TM: Interview Prep Workshop

Sunday, March 27, 2011
Secret War Journal[26 March 2011][TM Session #5]
Short post before I leave.
CVs, Recommendation Letters, and Essay Questions
MBTs have just ended, as such TM sessions continue on Saturdays once more. I will talk about MBT on another post. Let me focus on the most recent TM session first. :)

Since last TM session marked the end of the Social Etiquette, this week we attended a workshop by our own tutors on preparing for Scholarship interviews such as the the materials you would need to prepare for the application of scholarship.

Generally, for most applications for scholarship, they would require you to have the following documents ready:
  1. Curriculum vitae
  2. Essay Question / Personal Statement
  3. Recommendation Letters / Referees 
Curriculum vitae
Also known as Resume, it is basically a list of activities that you had did during your secondary schools and Junior College days. However, you should be reminded that you do not simply state all your activities, big or small, into the CV as it should only contain activities that are relevant to your scholarship and purposeful. 

A CV should be placed in a format such that the latest activities are stated first and it should be reader-friendly. It should also contain details of the duration of your education in the school and relevant CIP hours.

Essay Question / Personal Statement
This is the key component of your scholarship application. There isn't any model answer of any sort because it is supposed to be your personal statement, thus unique.

If the organisation requires to answer a Essay Question, then you would have to. Different scholarships have different questions and so there isn't much guidelines on how to answer them.

On the other hand, if a personal statement is required, you would not be given any question but would have to write about yourself to convince them why you're the better choice.

In general, you will need to use relevant and unique points to highlight your strengths and get their attention so that they would call you up for an interview. Above all, be honest. ;)

Recommendation Letters
These are done by your tutors or other relevant supervisors upon your request but they may refuse if they're busy.

What I really learn that was getting to know the fact that we actually have a very small time window to submit our scholarship application, 7 days after our A Levels Results are released, especially for guys since we most likely have National Service(NS) during that period. That highlights the need for us to prepare these documents early.

"A pessimist is one who make difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties." - Harry Truman

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