So many things happened over the past week that I think that the entire thing is basically a blur – way too many things to even think about any individual one of them in clear detail.
For instance, we’ve got GPT-4 on ChatGPT alongside punishing rate limits that basically make the thing unusable after 25 prompts:
…But then you also have the epically awesome outputs that come out from the thing that make you realize that it’s perfectly understandable why it is that people are interested in using this thing to the hilt.
Then, you’ve got Midjourney V5 coming out, alongside natural language prompting, and this whole range of insane looking tessellations that can be created just with the software itself.
I have plenty of thoughts about all of these things and ultimately everything that’s happened this past week, but the most cool of these things, I think, was probably the Microsoft 365 Future Of Work event.
Too long to watch?
Honestly, I think that you’d be depriving yourself there, but a couple of things:
A) It’s wild to imagine that in the future, all of us will essentially just be creating presentations and documents by doing nothing but just using natural language in order to communicate.
B) I never actually thought that I’d think that Microsoft would be cool during my lifetime!
It’s been a pretty incredible week to say the very least, and although it started with a bit of a hiccup on my part, I can’t wait for the next ones ahead 🙂
Incidentally, I also just started a small project in collaboration with my freelancer and also in alignment with my focus on education; if you’d be interested to check it out, head here 🙂
This is the first of a series of guides that I’ll be publishing for students about A Levels in Malaysia (and beyond)!
This guide is tailored with an audience of students in mind, although it can be read and understood by parents – I will speak in the second person though, so that it’s clear that I’m directly speaking to students themselves.
I know that many of you have embarked onto this journey with purpose and moreover that many of you have achieved your dreams and desired outcomes – this guide is more for you if you are still searching and at the beginning of that process, and is written to reflect the considerations that you might think about at the outset of that process.
Feel free to share it if you think that it is valuable (or not) – I’ll be writing a few more of these as I think it’s important and will provide value to students who are taking A Levels; feedback from parents, students, teachers, and school administrators is also much welcomed as part of the process of making these guide(s) better.
Ready? Let’s go!
Introduction:
Selecting the right A-Level subjects is crucial for you, as it can impact your university applications and future career choices.
The guide aims to help you choose your subjects wisely, considering the requirements of universities in the US, UK, Malaysia, and also your interests, capabilities, and abilities.
Here are some specific tips for subject selection:
Evaluate your strengths and interests:
Before selecting subjects, take time to reflect on your academic strengths and interests.
Consider subjects you excel in or enjoy learning, as this will make your A-Level journey more enjoyable and increase the likelihood of achieving high grades; if you choose subjects just because you think that your university will require them or because someone told you that it was a good idea but you have no interest, you probably will find it very difficult because A-Levels are academically intense and require a lot of commitment.
Research university course requirements:
At the same time, it’s likely that if you choose to take A Levels that you have a specific goal or intention in mind.
Ensure that you investigate the entry requirements for the courses you’re interested in pursuing at university well in advance.
Some courses may require specific A-Level subjects, while others may simply require a minimum number of A-Level passes. Keep these requirements in mind when selecting your subjects as they are important – you don’t want to get to university applications stage only to realize that you can’t get admission to your first choice course because your subject combination doesn’t work!
Choose a mix of subjects:
A well-rounded subject selection can enhance your university application and improve your chances of being accepted. Consider choosing a combination of subjects that align with your interests and demonstrate a range of skills, such as analytical, problem-solving, and communication abilities.
Consider your subject combinations in context:
Certain subject combinations are better suited for specific university courses. Here are some examples:
Engineering: Mathematics, Physics, and Chemistry
Medicine: Biology, Chemistry, and either Physics or Mathematics
Business/Accounting: Mathematics, Economics, and Business Studies
Law: English Literature, History, and either Law or a humanities subject
Social Sciences: Psychology, Sociology, and Geography or History
It’s not a sure thing that just because you take math and further math that you’ll end up studying engineering – there are some people who take these subjects and go and study law instead.
It’s worthwhile to note that some universities do specifically require some subjects though (see #3).
5. Consult your school counselor or teachers:
Speak with your school counselor or teachers for guidance on A-Level subject selection.
They can provide insights into specific subjects and help you make informed decisions based on your interests and academic goals.
This is an A Levels group and it is meant to *support* your journey, but it won’t replace the importance of maintaining a good relationship with your counselor’s office, bringing what you understand about the process in contact with their office so that together, you can achieve a better result.
Also, consider that some schools and teachers have reputations for being good at delivering or teaching specific subjects (Example: HELP is extremely famous for its Psychology department) and that in some schools, certain subjects may not be available in certain schools.
6. Always plan for your future and keep your options open:
Always, always, always consider what you are doing and why you are doing it. Be intentional about that and it will help you go where you wish to go – you are taking A Levels, right? Why are you doing that? What’s the specific value add? How is it going to help you and why didn’t you do something like SAM, STPM, IB, or otherwise instead?
It’s good to sometimes take a moment to evaluate some of these things and it’s also okay to not immediately know the answers – but do make sure that you think about them in the free time that you do have.
If you’re unsure about your future career path or university course for example, choose subjects that offer flexibility and cater to a range of disciplines. For example, Mathematics, English Literature, and a science subject can provide a solid foundation for various fields and meet numerous requirements.
Conclusion:
Selecting A-Level subjects is an important step in your academic journey. By considering your interests, strengths, university requirements, and potential career paths, you can make informed decisions that will set you up for success.
