USM Speech Pathology interview

The idea of me writing a blog pop out when I was preparing for the speech pathology interview at USM Kubang Kerian, Kelantan last year.

 To be honest, I am not very interested with this course during that time as I only aimed for physiotherapy. However, USM does not offer any therapy courses other than speech pathology and thus, I put speech pathology as my 1^st choice in USM application. 

Two months later, I found that I have been called for the interview. I couldn’t believe how happy I was during that time because there were no biology student other than me in my school been called to USM interview. 

That’s the time when I google any special comment from the senior, and it turn out that the senior’s blog is very helpful to me. So, I hope that what I have shared afterward will be beneficial to you. 

I was attending the afternoon session and I was the only boy there (Haha, quite advantageous to me)The staff called for 4 candidates for the interview room 1^st, so I waited along with others outside the Audiology Clinic. 

The staff remind us to stay back after the interview session for speaking and hearing test as these 2 test are compulsory in USM. So we chat along outside with each other. We smile, we laughed, but the stressful atmosphere building around us is killing me. 

After the former candidates came out, is our turn to go inside the room. There are two speech lecturers, 1 audiology lecturer inside there.First of all, the lecturer called us to introduce ourselves in English one by one. At that point, I’m completely frozen, causing me to forget what I have prepared before and I just go with my gut. 

A little advice here, try to skip things like my brother work at where, my sister have how many babies in which the lecturers are not interested at all.

Next, one of the lecturer asked about our 1^st choice in UPU and UM.After this question, LET THE WAR BEGIN!!!!! Please listen to me, you better prepare to answer question like “why u didn’t put speech science as ur 1^st choice in UPU” or “what if I offer you USM and UKM speech science, where will u go”, all related to ur UPU, UM choice. So better prepare a question bank related to your UPU, USM and UM choices. 

I am telling you that the lecturer will came out with some tricky question to test your thinking. So be prepared to debate with the lecturer better than getting silent when you cannot answer some “creative” question. 

Afterward, the lecturer will continue to throw out a series of situation and ask what should we do such as:

1.    You have become a volunteer in an old folk’s home. There’s an old man who cannot talk, but keep on pointing the kitchen with his finger.

2.    Imagine u are a nursery teacher and u encounter a student who is not interested in joining the group and he keep sitting at the corner alone quietly.

3.    You saw a little girl who seems to be lost in the shopping mall. You tried to take her to the information counter but she is scared to follow you.

4.    When a bus stopped in front of you, you saw an old man sitting on the bus. He had such expression that he is supposed to get off the bus but he just looked at you.

 After all this situation questions, the lecturer wished to know what are the latest news we knew so far in Bahasa Malaysia. So, please read the newspaper the day before your interview.

5 minutes later, the interview session has ended finally. We have been called to their clinic to check our ear and throat. That’s not a problem if you have passed your oral test during form 5. 

After that, we are free to go home.In conclusion, the interview will take around 30 minutes and as you can see, the USM lecturers are very series in choosing their own student. 

Personal advice, do not hesitate to call your senior if you have any problem related to the interview. Besides USM senior, u can also phone UKM speech science senior, as most of them been to the Kelantan interview too.

Take me as an example, even though is not a good move if u prepare your own speech script, but I will encourage you to do a lot of research about the history of USM, general idea of what a speech pathology do as it really helps u to build up ur confident. 

Thanks to all the advice given by senior and google, I get the chance to enrol in speech science programe. 

If you have been called to UKM interview for the same course, please visit my next blog about UKM interview.Wish you have a wonderful interview experience.