Veronica Lau, a marketing executive at Kolej Laila Taib, recently spoke with SarawakYES! about what advice she would offer students who are trying to choose their university major and plan their career path.
Q: Please introduce yourself.
A: I’m Veronica Lau from Kolej Laila Taib in Sibu.
Q: So what type of courses do you offer at Kolej Laila Taib?
A: We have six courses: accounting, business management, architecture, civil engineering, quantity surveying and electrical and electronic engineering.
Q: What kind of questions should visitors ask themselves before choosing a course?
A: I would tell them to ask themselves what sort of job they would like to do in the future and what are their interests. And they can then try to merge these two answers together to try and choose the most suitable course for themselves.
Q: OK. If somehow they are unable to answer those questions how do you guide them?
A: Normally I would look at their transcript or their results and try to do a bit of analysis for them. But I would like them to also do a psychology test for their career path – I mean their future career path – online, so they will know more about themselves when they come to choosing their course. They will have more confidence in choosing the best course.
Q: So what support does Kolej Laila Taib offer? Support for students to choose their major, or financial support?
A: We actually offer zero-fee education for students who meet our requirement and this is quite a good money-saving way for them to further their studies.
Q: And how do you prepare them to make the transition from education to workforce?
A: Instead of letting them find a job with no experience, we have this industrial training for completing students, especially those who are taking quantity surveying, civil engineering and electrical and electronic engineering. They need to complete their tasks by undergoing industrial training.
Q: I see. Alright, so what advice do you want to give to students and potential students who are very unsure about what course or career they want to pursue?
A: Like what I said, you need to dig out what sort of interests you have and what sort of life you would like to have in the future. And then merge these two answers together and choose the most suitable course for yourself. If you really don’t know what to do then you need to do more research or do some tests to test what sort of personality you are. If you are shy, you don’t go for marketing, right? And if you like a lot of figures, then you don’t go for those theory things, right? So this is the way I tell the students. Try to figure out your interests.
Q: So what’s the best thing about studying in Sarawak than elsewhere?
A: The expenses over here are still considered affordable. Yeah, and we have … a lot of little provinces. It’s sort of like little Europe. Like if you study in the UK, you will go around, right? If you study in Sarawak, you can visit Kuching, and then Sibu and then Bintulu. This is one of the leisure things that students can do. And then the biggest speciality is food over here. Our food is quite significant, the local food like laksa, popiah. And we have a lot of different cultures here, Iban, Malay…
