Approaching my goal

Time flies by. Like a blink of an eye, half of the year 2010 has passed. Here I am, working towards my ultimate goal “To obtain my MBA”. Been in the US for nearly a year, I have learned so much about life, work and goals. Last few weeks seems to be the happiest time for me because my parents came here to visit. I had a chance to take them around to explore the sights around D.C, some of which I have not even been to.

Job opportunities here are plentiful. However, paperwork to obtain those opportunities have proven to be a very challenging task for me as everyone here needs a permit to work, a fancy thing which I do not possess. Nevertheless, I have been searching for any chance to obtain one, god knows when I will have one but one thing I know that when there’s a will, there’s a way. I do not know whether I have enough time to fulfill my goals while I’m here nor sufficient funding from my parents to further my education, I just hope that things work out well eventually so that I can get a job I desire.

Bottom line, living here is a joy and I never regret being here. Til next time.

New theme

I found this theme to be quite attractive and professional. I will stick to this one until WordPress releases some other new ones.

College’s blog

Eventually, my letter has been posted on my college’s blog.

Click here to read my testimony.

The letter

I had the luxury of having a great lecturer during final year at college. Apparently, I need a recommendation letter from one of my lecturers so that I can prove to my employer how good I was during my college time. Not that I was among the best students anyway, but for sure that I was around the middle range and that gotta count for something. In return, she asked me to write a letter of sharing experiences to those fresh intake students. I felt it was an honored so I agreed. Writing an essay seems really troublesome and time consuming, it happened to me too. Eventually, I finished off the letter which consists of 2 A4 pages. I do not know whether it was enough or not but who could write that long anyway?

Note: my letter will be posted in the blog, hopefully it is the college’s blog.

THE EXPERIENCES AT RMIT PROGRAMME

First of all, I would like to say congratulation to all of you and welcome to Taylors College. I believe that college orientation can be very intimidating event for new students. However, it is also a proof, a turning point for you to realize that high school life has passed and time to put some serious thoughts into how you like to become in the future and set out your career path.

Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Hoang Anh Vu (Rick), I am a Vietnamese. I was undertaking RMIT Program majoring Information Technology hosted by Taylors College for 3 years from 2005 to 2008 and just had my graduation in February 2009. Been there done that, RMIT program is a great program whereby you can learn and practice at the same time. The program is designed in such a way that encourages students to work in team and use your ability to finish the assignments on time.

The reason I write this letter is to share to everyone my experience when studied at Taylors College. Time spent in Malaysia in general and at Taylors in particular can be described in two words: Fun and Stressful. It is fun because here I came to know quite a number of friends who then become my great companions during my time study here. It is stressful because as university students, we are expected to self update and self learn. Therefore, only few days of slacking off can really slow me down in the study process.

One of the most popular words that I often heard here was assignments. RMIT assignments are generally difficult and hard to chew. Saying this does not mean they are totally obsolete, as the matter of fact, it is the other way around. One of the best ways to do revision and prepare for exams is to work hard on the assignments handed by the lecturers and finish them well. As I have experienced this in my first year as a fresh student, I did not consider seriously the value of getting the assignments done on time; I was then suffered later in the exams and ultimately failed one of the four subjects taken that year. Regret is only too late for that. From that time on, I learned that if I can do assignments by myself, the chances of me getting high grades in the subjects are guaranteed.

Other matter that I was told from time to time by the lecturers is plagiarism. I strongly believe that this term is really familiar to all of us. As students, we are taught to obey the rules and from time to time, we tend to do the opposite. It is acceptable in common sense as a human being. However in Taylors College as a student, plagiarism is strictly prohibited and will be carried out professionally. During my time of study here, the temptation of copying someone’s works is unbearable even though I knew it would get me penalized severely. In order to avoid having to copy, paying attention in class and try to finish up all the tutorials and lab exercises are the only ways. The more I tried to self learn, the more confident I became and in the end assignments were not difficult after all.

