Asiah Abd Jalil

   Aduh! UiTM student portal dah buat announcement, exam result untuk budak-budak foundation dah keluar starting 22nd May. But until now bila I checked, masih tak boleh access lagi. Terus rosak mood untuk spend Sunday dengan ceria with husband and kids. Abang was out stationed for several days, so hari ni nak qadha balik time untuk anak-anak, dah planned nak pergi beach petang nanti. We were informed that result will only be out in middle June, so I thought bolehlah I bercuti sakan with free mind for almost two months without thinking about anything related to studies. Adoi… apasal la result keluar cepat sangat?!

   Kenapa I gelabah? Because I didn’t do well in my last final exam. I seriously mean I didn’t do well. Kalau ada budak yang berani cakap dia target dapat 4.0 flat for this third semester, harus saja I salute dia gila-gila. Targeting 4.0 flat before final exam season would be reasonable, but after answering all the examination papers, 4.0 flat seemed unachievable. For most good students, English subjects are not big problems, even though kitorang kena buat two academic writings yang sangat menguji kesabaran. Kertas Economy pulak is out of our attention, most of us tak minat subject tu, we didn’t care much. Usually law papers that give huge and biggest challenges to pre-law students. Dapat pulak lecturer yang memang genius, sah-sah la she has high expectation and requirement in marking papers. You can struggle, study gila-gila, group discussion, past years questions, whatever best you can do, but when you were in the examination hall, it was a different story. It happened to me. Nak faham soalan dah satu hal, I bazirkan masa analyzing what the questions want, termenung memikirkan all the possible answers. Konon nak jimatkan masa, I turned to another question, yet the same thing happened. Then I dah jadi unorganized, which I really hate when myself is in that state. Maka berakhirlah 2 jam yang penuh huru-hara, uncertainties, was-was and loss of hope, of course! I pun pelik, apasal la paper yang susah macam tu cuma diperuntukkan 2 hours aje, bagi la 3 hours. Subjects kitorang bukan macam science subjects, where there is always a short definite answer. We always need to elaborate, explain, goreng-menggoreng, argue, yang mana sangat time consuming.

   My juniors kena daftar awal for their next semester. Maka bertempiklah diorang, apasal tak adil, apasal pre-law students aje kena register awal, sedangkan budak-budak lain masuk bulan July. Trust me, you really need a longer period to learn, study and digest the third semester syllabus. Are they that hard? If you are pretty good in English, I think there would be no problem in understanding. The problem is, terlampau banyak gila benda nak sumbat dalam kepala. If you manage untuk sumbat semuanya dalam kepala pun, you still have to have the skills to choose what to use, what is relevant, what is supporting, how to compare, how to manipulate, bla bla bla… Lepas dah habis semester 3 ni, barulah I faham, kenapa orang kata studying law ni susah. So baguslah if you are given extra time for lectures and tutorials, and if possible, for more tests and quizzes. They will really help you a lot. And please, jangan la suka ponteng kelas. Memanglah boleh depend kat lecture notes, but believe me, ianya takkan sama dengan hearing the words direct from the lecturer’s mouth.

   My biggest mistake for last semester was, right from the first week I didn’t set my target to get 4.0 flat. Apa ke halnya I tak target 4.0 flat after successfully achieving 4.0 flat in the previous semester? Hmm… perangai bodoh I berulang lagi. When I was in primary school, I was known as budak yang sentiasa conquered nombor satu in every exam, baik kat sekolah kebangsaan, mahupun sekolah agama. Ada la sekali dua dapat nombor dua atau tiga. Out of sudden, when I was in standard 4, I decided not to get first place dalam peperiksaan hujung tahun. Konon-konon nak merasa macam mana tak dapat nombor satu. Sounds bangang, bengong, silly and stupid kan? So I main-main, and I got what I wanted, I dapat nombor 15. The feelings? I felt horrible, I lost my self esteem, I degraded my own self, and those feelings really gave me a great lesson, being not good is not a good way to raise attention. Dan itulah kali pertama dan terakhir, since then I always made sure that I struggled to be the best and I managed to be the best sampai la SPM.

   Alih-alih semester 3 kat UiTM ni, I buat benda bodoh tu lagi, not setting up my target to be the best. This third semester was my last semester doing foundation. When I enter law faculty in Shah Alam next July, my CGPA will start back from zero. So I thought takpelah kot nak main-main semester 3 ni, since my current CGPA was 3.97, konon-konon dah secured enough. And now I am regretting it. Gila-gila punya regret! I guess lesson learnt when I was in standard 4 tu was not enough to teach me the horror feelings of becoming a loser. Why is it so important to setting up high target? Because it will boost you to work harder to achieve the highest possibility you can get. Of course kena la set target yang reasonable, yang kita mampu achieve. But when you target something that is below your own standard, bukankah ianya sesuatu yang menyedihkan? You know you could do better, but you choose not to. So just wait for my result. Don’t worry, I will announce it in my blog, I akan hentam dan kutuk diri sendiri for not succeeding this time.