Viva voce

I'm writing so I dont forget. I tend to delete memories of my pasts so here I am trying to make them permanent. Viva voce. I'm not sure what language is that or whether it is correctly used at my place but it is there when students have to answer questions from lecturers in a face to face manner.

After my first written professional examination, I and few others were invited to this viva voce, viva for short. When I received the email, I had cold feet. One written examination is enough, I dont want to answer another sets of questions, not to mention having to answer them FACE TO FACE with my lecturers. There are lots of things I don't remember and much more things that I don't know, how am I supposed to not embarrass myself and the lecturer who taught me.

Nevertheless, I went for the anatomy's viva.  I had some revisions done, but nothing much because you see, the exam was just over, who would have the momentum to start again when you've just finished one. Inertia... remember?
I was the fifth to be called in, and I don't really have fonds memory of interviews(hint:usm dental interview). Of course I was nervous as hell. We can't talk with the person before us so I don't have a clue what was happening inside the viva's room. We were made to wait in another room along with some other year twos.

So after about an hour, my name, uh no my number was called in. I went to the room(upstair). And....

There were four of them(the lecturers) waiting in the room. The head department of anatomy, my antomy lecturer, year one coordinator and the external examiner. Imagine yourself in a meeting room with the curve table like you see in the parliament except much smaller and only one level. Two of them on right and the others another on left. I sat in the middle where the speaker would sit and in front of me there are few models.  The next 20 minutes was the longest day of my life.

I was asked what seems to me like thousands of questions of head and neck anatomy. Something like questions of the subclavian triangle which I never cared about before and trace the course of taste fibers from tongue upward. I realised now, how 'not-that-complicated' those questions are but having to recall them when 4 other people are staring at you was quite intense. Worse when my brain stabbed me in the back and ran away with all the answers(drama yeah!). So after 20 forever minutes, it was done. Each lecturer except my year one coordinator asked a set of questions of their designated area of the head and neck anatomy. They were not that scary, only intimidating and for some questions, they even tried to give clues for the answers. It was the settings that gave me cold sweat.

Anatomy's viva was on wednesday and dental anatomy's on friday. Dental anatomy's viva was different. It was less complicated I guess. There were 10 questions if I remember it right. There are few terms and some teeth morphology but that was it. Only took about 10 minutes and only one lecturer in the room. The 10 minutes wasnt the longest 10 minutes of my life but Im glad it was over.

Afterwards, my friends and I went skating. So, all was well.
P/s: please ignore grammars. I have not write in ages.

Till then.

#Projek Inspirasi

It might be a bit late to write a post about it but better late than never(they say).

We(my friend, Shahirah and I) joined the Projek Inspirasi directed by Syaza Nazura to help SPM leavers answer some of their questions regarding some courses. We joined  Google Hangout Session 3 : SPM Leavers 2014 and Shahirah has already covered most of the questions asked during the GH in her blog right here. One question that I am more interested to answer is this one(picture above).

I know I am not an example of a student studying dentistry in UK but I do have some experiences applying to some of the universities (Manchester University, KCL and Queen Mary University of London). So I'm gonna share them now.

I'm gonna list them as steps with some short notes so you can see the processes clearly:
Note: The dates are for 2015 intake

1.  Apply through UCAS (UK's version of UPU)

• 15 October 2014, 18:00 (UK time) – any course at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, or for most courses in medicine, veterinary medicine/science and dentistry
• Maximum a student can apply for dentistry is to 4 universities, and another one from other fields than dentistry or medicine.

     2.   Write your personal statement

• Refer to the requirement for each university and satisfy write in everything. Try and get others opinion on your personal statement. Refer to UCAS for the guidelines.

     3.   Sit for UKCAT

• Marks preferably 700++ on average. On average, I got around 690(mediocre)
• As seen in table below, mean is 2642.77, around 660.7 when divided by 4.

