Call me pretty ATM, would you?

Why is everyone asking me for money since morning... Even my sister... (Dad no please no I'm an unemployed poor kid 

My brother can do anything if you buy him drinks 😂

Work-Life Balance - Is It Possible?

Once we step into the corporate world, it is inevitable that a significant portion of our days is spent at work. Our paid employment is crucial in ensuring that we are able to make our ends meet and are financially prepared to pursue our life goals. Ironically, it could be the other way round - we are overwhelmed by our workload, and ended up facing trouble to make time for ourselves, not to mention time to achieve our goal. 

Therefore, working adults are in search of a healthy balance between career and personal life. Work-life balance carries different meanings for different people, and their common ground is the ability to fulfill the demands of their career without deteriorating the other important aspects in their life, such as family-related and personal interest. A harmonious work-life balance is less about devoting an equal time between work and personal life, instead it is more about having control over our life. We wish to have the flexibility to accomplish tasks in our professional life, whilst having the time and energy to live our life to the fullest. 

A poor work-life balance could be resulted from toxic work culture, where the workers are expected to work themselves to death but not being financially compensated for their sacrifice. Technology advancement has enhanced our social connectedness, on the other hand increased the accessibility of workers around the clock, making work-life balance more impossible. The current global recession and layoffs looms have exacerbated the job insecurity, thus the workers are forced to constantly plug in. 

Besides, there is a trade off between work and personal time. The opportunity cost of enjoying personal quality time rather than working is higher than one climbing up the corporate ladder. Consequently, the employees are burned out, which in turn suffer low productivity, deteriorate their physical and mental health, jeopardize their social life and escalate the company's workforce turnover rate.

As the workplace trends are transforming due to millennials' demand for work-life balance, numerous organizations have emphasized the organizational culture in supporting the goal of work-life balance. They have adopted remote working policies and valued their employees' integration of work and private life. Remote working has also become a key method for the organizations to stay ahead of disruption and boost employees' morale. The ongoing worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease has accelerated the digital transformation of work, resulting in more companies embracing work from home arrangement. 

Sadly, remote working does not necessarily lead to an achievement of work-life balance. The boundaries between work and private life have been blurred, and the lack of performance visibility has resulted in an increase in either surveillance by superiors or expectation to boost productivity. The homebound employees are logging in longer working hours than in office. The never-ending workday compounds their stress. The underlying problem is, there is no legitimate excuse to escape from impromptu meetings or con-calls, with the expectation that people have no where to go and nothing to do except their job.

The hard truth is, work-life balance does not exist. There is just work, especially in the Asian countries which highly value the culture of long working hours. It would be awesome to achieve a balance but our lives do not exist in silos. Some suggest that workers should instead pursue work-life integration or harmony. They are advised to think about their work and the other aspects of life as a whole, rather than separating the compartments of their life. Balance tends to imply a strict trade-off, which is difficult to achieve. Nevertheless, there are counter arguments that work-life integration or harmony is merely an euphemism for working outside hours.

Attaining work-life balance is a never ending process, yet we should not stop fighting for it! If we are not the one who care about our well-being, who else will?  Hence, start treating yourself better today for working hard. It could be a small cup of coffee, a home-cooked delicious lunch, some good music, or a short break. Useful tips to achieve work-life balance are available at Forbes and The Guardian, provided by career experts. Do try the method that is suitable for you!

"Never get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life."

Year 3 Sem 3 | Final Sem!

Good news! My name is on the graduate list and I am graduating with distinction! Recalling the first day I started my university, I couldn't believe how far I have come!

Let's recap my final semester! This semester is supposed to be a heavy one because I am taking five subjects, which sums up a total of 19 credit hours. There are 2 elective subjects, and students are required to choose among 4 ACCA Strategic Professional Level option papers, namely Advanced Audit & Assurance (AAA), Advanced Taxation (ATX), Advanced Financial Management (AFM) and Advanced Performance Management (APM). 

My preferred subject combination is ATX + AFM, but my university's AFM lecturer is well-known (notorious) for her extremely strict (torturing) teaching method. Claiming that she is doing for her students' own good, she demands her students to fully concentrate on her subject and neglect other "unimportant" subjects. Such request seems unreasonable to me because I reckon other subjects carry the same weight (and credit hours) as her subject! Besides, my learning style leans towards self-studying over classroom learning. I prefer to learn at my own pace, hence I have decided to give up AFM as I could't tolerate the pressure to become her student. (She might hate me before I'm scared of her thou)

It took me some time to reach a conclusion on whether to choose AAA or APM, as none of them is my preferred subject. I was hesitating to select AAA as I do not have strong interest to kick start my career in auditing, and AAA is known to be the hardest exam.

