Diploma Seni Lukis & Seni Reka UiTM (2017 Interview Experience)
Like what the title stated, in this post I'm going to share my not-so-pleasant experience going through an interview at UiTM Shah Alam for the art & design course. The interview took place on 22nd April 2017 which meant I got a week to prepare all the paper works and my non-existent portfolio. I drew a lot before, sure, but most of them are in my cheap sketchbook which I got from Daiso and not to mention, the papers are so freaking thin you can see your hand through the paper. I only had like 2 art pieces that I drew on my A3 sketchbook and I realized at that moment that I was screwed. So in that short span of seven days, I drew 6 new art pieces with different type of medias on my A3 sketchbook and ripped them out to put them together with the graphic designing works I printed out.
On the day of the interview, I woke up at 530 am and the moment my eyes snapped opened I can immediately felt the nerves getting to me, making my skin crawl with anxiety. But as I was getting myself ready for the day, the nerves slowly dies out until I felt nothing but soft flutters of butterflies in my tummy. I wore a simple baju kurung with chiffon shawl; nothing that would attract too much attention. Oh and I applied light makeup just to make myself look more presentable and less like I'm craving sleep. My parents and I got on the car and made our way to UiTM Shah Alam around 740 am, which I think was a terrible decision because it took us almost two hours to get to the faculty even though we live so close. It was the bad traffic and the amount of cars that morning, all trying to get to the same place as we do. The UiTM gate was cramped with cars but they lessened as we went further into the campus- following the banner that indicated where the interview for art & design course would take place. I learnt that there were also other interviews for other courses being held on the same day, which explained why there were so many cars at the gate earlier.
My dad parked our car really far from the actual faculty of art & design; result of being clueless and tailing other people who seemed to be going the same interview as I was. We had to walk quite the distance to get to the art & design faculty and my mom was complaining the whole walk there. Can't really blame her though because it was far from where we parked.
As we arrived to the right building, what I saw left me fidgeting with anxiety once again because of the sheer amount of people. There were 800+ candidates if I'm not mistaken. My mother and I were squished among other people trying to get to the board where our names and assigned panel would be displayed. The board was hella long so my mom started searching for my name on the right while I started from the left side (teamwork!) and after like 5 minutes my mother found my name and I snapped a pic just in case my bad memory will fail me later.
The candidates all were herded into one side of the hall and parents weren't allowed pass that line anymore so we're all on our own from that point. We were instructed to form lines and then sit down on the floor. I can see people around me getting social and making new friends while we wait for further instructions but being the social inept I am, I kept being silent and avoiding eye contacts; mainly because I didn't feel like talking at all. After what seemed like an hour or longer, my line was finally called to get to the drawing test room.
Upon entering the room, I instantly scanned the entire room trying to locate the best position to draw the objects in the middle of the room. Once we all sat down on our seats, we were told to prepare the stuffs needed for the drawing test on the table like, A3 paper, pencils, and all other stuffs. Originally, from what I read in other people's blogs that had gone through the interview the past few years, the all seemed to get about an hour to draw the entire object in front of them but this year, we got only 30 minutes to draw. I didn't panic though because I knew we will all wouldn't be able to finish drawing during that short span of time. What we were told to draw was placed in the middle of the room and it was a chair on top of a table with a striped shirt hanging off the back rest and a brown empty box on it. From my point of view, the most difficult thing to draw was without any doubt, the gaping empty box. It was hard for me to get the lighting and shading right on the box because of how it got some crooked and ripped edges.
And as expected, I didn't manage to finish my drawing in 30 minutes and I can't say that I'm satisfied with what I had drawn because I fucked up pretty much at the most obvious thing. I forgot to draw the table. Out of all thing. But after seeing some of other candidates' drawings, I felt assured since they didn't draw the tables too.
We were ordered to get back to the previous hall and sit in a line again to wait for the actual interview and when we sat down, I saw some people around me taking out their drawings previously and continued drawing like it was the most natural thing to do. I found it to be really unfair since it was clearly stated we can only draw during given 30 minutes inside the test room but I kept quite of course; I can't possibly start a fight out of nowhere and not to mention almost half of the candidates resumed drawings after they got out from the drawing test room.
I had to wait for another hour or so until my number got called to finally sit down inside the main hall and on a chair. There were still a lot of numbers before mine which had not gone through the interview. Mine was 439 (if I'm not mistaken) and only about 150+ candidates were interviewed.
I had to wait for hours and I remembered how I was desperately trying to not doze off right there and then. At that point I just wished for my turn to come faster; anxiety and nervousness be damned. I just wanted to get the interview done and over with; imagining my comfy bed and pillow back at home. Other kids around me kept talking non-stop with their new found friends about how nervous they were feeling and how they wished it would take longer before their turn to come and I sincerely can not relate. I was pretty sure I looked like my soul was sucked out of my body with how dead my eyes looked and how I didn't utter a single word for about five hours (excluding that one time a girl asked me "Lepas interview boleh terus balik eh?" My smart and thoughtful answer was, "Ye kot.") since I was not in the mood to be a normal functioning human being that day.
And finally, finally it was my turn to get interviewed. I literally flew right out of my seat to get to the interviewer's table. The interviewer I got was a woman with shoulder length hair and she kind of seemed like a chinese. As soon as I sat down, she asked for the necessary documents (in English of course) and I handed it to her without any words. Her face was quite tight and she wasn't smiling at all so I silently watched as she struggled to arrange the documents together. So, being the good samaritan I was, I politely and pleasantly asked in English, "Do you need help sorting out the papers?" Right when I said these words, her expression changed 180 degree; smiling brightly as she waved my offer off. I think she was relieved that I could converse in English without struggling that much. She scanned my SPM result and nodded in approval but then made a joking remark about my addmath grade "Seemed like you're not really friendly with addmath," and I laughed, agreeing with her trying to lift up the mood.
The interview started for real then, she asked to look at my portfolio and the drawing from the the drawing test earlier and she asked a bunch of questions (all in english) and I can't remember most our conversation but I can confidently say that I managed to answer all of the questions without grappling with my words. Oh but there was this one question which made me taken aback for a few seconds, trying to form a sentence in my head. The question was "What is graphic design?" since I chose graphic design as my first choice of course. I stammered a bit as I bullshit my way through the answer trying to make it seemed like I'm being relevant and I managed. I also tried to crack a joke and made myself look cheerful and upbeat; and thankfully she laughed and went along with it. My interview was quite short, only for 5 minutes or so and I was dismissed.
I met my parents outside the building after the interview and we quickly went home around 230 pm since we were all tired from the long waiting we had to go through.
In conclusion, for future interview candidates, my advice is you'll need to be prepared with answers beforehand, practice your english daily and you're good to go. It's nothing frightening and seriously, just relax and answer the question thrown your way slowly. The more nervous you made yourself to be, the more the interviewer will have fun teasing and torturing you.