Don’t be afraid to seek advice from teachers and counselors, as they can offer valuable guidance and support.
And that’s it!
Thank you for reading if you made it to the end of this piece; feedback and suggestions are greatly welcomed
This past weekend, there was a large variety of different events that relate to the entrepreneurship and startup ecosystem in Malaysia; while I didn’t go for the first one, I did get the chance to go for the second one, which was Jobstreet’s Seekscapes – it’s not exactly related to entrepreneurship exactly and more related to the idea of employment and seeking a career, which does reach at the core issue that’s at hand when we think about jobs but isn’t completely related.
There were two groups of people that I wanted to meet.
The first? There were Tien Ming and Wei Fong; Tien Ming I’d known from the time that I offered free JPA Scholarship consultation and guidance sessions, and Wei Fong started looking for people who understood how to code in Developer Kaki.
Tien Ming I’d known for ages but not met in a while, and he’d reached out again with a quick “PM Tepi”, after which we’d decided to meet – I wasn’t too sure where to meet him exactly, but figured that since Jobstreet Seekscapes was happening on the day that we’d agreed to meet that we could meet there for lunch – we ate at this Indian restaurant that served some pretty unique food, laughed about gimbals (there was this dude who kept touching my gimbal but thankfully that didn’t persist for too long).
Anyway, it was a great decision, leading to many productive connections and also to a ton of learning!
There were two days during Jobstreet’s Seekscapes, but I could only go for the second one because I had a few commitments and clients to meet on Saturday, which meant that I didn’t have the time to show up…
But show up I did, which gave me the chance to meet the second group of people:
The speakers, Chen Chow and Daren.
Both had very different perspectives to share, both of which were valuable and interesting for me and no doubt for the rest of the audience as well.
Beyond Chen Chow’s present role as one of the co-founders of Fave, I’d known him for many years since Recom and @usapps days; I will try not to overstate things but will say that what he has done to support education in Malaysia is difficult to estimate and ever-compounding, and the man’s work has touched lives far beyond himself across dozens of different organizations across Malaysia and certainly beyond it as well.
Daren on the other hand is founder of Developer Kaki, the largest developer Facebook community in Malaysia – we’ve not known each other for very long, though he’s clearly ambitious, talented and hardworking, will no doubt get where he wishes to go, and has good taste in chairs (apparently he discovered my chair persona a while ago LOL)
The challenges of entrepreneurship and the inevitable tests of character embodied in challenges that are inclement to building something meaningful – the idea that life is a game with rewards and choices through which we must fight to initiate on a limited time scale; both of these sessions were valuable in different ways.
Beyond this, there was yet another twist: The third group of people.
On the left, we have my Taylor’s juniors, and on the right, you have another three new friends who came along to speak with me at the session – both groups I met completely by chance on account of stuff that I don’t completely remember anymore.
The first? I met them through a free math workshop that i conducted for charity for Taylor’s for A Levels a while ago, and the second through a conversation that I was having with Luno’s Jeroni Khoo after his Partnerships and Affiliates session, during which they decided to ask me about the AI podcast that I’m interested to start 🙂
What unites them both is that they’re groups of people that I was asked to support at a random time – I don’t think I was fully ready back then to support the Taylor’s kids yes, but I wasn’t fully ready to teach the kids on the right about AI either – whether you go left or you go right, what remains seems to be that I was brought into a position whereby I had to provide my support through my mind and the things that I do in ways that I wasn’t entirely prepared to.
It’s funny, because I remember that during our lunchtime conversation, Ming and Lean quizzed me how I got into entrepreneurship, asking if there was a specific moment in time when I knew that that was what I wanted to do:
I answered that I didn’t know if there was a specific moment – things just happened the way that they did one moment and one opportunity at a time, and before I knew it, I had just become an educator and had started serving people in the best way that I could, even if I don’t know at the moment what the best possible ways to do so happen to be.
Still, I guess I stepped up at that time and I’m happy about it and the opportunity to enlighten many young minds 🙂
Cheers and thank you for reading!! Can’t wait for the next days ahead!
I had a bit of an internal fracas today as I was about to hire someone to create my website for me – good old Imran, the man who designed this very webpage that you’re reading at the moment.
There was a bit of an ethical dilemma on my part, because as I was trying to decide on the hiring decision, Si Eian had come in to recommend me a high school friend of his who wanted to do the job for a little more cheaply than I had been planning to work with Imran for ($400 as opposed to $500).
It led me to think a little bit there – would that $100 help me out a bit and would it save me? Would it not be prudent to save a little bit of money?
Well, I decided to go with Imran.
Partly, it’s a question of ethics – I did already tell Imran that I wanted to go with his services – but partly, it was also a question of quality and making the thing happen within a reasonable timeframe because the other freelancer was only able to deliver in two weeks; I’m not one to have a project delayed, so I went with the more expensive option.
Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate that this guy offered his services and came out there to make me the offer – it just felt wrong to give up on someone that I’d promised that I was going to do something.
Over the years, I think I’ve changed a little bit – one of the things that has changed, from what I can see, is the way that I value small things; common decency, trustworthiness… All little things that circumscribe the way that I interact with people and make choices about who to stay with.
Nowadays, as I walk through this world, I do ask myself a bit – do I want to be a decent person, or do I simply want to gain everything that I can in this world?
Once upon a time, the latter would have been the default answer, no question – but now, the former seems a little better.
Can’t wait for the developments of the next couple days 🙂