Making friend is another factor that I consider to be most important aspect of my life as an international computing student. I had the luxury of meeting a lot international students from our neighboring countries. As there was a saying:”It is not the matter who you are, it is who you know”, being friendly and social are key factors to be successful in this line of work. Friend relationship in college can be complicated due to the differences in nationalities and multicultural environment that we have at Taylors College. Having a buddy alongside you will be a great advantage. A friend can help you explain stuff that you do not understand from lectures; a friend can team up with you and get along well, no quarrels whatsoever. Therefore, in order to get along well, you have to mix well; lower down your ego a few knots is proven to be very wise and useful in the long run. By saying this, I do not mean using friends as a tool to proceed in life. In fact, fewer quarrels mean more works done and a friendlier environment. Imagine if you are hated by everyone in your course because of your attitude, your behavior, and your life would not be so enjoyable at Taylors. I tried to remind me from time to time that my objective here is to accomplish my duty as a student and graduate proudly which eventually I did.

Personally, I was not among the best students in my badge. Therefore, self motivation and discipline are really important to me. RMIT program can be really fun but also really challenging. Subjects provided by RMIT are somehow linked to each other from basic to advance. If there was one subject that I did not grab its core, then I knew there would be problem for me in the next semester. One thing I have realized after 3 years studying at Taylors is that computing knowledge is glued together like a chain and if a part of it is cut off then that would mean the whole chain will be destroyed. Therefore, focus at the beginning is crucial fact which will then contribute to your success in the future.

Programming skill in computing is considered to be most important skill so far that I know. It will only help you in doing your assignments and satisfying the most demanding employers. Java and C are the two programming languages that I found useful due to their popularity in the job hunting market. If this skill is polished nicely at the beginning, you will find the RMIT program is really enjoyable since most of it is based on programming, the other bit is on web and database.

Finally, to conclude this letter, I would like to say that even though time spent at Taylors is stressful and challenging, I found it meaningful and paid off well. The experiences that I have obtained during my time here are proven useful in my job hunting task. Good luck to all of you, you have made right choice, now it is up to you to make a difference in your life. Farewell.

Taxi in Kuala Lumpur

First of all, I would like to apologize to friends of mine who are currently staying in KL and consider Malaysia as their secondary country. The purpose of writing this post is not entirely for criticism. As the matter of fact, it is more like a guideline and the exposure of truth that anyone needs to know and deal with.

As anyone who has stayed in Malaysia, or particularly in Kuala Lumpur, the very first interesting thing that you will encounter is the taxi service here. The funny thing is that taxi meter here always works but also never works if you know what i mean. If anyone wishes to go for taxi here, bargain skill is needed in order to avoid getting ripped off too much. I have to emphasize too much here because either this way or the other, the passenger will get ripped off.

I, for many times, felt annoyed everytime coming here only because of this great service. As i was an international student, moving around the city was impossible due to no personal transportation. It ultimately became even more difficult for me because the only way to go around is by taxi.

In fact, taxi drivers here are excellent businessmen not only for their rip off skill but also their sense of location and time. The picture above was taken in front of my condo, a beautiful place which i called home for the last 3 years. These godfathers in the pictures are my regulars and the area where they park their cars can be called their encampment.  I had a feeling that i would build a small house there before which they would if it was not for the complaints of the local residents. They camp their 20 hours a day including weekends and holiday offering services to anyone who needs going around with extremely ridiculous price rate. Their offer price depends upon the condition of the present weather and the distant to the destination. For instance, from my condo to the nearest shopping complex which is SunwayPyramids will cost me RM7 (normal price for this would be RM4 if go by meter). Rainy day, price could go up to RM10 like nothing.

“Excellent service” is one thing, passengers here when taking taxi have to keep in mind to taste all sort of smells in the cab (sh**hole i might call it). It felt like shower is something real fancy to this particular class of people.

Coupon system does exist in KL. Many of you might wonder what that is. It can be explained in simple way, passengers need to pay fare first before boarding the cab which in the end get ripped off due to the expensive price. For me, it is a strange way of living because taking a cab is a fancy way but in KL, it is even more fancy due high price and useless meter system.

Living in KL is fun and personally i had a lot of good memories there. People are friendly, living cost is not too expensive compared to neighbour countries, infrastructure is outstanding. With such reputation, it is questionable that why taxi scam still exists. I certainly hope sometimes in the future, the government here should really do something to stop this madness from territorizing the city and destroying the good names that Malaysians have worked hard to build up.