Yayasan Khazanah Scholarship Experience!

First of all, a disclaimer-my experience is based on Khazanah Watan Scholarship tapi stage 1 until stage 3 sama je dengan Khazanah Global. They only split us at the fourth stage maybe because Watan Scholarship only has 4 stages meanwhile there are 5 stages for Global Scholarship if I don't mistaken. 

First step, Application! 

Yes, kalau tak apply macam mana nak pegi next stage, right? Application process sama je macam scholar lain cumanya YK ni ada 1000 words essay. Yes, 1000 words HAHAHA (laughing in pain) and this is why ramai orang malas nak apply-malas nak buat essay. Kan dah lama habis SPM, lepastu nak perah otak buat essay and the main reason is khazanah punya scholar kan susah nak dapat tapi belum cuba belum tahu kan? Kalau kawan-kawan korang tak apply sebab malas nak buat essay, why not you give a try sebab kita taktahu rezeki kita kat mana. I applied a lot of scholarships but I only passed Khazanah Scholarship and of course I didn't expect it at all. 

They basically asked you to write about the intended area of study, how it will benefit the country, how you are planning to make a difference in the community/country and your personal qualities that makes you a worthy recipients for the scholarship. I'm not really good in writing essay actually but do some research on how to write essay for scholarship because it will help you to point out the important stuffs in your essay. Also, essay korang tak wajib pun 1000 words, that's the maximum words. It's okay if your essay has 850-900 words as long as you got all the point they asked.

Move on to the Stage 1!

For the first stage, you need to take two assessments:

    1. Logiks Numerical (Advanced)

    2. Logiks Verbal (Advanced)

Logiks Numerical is more to maths and statistics while Logiks Verbal is comprehension test-you need to read the paragraphs and answer question based on the text given. Don't worry because there are answer given and you just need to choose but it is a bit tricky, so be careful! Yes, ada masa yang ditetapkan. I don't really remember, probably 25 minutes? Use your time wisely!

For the preparation to ace the assessments, you should take few free online test to make sure you're familiar with the questions. The questions might not be similar at all, but nevermind atleast you prepared your mental to answer the question by understanding the concept. If you didn't manage to finish all the questions during the assessments, don't lose hope yet because I also didn't finish two questions for Logiks Verbal but alhamdulillah I managed to continue my journey on second stage. However, try to answer all the questions, tembak je kalau tak sempat HAHA mana tahu rezeki jawapan tembak tu betul. Jangan lupa baca bismillah sebelum tembak okie!

Climbing up Stage 2!

For Stage 2, you'll answer Cubiks Team Role Questionnaire Khazanah Cultural Reasoning Inventory (CRI). Woah, the name looks so complicated but calm down, it's just a psychology test. They want to know about your personality, your leadership and more. There are no specific tips for this stage, just be yourself! Be honest, the best personality shines from a sincere heart.

WOAH, It's Stage 3!

Stage 3 will be divided to two tasks. First, graphite test. This test has a few sections such as aptitude test, verbal reasoning (basically basic maths like median, mod stuffs), coding (chill, the question asked you to choose the code that match the words given but you need to be fast) and decision making (they give you a situation and you need to choose few statements that are most important during that situation).

Secondly, Competency Based Interview Session (CBI). It's an interview session and yes, it's individual interview. Since it's during the pandemic, the interview was held on Skype. There are two interviewers that will ask you few questions for 20-30 minutes. Try to recap all experience you had sice you were born, it could be academic-related or not and don't forget to specify every situation that you told. Few similar questions that they asked;

• a situation you're stressed and how you overcome it
• you didn't agree with others' opinion and how you deal with it
• you failed your task and how you handle it 

Finally, we're at Stage 4!

Congratulations for making this far in the selection process. If you're selected to attend this stage, you're one step closer to be awarded the scholarship so do your best! 

For the last stage, there will be an interview with YK Management but this session is a group interview with one interviewer for almost an hour. This session mostly like to ask your opinion and know more about yourself. Keep calm, don't be too nervous. Group session ni macam sembang-sembang je. They asked to tell about yourself (your previous school, family background, course that you're interested, uni offers that you received before), a non-academic experience that taught you a lesson (most of us talked about co-curricular involvement but if you have other experiences like being a volunteer or else, feel free to talk!) and lastly they gave you two situation and you need to choose which one is better. They're no right or wrong answer, it's just our personal opinion. For example, being a member in a lot of organizations and don't really perform in every organization that you involved or be in a few organizations but you did well in those few organizations, in your opinion which one is better? Make sure your answer is simple but sharp. Alhamdulillah, I managed to secure the scholarship.

I'm not sure what happened during Stage 4 and Stage 5 for Global Scholarship. Probably, the fourth stage was the same but maybe they have another interview for fifth stage? I don't know.

And, that's all for the selection process. After the interview, you can finally breath normally HAHA and pray for the best. Break a leg!