I ended up went for AAA out of the consideration that the syllabus of APM is overlapping with SBL. Many students choose APM over AAA to maintain their CGPA, whilst me decided to take the challenge at the risk of affecting my CGPA adversely. Reason being, AAA is more practical aspect of profession than APM. I couldn't know if I am making the correct decision, until I pass my AAA in first attempt.

Advanced Audit & Assurance

As compared to the basic audit subjects in my previous years of study, the syllabus offers a higher level of relevant skills and knowledge in audit and assurance knowledge. I have learnt to analyze financial statements from the perspective of an auditor. Besides, this subject has refreshed my SBR knowledge, providing me more insights into practical application of accounting standards. I like how the questions provide many interesting real world scenario, but the questions are immensely challenging! I believe the reason students struggle with this subject is because we are used to rote learning without understanding the concept, whilst this subject is concerned with the application of knowledge.

The only reason I regretted in taking up AAA is the lecturer. The flow of her lecture isn't organized, as she fails to explain several significant links among different audit stages. Instead of delving deeper into the concepts or providing real life examples, she is inclined to repeat and rephrase some basic concepts. I strongly dislike her disorganized notes, which is messier than her lectures! 

Some students might perceive her as a good lecturer because she marks very leniently. However, surface knowledge is inadequate for students to pass our ACCA examination. Hence, I had to study the whole ACCA syllabus on my own to prepare for my September sitting.

In contrast, the APM lecturer is much better in delivering her content and prepares her students for ACCA examinations. She is the fatest lecturer who picks up e-learning during MCO, and I genuinely admire her dedication towards teaching. Her great teaching techniques have attracted students to attend her three hours lecture in the evening. Conclusion, good teachers do make a great difference.

Integrated Case Study

I was enthusiastically anticipating to attend classes for this subject before the semester started! After exposing to different workshops and competitions, I hope to receive proper coaching on cracking case study and presenting solutions. The bigger the expectation, the bigger the disappointment. Students were given few case studies to identify problems and suggest solutions, yet the course structure and scoring system has undermines the objective of case study. Every week, we were expected to prepare reports on issues identified before the class, which means no guidance was provided beforehand. We did present our solutions to our tutor biweekly, yet our tutor focused on allocating marks for each team's presentation, rather than providing us advice or feedback on improving our solutions or presentation skills. 

This subject irritated us more when the lecturer announced that our weekly reports and presentations only carry an insignificant percentage of our total marks. Our effort did not yield a corresponding results. He had allocated more weightage on group and individual assignment, but we were given an excessively short period of time for submission. His vague instructions had worsen the situation, which caused us repeatedly changing our content.

On the bright side, we got a tutor with deep knowledge for this subject matter. He had provided different perspective when evaluating the case study and shared his industry knowledge. I like the way he explained things whenever I requested for clarification. Most importantly, he gave us direction and guidance for assignments, and he even replied my email after office hours! Instead of spoon feeding the answers, he prompted me to think further by throwing me more questions. 

Advanced Presentation
This is another subject which I look forward to. I was expecting this subject would brush up my presentation skills, which is a sought-after skill which employers are looking for. Unexpectedly, this subject intends to teach us creating and designing a PowerPoint presentation slide. A large scope of the syllabus covers basic and common slides designing skills, which are expected from a final year undergraduate. Besides, time allocated for practical classes is unreasonably extreme. One practical class is expected to last 4 hours, while it only took us less than an hour to complete exercise for one chapter. 

I understand the intention of authority in designing this course, but it seems that they had over emphasized the "slides" than the "presentation". A well designed slide is merely part of an effective presentation. A good presentation comes from correctly addressing the audience's needs, interaction with audience, speaking tone and body language. There is a huge room for improvement for my presentation skills, and I hope that universities could design their course to equip students with excellent presentation skills, which would bridge the expectation gap between employers and students.

Nevertheless, this subject is an easy subject to score A, and it carries a significant 4 credit hours! It would be a favorite subject for students who desire to improve their grade with minimal efforts.

Hubungan Etnik

The last MPU subject in my university. I dislike MPU subjects because I neither pick up transferable skills nor enhance my knowledge. We were just repeating what we have learnt back in SPM Sejarah, which is a compulsory pass subject. The perk of the subject is the great memories created when our team worked together on our video assignment. We took the video shooting as the opportunity to increase bond and spend more awesome time together before we graduate. There wasn't script written for our scenes, and our acting was totally impromptu, which had made our video more hilarious. Until today, I couldn't refrain myself from laughing, regardless of how many times I have watched our video.

