Sydney, 10 April 2017
So, my busiest week in this semester so far has ended. It began with a business case competition, then I had my own business assignment, I also had a Local Industry Placement Program Interview, an accounting mid exam last week. and the last one I had Accounting Information System Assignment due this morning. If you ask me how I did it well, my answer would be just so so. But at least, my regular week has come back. Those deadlines have ruined my routine for sure. I skipped so many weekly readings and self-study practices in order to finish my assignments.
Well, I have already received some results of my works. We didn't go to final round for the business case competition, despite I spent so many sleepless night to do data analysis for this case. How do I feel with the result? I am feeling totally fine, since since the beginning, I wasn't really familiar with business case competition. At least I had tried my best and believed with my own work that it was all I could possibly do. Probably, we could succeed if only we knew how to do it correctly, but I think it is not this time now.
And for the Local Industry Placement Program, I also didn't make it trough. For this one I was a little bit disappointed since I really wanted it so bad and I thought I could get it quite easily. But again, I don't really regret with my failure since I think there must be some reasons that I don't know how to be a successful candidate. At first, I thought I would easily get this offer since I thought I have 10 years of solid work experience. The questions in the interview were also easy for me since mostly I can relate them to my own personal experience in office. I have some interview experiences before and I could easily make it trough successfully, but I don't know why I couldn't this time. The feedback I received on email doesn't clearly state my weakness in this first elimination. It could be because my CWAM that is lower than other participants, or because I need more semester to take before having this program, or because I didn't have a strong CV, or because my answers during interview didn't satisfy them. The positive side from this failure is that I can try again next semester to get International Industry Placement Program in Washington DC, USA during Australian summer break. For me, applying for this program is nothing to lose.
And for my two assignments, I don't have any idea at all what is going to happen. I rialise that I am bad in essay writing because I am not used to. Secondly, I didn't have much time to think about them since there were also some other works awaiting to finish. I don't expect too much. I am probably sad if I get bad marks from my assignments, but again, these are the best I can do at the moment. So I would think positively that no matter what will happen for my past assignments, I must be able to do better next time.
And lastly, my intermediate accounting mid exam. To me, accounting used to be a very easy and super interesting subjects for me. I always got outstanding marks for my accounting subjects during my undergraduate degree. But this rule does not apply here in my master degree in Australia. In the accounting classes here, I always (and never miss to) get involved in discussion with my teachers until they recognise me really well. In my group discussion with my classmates, they are all impressed with my accounting knowledge and how I can be so clear in every details in accounting that they mostly missed. It's all because I have quite much accounting knowledge inside my head. Yet, it doesn't make me to achieve a perfect mark in here. I am so weak in essay question, while they set a very high standard in answering the essay question. And also probably, because I always feel that I know everything about accounting, so it is hard for my brain to accept a new different perspective.
So what happened with accounting mid exam was the essay question was so unexpected, the calculation question was also unexpected, and the multiple choice questions (as usual) were mostly ambiguous. The essay part asked about the reporting entity concept versus reporting entity under Corporations Act 2001. We never thought that this topic will be asked since there are so many other accounting concepts more important than this one. We thought reporting entity concept and Corporations Act 2001 are only additional knowledge that are nice to know. So what I did is just skim through them and didn't really pay attention that much. While for the calculation question, I dare to say that I can do the most complicated problem and I know every detail of what accounting standard say to apply to that calculation problem. But what we had in the mid exam was a very easy and very simple, straightforward, guided calculation problem. It was too simple that I was not sure if I did it correctly or not, because it was too suspicious to have that too simple question.
Overall, these works remind me about a thing that I used to have but now I have already forgotten. That is a motivation to learn, a motivation to get a useful knowledge that I can apply for humanity. I am only focusing on marks and achievements till I forget the essence of learning. I shouldn't have pushed myself so hard to get achievements or competed with other people. I should have enjoyed my journey of learning and seen what I can learn from it and what I can do next for the world.
