Monday, May 22, 2006

American Universities Education Fair 2006

Come July, prospective university students in Malaysia will benefit from the first of its kind American Universities Education Fair in the country. "Another Education Fair?", you might like to ask sceptically. Yes indeed, but this one has a critical difference. This fair is organised and manned by current students and alumnis of the participating American universities.

That simply means that you won't have to listen to salespersons attempting to outsell each other on how "world-class" their colleges are or be unable to extract meaningful information on what's life like at the particular college.

It would also mean that, probably for the first time, you get booths from representatives from the top universities in the United States, instead of the 3rd liner colleges whose key objective is to boost their foreign student population and of course, your most valuable foreign currency.

The following top universities have indeed confirmed representation at the Fair entitled "Experiences-KL 2006":
  • Brown University
  • Carnegie Mellon University
  • Cornell University
  • Georgia Institute of Technology
  • Harvard University
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
  • Northwestern University
  • Stanford University
  • University of California, Berkeley
  • University of Chicago
  • University of Pennsylvania
  • Yale University
The full list of participating universities (39 of them at the moment) is available here. Currently, the only top universities not in the list that I can think of off my head are Princeton and Duke (Kian Ming?). Trust me, you won't get the presence of so many top universities at a single location in Malaysia at any other events!

I dare say that it's an event where you can pick on the top Malaysian brains all within a single hall. There will be past and present students of these universities giving you first hand accounts of all the goods and bads, the truths and the falsehoods with regards to their respective universities, to help you make a more informed choice in your university applications.

Yours truly here is also honoured to have been invited as a speaker at the event (despite not being the biggest fan of the United States as well as being an alumnus across the Atlantic :-p). For those interested, I'll be speaking on "Choosing the Right Course", particularly targeted at those who thinks that life at university is only about medicine, engineering, law and maybe accountancy. The other speakers include Mark Chang, CEO of Jobstreet.com as well as Dr Ewe Hong Tat, both alumni of MIT.

There is no entry fee charged for visitors as the hardworking committee members have managed to secured a fair bit of sponsorship from schools and corporations to defray the expenses. So kudos must go to the committee members who have volunteered to this thankless task for the benefit of young Malaysians :)

The event is being held at Sunway Pyramid Convention Centre on the 16th July 2006 from 10am-6pm. Spread the message and see you there! :)

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

There is no such word as "alumnis". The word "alumni" is already plural.

Anonymous said...

ahpiau academic is a graduate of british university

Anonymous said...

Singular form of alumni is alumnus.

Anonymous said...

Ahpiau is correct.
TO anonymous ( 12:29:50), it does not matter where one graduated, a mistake is a mistake.

Anonymous said...

Oops, to anonymous (12:29:50), my apologies. I thought you were critising Ahpiau , but after reading carefully, you were just merely pointing out where Ahpiau graduated. By the way, Tony must have just overlooked this mistake.

Anonymous said...

I graduated locally.

Thank you.

Anonymous said...

..quote unquote author unknown..



..it all begin with a box, and the plural is boxes;
but the plural of ox became oxen not oxes.

One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
yet the plural of moose should never be meese.

You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice;
yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.
If the plural of man is always called men,
why shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?

If I spoke of my foot and show you my feet,
and I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?

Then one may be that, and three would be those,
yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
and the plural of cat is cats, not cose.

We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
but though we say mother we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
but imagine the feminine, she, shis and shim.

Some reasons to be grateful if you grew up speaking English;

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce.
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4) We must polish the Polish furniture.
5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to
present the present.
8) At the Army base, a bass was painted on the head of a bass drum.
9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10) I did not object to the object.
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18) After a number of Novocain injections, my jaw got number.
19) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
20) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
21) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
22) I spent last evening evening out a pile of dirt.

Screwy pronunciations can mess up your mind! eg...
If you have a rough cough, climbing can be tough when going through
the bough on a tree!

Let's face it - English is a crazy language.

There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor
pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England.

We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we
find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and
a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. And why is
it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce
and hammers don't ham?

Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend?

If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of
them, What do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?

If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?

Ship by truck and send cargo by ship?
Have noses that run and feet that smell?
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man
and a wiseguy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which
your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a
form by filling it out and in which an alarm goes off by going on......

Chen Chow said...

Thanks a lot, Tony for your support and help in publicizing the event.

Really hope to see Malaysians, especially those who are in Form 3,4,5,6, as well as those in preparatory programs to come over. It would be great exposure, especially to those who have the aim to further education at Ivy League or other top universities in US.

You would get the chance to meet Tony there too!

Do check out the website for details http://www.experiences-kl.org