After SPM, for the most part it's either you know damn vivid where you see yourself in the future in or out of study, or maybe you already have the choices set up and just needed some extra thoughts to decide, or you're probably still blank and simply yolo-ing... Either one still sounds pretty normal.
Last year, I really wanted to take up Diploma for some reason (mostly bcos my mum urged me to). A little late during UPU application was when I decided that IT would be my go-to course. It was seriously hard to decide since I'm a pure science student and have no basic IT. On the other hand, many of my friends ended up being either in Form 6, foundation (asasi) or even mariculation (matriks). My thoughts when I knew less to none of them are taking diploma like me, it took me some time to ensure my own self that I was making the right choice.
A year later is when I truly regret nothing about it. My SPM results were decent - 5As, and no UiTM was chosen for my UPU form. Reason being is that I don't wanna sound racist, but moving onto a place of only having one ethnicity - Malays, sounded pretty dull to me. And tbh, I see UiTM lower than any other public universities (IPTA) but at the same time higher considering the many campuses they have nationwide. So yeah UiTM sounded meh to me.
Now, I didn't mind living apart from my family, but it helps that I am living only 2 states away. This would be something you gotta consider in a long run bcos things are just gonna be more convenient sometimes yknow. Me as I'm typing this on a non-holiday weekend in my bedroom... And you probably wanna ask yourself, would you prefer the same school-like settings or a different more adult-ish settings? This could aid in making that decision if you're thinking of going to college or university.
Now, mindsets. Many is still unaware of the good thing about being in Diploma. Correct me if I'm wrong, but people presume diploma kids are dumb. At least worse than the other options. I think simply bcos it takes up 3 years to be done with. Compared to foundation, matrics or STPM, which takes up max 2 years. But keep this in mind, when you take diploma (the same goes for polytechnic is what I've heard of), there's credit transfer. That means some credit hours during your 3 years will be transferred when you pursue degree. And this will save up possibly 2 years of your time. As soon as you enter degree, you can move up being a 2nd year instead of the 1st unlike the rest of the new batch. In the end of the day, doesn't matter where you start, it would still at least take 5 or 6 years to complete degree INCLUDING whatever course you take before you apply for degree. Simply said, sama je.
Since diploma courses are much more in-depth and covers a lot more, it's great for those who wanted to have their options open to see which major would suits you best in degree. Learning more would help it better in deciding the best career path. And I've heard sooo much that the things you learnt in foundation, matrics or STPM covers a minority part of your degree later on. What you've been taught there is basically the surface of what degree actually is. I've also heard that you would barely make use of the things you cramped up for a year or two in all the other options during degree. So, might as well take time to learn the actual core of your course to have a better insight of it like what diploma does.
Besides, diploma is considered a very chill course. There's plenty of free time to manage so you can always go thorough with your study materials whenever you feel like it. But don't expect to stay rajin all the time la haa. The timetable for me personally, have plenty of free time. This would differ depending on your course but diploma in IT doesn't have that much of hardcore subjects (yet...maybe?) and they're still manageable, if you ask me. It's also a fun course bcos you'd learn all kinds of coding that you would deal with all the time on your computer. Not to mention complicated too.
All in all, I hope this post isn't biased. Jk, it is so biased that I'm like tryna brainwash all of ya'll minds right now hahah.
Dropping by,
Melynn.
