Yesterday, when I went for my first class, Introduction to Linguistic, I was asked by the lecturer, why did I choose English, instead of continue with Engineering? I said, I want to do something according to my interest, and I want to be good in English, speaking and writing. The latter part was not really a good answer. He said that a number of undergraduate Bachelor in English Language (BENL) students also had the same intentions, but not all able to improve their English. He suggested that I could actually sign up for an English course outside, the one that we have to pay thousands, but they would actually teach us the correct way to be better in English in both writing and speaking.
However, to me, sometimes, when you are force to do something, you could actually be good at it. To be honest, when I took Engineering, specifically Biotechnology Engineering, I was not doing it because it was my interest. Due to my good result in SPM back in 2002, my late father had a high expectation to me, when choosing what I going to be in the future. He wanted me to pursue, either Medicine and Engineering. Not that I didn't have a say, at that point also, I was not really sure what I'm gonna be in the future. Since I have less interest in Biology, I chose Engineering rather. Alhamdulillah I was able to get good result for my foundation studies (Foundation in Engineering). During that year, I was very interested in Chemistry. So, when pursuing my degree, I decided to pursue something which related to Chemistry.
Unfortunately, when the time to chose my specialty, I found out that UIA did not offer Chemical Engineering. The nearest that I could apply was Biochemical-Biotechnology Engineering, and hence my degree. There were ups and downs, but after four years, Alhamdulillah I was able to graduate with a good results.
The point is, I did excel in Engineering although I didn't really like the major. And now, after years I have grow interest in learning English. Actually, it was since my third year of my undergraduate. UIA did offer engineering students to do minor in BENL, but because of my course load at that time, I didn't go for the minor.
Why suddenly after four years of my graduation? I did apply for master in English and/or Education, in UPM and USM, but was rejected. After that, I actually gave up. And I was working with HP and the pay was good also. Until I found out from one of my friend that I could actually apply for Master in English in UIA, provided that I have to excel in pre-requisite undergraduate courses first.
I must say, after attending two days of classes, BENL courses are not easy as most students assume. They have to learn all about the technical part of the language itself. The pre-requisite courses that I have to take are Introduction to Linguistics, Grammatical Analysis, Discourse Analysis, Phonetics and Phonology, and Semantics. My friend said that I have to pay more attention for Semantics as it is one of the challenging subjects.
Ok, I think that's it for now. I will write more after this as I need to improve my writing skills. :)