Taken from here and is for 2013 candidates

     4.   Search for some shadowing opportunity or part time work at a dental practice nearby

• When I asked KCL about my rejected application, they told me that I didn't have minimum 2 weeks working experience. I only shadowed one dental clinic on every Friday for a month and it is not considered enough.

     5.   Ace your A level or IB or whatever that you take

• Most of the universities would want great results(at least 3As) and because we apply during our Alevel, AS results are very important for the impression to get the conditional offer.
• Note: Getting 4A* wouldn't guarantee you a place,

     6.   Interview

• Well, I didn't get the chance for an interview so whoever read this post will need to ask whoever that has the privileges to attend one to answer questions.

     7.   IELTS

• Register for a test early so you can prepare and choose a date that you're most comfortable with. Different universities have different requirement but mostly would want 7.5 or above.

     8.   Tawakkal

• Now that you've done your best, all that is left is to pray and tawakkal. If you got an offer; CONGRATULATIONS! and if you don't, don't lose hope and try to search for an alternatives pathway to continue you love in this field

If my memory serves me right, those are the steps that I took when applied in the 2014 cycle. My biggest regret would be my UKCAT score and the working experience.

So, based on these steps I'd say it's not impossible to study dentistry in UK(many have done so) but you'll have to try your best and prepare yourself so that those people at least look at you and call you for an interview. Of course the steps that I've listed and the requirements that I mentioned are based only on the universities that I applied and they are the top universities for dentistry in UK, so the requirements are, (very slightly) higher than others. All I can say is, all the best!

Note:

1. UK universities have 10% international students quota, so if there are 50 students in the dental faculty, only 5 will be taken from international applicants.

2. For every test, there is fee to be paid.

3. For UCAS application, applicants can have minimum one and maximum 5 applications to universities.

4. Everything described here is only on my opinion, so some other people with difference experience might have different opinion.

5. Information need to be checked periodically because there could be some new changes that I didn't know.

6. Please disregard any grammar errors. :p

Till then, Assalamualaikum.

Dental student. First semester. Mahsa University

Well, I thought maybe some STPM or A Level or foundation or any of it's equivalent students are still wondering what is it like to be a dental student, especially a dental student here in Malaysia's IPTS(Mahsa University). First of all, I might as well introduce my dental faculty. Right now, our faculty is located at Pusat Bandar Damansar(PBD) but we are going to move to Saujana Putra soon. Here, most of the dental lecturers are from other countries but nevertheless, qualified lecturers.

In my first semester, I have to take 4 subjects; Anatomy, Physiology, Biochemistry and Dental Anatomy but there are also other dental subjects such as Dental Public Health and Prosthodontics that were taught during our first year because the subjects are too broad to be covered in just one year.

The lectures are given quite as expected, almost similar to A level only with more students but the most significant difference is the amount of histo labs(anatomy and dental anatomy) and also all the exciting(except prostho) labs. I have done some wax carving classes(I'm an artisan! lol), some simulation lab for conservatives and impression making for prosthetics(not fun). Oh! Did I mention that I'm an artist too? (LOL) I've been drawing and colouring all those histo slides like there's no tomorrow.(Ok, a bit exeggeration there) For the medical part, physiology is the most exciting with ECG and blood pressure practicals. Anatomy as expected, lots of remembering weird names.

A tooth out of wax!

Draw and draw and draw and draw.

And after all these fun, of course, my sem one examination. Wish me luck!
Till then. :)

2015. A new year. A new life.

It might have been a little bit too late to update a post about the new year but as an analyst myself, 1/1/2015 is not that significant anymore. Saying so as I started my dental student life hmmm 4, no, 5 months ago, here in Mahsa University. Yep, proud to be a Mahsa student. :D

Honestly, this semester(yeah, semester not block like the medical students) has been too fast. It's near to the final semester examination. Fuhhh. Time does fly. I should start my readings now. Wouldn't want to lose my scholarship don't I?

Till then, Assalamualaikum.