can’t achieve your goals. If you watch “The Dodgeball” movie, the main character (Vince Vaughn) was asked by his lawyer what his goals are, to which he said, “I don’t have any, I don’t have goals, I don’t have pressure. And that feels good.”

Those with negative thoughts think that goals set will always be impossible to achieve. Hence they stop imagining and dreaming. He will only think of the problems arise whenever he put up some objectives, so in the end the say, “Let’s don’t have any.” They will also worry that by having goals, they will face the consequences of facing the people surrounding them who might say, “What happen to your goal?”, “Why can’t you achieve it?”, “I told you so”, and so on.

4. A “part-time” goal setter

You set goals just to make sure you feel good. You can tell your relatives, your friends, your office mates that you have goals. Sometimes you have too many goals eventually you lose focus. For example, you intend to become an actor when you turn 26 and at the same time aiming to be a doctor, and a part time sports commentator.Or maybe after 6 months, you have a completely different goals, and you forget those you have set 6 months back.
Good to have goals but if as far as goal reaching and implementation is concerned, you’re nowhere near, so might as well you forget about everything.

Technorati Tags: goal setting