Interview at SMU SISM

Went for interview at SMU's school of Information Systems this morning.The interview was supposed to be held in the afternoon but due to some unforseen circumstances, they brought forward my interview to the morning.Although I had preplanned the timing I set off,I still ended up stepping out of the house late,which eventually lead to me being 5 mins late.Nevertheless,still had to wait for a while.

A total of 6 interviewees,including me were brought to a room where we were shown video clips of past and current ISM students and their achievements.After the video clip,we were being given an article each to read up.My article was about grading of students.The professor in the article gave grade A to all of his students.I was being asked to describe in my opinion what I felt about that article. At first I had planned what I was going to say during the interview but I guess I just freaked out and mumbled my words throughout the interview.Even I did'nt know what I was talking about.Lastly,we were told to interact amongst each other and also look at the posters in the room.I came across and interesting poster,stating how to determine the no. of piano tuners in new york.They had to determine the no. of residents residing in new york,then the no. of household which owns a piano,followed by the no. of pianos which require tuning in a year and lastly the no. of piano each tuner can tune in a year.From there on,they derived the no. of piano tuners in new york.That's creative isn't it! We were in the room for about an hour.

We were then brought into the next room where we had our interview.It was a panel of 3 interviewers to 6 interviewees.As I got into the room,my old habit came back...being nervous and felt jittery.The profs broke the ice but we still kept momentarily silent.Then they told us we don't get into ISM by not speaking.First of all,we were told to describe about what we felt towards the article we read with a time limit of a minute.Like i mentioned before,I had mentally prepared what to say but alas,the words just could'nt come out from my mouth.Next,we were given a few questions to choose from related to the creative question that I had mentioned before.No. 10 was chosen and the question was "Determine the volume of human blood AB in the world".On first thought,I assumed volume as in number of peple in the world.So i use the same theory as above...was'nt really impressed with my answer myself :(.I heard some better answers from other members in the group,for eg. even relating to the amount of blood a child and an adult has in his/her body.Next up was a teamwork question.We were being divided into 2 teams and asked to chose a question.This time,No.8 was being chosen.The question was "Join the dots using 6 consecutive straight lines without lifting the pen".It was'nt an easy feat.It was a 4 by 4 dots diagram,something that looks like this:


Alas at the end,neither groups managed to solve it.We were being asked on opinions of our group members,whether this "game" required teamwork or an individual would have been better off and what could we have done to improve our teamwork.

Finally,we were being asked why we chose the course and were we dissapointed since for most of us,ISM was not our first choice.The floor was open to us for questions to ask the professors if any.

Left SMU after the interview and headed to sim lim square to purchase a dvd writer, dvd medias and a usb 2.0 pci card for my school use.My HOD asked me to run the errands for him and he'll reimburse me(though not the transportation).Went to bugis reds saloon to get my hair cut. It was almost 230pm after the hair cut.Therafter, I went to SIM to submit my documents(certificates) for verification.Did'nt have lunch for the whole of today!

The process of verifying the documents took only a while but the waiting time was pretty long(20mins?).Went to my cousin house straight from SIM to give her and her friend tution.Thought I would be late(cause i told her 445pm),reached at 5pm but she reached home at 515pm.Had my dinner at my cousin house and heard from my uncle that my other cousin,who is in primary 6 this year did'nt do very well for his latest tests. He is very worried about him and hope that I could help him. Not very sure though,on the look out for tution teacher for him at the moment.