MPU subjects have been criticized for being useless, wasting time and burdening. There are students who like MPU subjects because it's an easy subject to score and pull up their CGPA, whilst students with poor Bahasa Malaysia language proficiency are traumatized with MPU subjects as they couldn't understand what their lecturer is saying! I understand the objective of MPU subjects in promoting nation building by broadening knowledge about Malaysia. However, the reality has proved that such method is ineffective as textbook knowledge isn't the best tool to instill nationalism and racial unity among youths. 

Advanced Taxation

Advanced Taxation is a huge leap from Basic Taxation and students really need to step up their game. Honestly, I am uncertain that my interest in tax is derived from the teaching method of my lecturer, relatively easier nature of examination or my genuine passion towards tax field. My lecturer for Basic Taxation is one of the best lecturers in my university. I remember him consistently reminding students on areas that require more attention in lecture class. Also, he always interacts with students and is very passionate in encouraging students to participate in tax competitions. He is the reason I set a higher expectation for my Advanced Taxation lecturer, which had turned my hope into disappointment. 

I do believe that my Advanced Taxation lecturer is equipped with ample knowledge related to tax, yet I seriously couldn't tolerate his voice and the method he conducted his lecture. While attending his first lecture, I was questioning my English language proficiency as I really couldn't understand his explanation or elaboration. His magical sentence structure had confused us and his tone in delivering lecture was loud yet monotonous, which made me fail to concentrate in his class. I believe same went to my coursemates, as I had noticed a sharp decline in the physical attendance. 

The funny part was, he was well aware that many students were helping their friends who absent from lecture to take attendance. Our university implements e-attendance, and students are required to connect to the university Wi-Fi to take attendance via university apps. The existing loophole is, students would ask their friends to sign in to their account and take attendance on behalf of them. The lecturer did not warn them from taking attendance unauthorizedly. Instead, he decided to give attendance code at the very last minute (literally 6.59pm when class ended at 7pm) of his lecture, so the students couldn't have ample time to log out from their own account and sign into their friends' account! We always joke that battle always happen when Advanced Taxation comes to its end, and this battle examines one's typing speed and ability to remember his friend's student ID and password! (Tip: set your student ID as your password hahaha!)

On the other hand, I sincerely appreciate the opportunity to be taught by my tutor, who is much better than my lecturer (I honestly feel sorry for my lecturer when I am writing my blog post). After our first mid-term exam, she had identified few weaker students and also the common areas that we lost marks. In subsequent tutorial classes, she consistently checked on these students to ensure that they truly understand the concepts behind the tax principles. Besides, she had guided us on more exam-styled questions, which encourages application of knowledge. I love how she actively interacted with us in class and maintain a positive relationship with us, which had in turn created a harmonious learning environment. I noticed such surroundings boost students' interest to pursue knowledge and eventually increase learning effectiveness.

In short, the beginning of final semester was roller coaster, and it ended very abruptly due to MCO. MCO happened when there were two more weeks till the end of semester, hence the disruption caused to our studies was minimized. I was quite disappointed with my lecturers for not conducting online lectures, yet I do understand that time is needed for them to transition to work from home, especially when most of them are less computer literate. 

The major disruption was delay in my final examinations, which means more time for preparation but I didn't spend my time productively. Online exam was an entirely new experience to me, but still I prefer physical examinations. Despite my fast typing speed, the exam pressure had resulted in many typing errors, and being an OCD, I spent too much time correcting these typos. Eventually, I couldn't manage to finish my examinations within stipulated time! Besides, I find it more exhausting to stare at the screen for long hours while experiencing high level of stress. On the bright side, candidates neither have to worry about traffic congestion nor unable to find the exam hall. And I find another amusing perk of sitting for online exam, YOU CAN EAT WHILE YOU ARE HAVING EXAM! (I have checked, eating isn't disallowed during online exam :P)

Despite MCO, I would conclude that my final semester was a memorable one. I had spent time having fun with my classmates, and we finally played volleyball together on the Friday before MCO! There were more plans that we promised to do together, but did not happen due to MCO. And we didn't manage to take photos with our lecturers and most importantly, our last class photo! Moral of the story, appreciate every moment, you never know when it is the last moment. Anyway, COVID-19 doesn't put a full stop to our friendship! 

It's time to move on to the next stage of our life as a working adult (a.k.a. corporate slave), but the memories would last for our life time.