Looking back to my form 6 life.

In this millennial era, there are so many platforms for us to further our study. After going through the nationwide examination of SPM (A must examination for students from public secondary school in Malaysia and O-level equivalent), the Form 5 graduates will be struggling to look for which 'road' is suitable for them to pursue their studies. Indeed, there are a few of examples you can opt to go to University. For instances, Form 6 (STPM, Sijil Tinggi Persekolahan Malaysia), A-Level, Matriculation (Public U or Private U), University's foundation programme or even straight to Diploma.

 

(Video of  "The positive and negative impression of form 6" in Mandarin Chinese)

However, today I am going to share my life experience when I was a Form 6 student.

I recalled when I just finished my SPM exam in 2015, my relatives started to ask me which 'road' I will going to choose later... I've told them I want to study for accountancy. Then, most of them kept suggesting me to go for Private University's foundation as that's the fastest platform to get into University. Nonetheless, I just throwing these suggestions into 'tong sampah' (dustbin) and tell them I want to go for Form 6. Most of them even my father and my mother were discouraging me to go for Form 6 as they said there are so many opportunities for me to further my study and why form 6 leh? I replied them like this, I like Form 6 very much ah! Cui ah! (I stubbornly wanted to choose this hellish pathway)...

Soon after I was a form 6 student, my life is totally different... I can't be slacking anymore after school since there are many homework (more than in "Arus Perdana" (Secondary School). Although students only require to take for minimum 4 subjects in STPM (included Pengajian Am subject as a compulsory subject of STPM), that doesn't mean you can slack for the whole time. That one year and the half was the hellish part in my life. Once you delayed to do your homework, tomorrow will be more homework for you until you couldn't handle them later. Therefore, you should get rid of laziness when you get into Form 6 life.

Expectation vs Reality of STPM

Secondly, the form 6's curriculum is so compact and tough. In your form 6 life, you have to face 3 semester based final exams, 4 subjects' courseworks, MUET (Malaysian University English Test) and Retake paper in ONE AND THE HALF YEAR. Besides, you will be learning different topics in a single subject (some of the topics aren't related to each other) in each semesters.

Pengajian Am sem 1 textbook

For example, Pengajian Am subject's sem 1 will be emphasizing in domestic affairs (social economics related issues) as well as good governance in Malaysia and federal constitution of Malaysia. Then, sem 2 will be more on plotting a graph based on an article, Malaysia's government policies, racial harmony and the COURSEWORK. Meanwhile, sem 3 will be emphasizing on transferring information from a graph to an essay and international affairs (bilateral and multilateral relations). Don't forget to you need to cope with MUET too as most of the school will opt to let their student to enroll MUET exam on July or November. Thus, this is why many people resist to go for Form 6 tough pre-u platform.

Apart from that, through form 6, you can hone your communication and leadership skills as these skills will likely to help you ace in your life later. Similar as in secondary school, form 6 students do also need to take part in co-curricular activites. There are a few of clubs and activities which are offered by each of the form 6 school for the students to take part. For me, I took part in the Kelab Usahawan Muda (Young Entrepreneur Club) as the club's ajk (working commitee) and in football (soccer) and PBSM (Red cross society). When you are holding and possessing a position in a club or a Badan Beruniform (Uniform Body), obviously your responsibility will be higher compared to the normal member. For example, last time, I was a working commitee in the Kelab Usahawan Muda forced to spend some precious study time to think of what kind of activities to carry out next and the feasibility of the ideas in each respective activities. Besides, I as a mini-leader, I had to also make sure my club members were in the same wavelength with me when carrying out the club's activities. This is because form 6 students were deemed as mature young adult compared to the teenagers in the form 1-form 5, which means the form 6 students have to think and discuss the activities of co-curriculum by their own lah...

Next one is you can master your communication skill through co-cocurriculum activities too. Here's the photo of the Kelab Budaya's ajk (working committee) was presenting the chinese yee sang tradition to the students (including me there) as well as teachers.

As you can see, he braved himself to present a slideshow of the chinese yee sang tradition to the audience there. This indirectly will hone our communication skill that is deemed as useful for our future working life. Therefore, it can be said that form 6 provides us a good training ground in order to suit in this competitive world which.

Before I end this blog post, I would like to briefly talk about the retake papers. Yes, STPM (Form 6 exam) has retake papers for those who want to improve their grades in the overall result. We are being lucky compared to those senior who finished their STPM exam before 2013. Since 2013, the examination system of STPM had changed from terminal based to modular based (3 semester). You can retake sem 1 and sem 2 papers except sem 3 ones. Each subject's retake paper costs RM50.00 (not yet included with GST). Retake papers are held after the examination of sem 3 (Upper 6) exam and sem 1 (Lower 6) exam. 

Final advise to the form 6 students, try not to retake papers as retake papers will make you more burdened as you have to cope with the semester's studies and your retake papers in one time. Later you will be gg.com. In fact, anyone can go for form 6 in order to further their studies later in Public University in Malaysia or the private ones, all you need to do are just don't be lazy and study hard for it in order to score flying colour CGPA in STPM. Good Luck.