Disclaimer: Based on an article from a recent Reader’s Digest issue, but certainly not copy-pasted.

In this connected world, how safe is your privacy? Never mind about the perverts and psychos roaming around trying to stalk you. You have an even bigger issue to deal with online. Take a look at you Facebook, Friendster or MySpace profile. Now, put yourself in the shoes of a prospective employer and ask yourself: “Would you hire a person whose profile picture shows him puking in a toilet bowl with a comment saying ‘I got sooooo drunk that day’?”

Employers now have gotten very tech savvy, even more than we give them credit for. All a person needs to do is Google your name, and there pops out your profile page with details on your likes, dislikes, pictures and many more. The question is, are you willing to forsake a future employment offer just to have a cool profile page that chicks/hunks dig (or Digg)? Your online profile says a lot about you even before you take your first step into the interviewer’s room. It’s like a background check done in 30 seconds flat. We don’t need private investigators now, do we?

Employers wanna get to know about their prospective employees’ character early on. And social bookmarking sites provide them with ll the information they need in a flash. So, it is good practice to “clean up” your profiles so that they do not let out too much about your misgivings. Your profile is automatically your own public relations tool.

It’s okay to have pictures of you having fun with your friends. Having a picture of you and your friends having a good drink is fine, cause it shows that you can socialize. Having a picture of you being drunk wearing only your boxers shows lack of judgement. It is how you potray yourself to others. And it depends on what line of work you are aiming to get into. Having a website wth your name, filled with fancy graphics and animations and written in your own brand of satirical comedy bodes well for a creativity based job, but it doesn’t seem much of a bright idea for applicants in the hospitality industry where a person’s polite and clean persona carries much weight. It all depends on where you want to end up.

Keeping your profiles private help a lot. But some people prefer to reach out to a wider group of individuals, thus preferring a public profile. In any ways, you must be able to discern what is proper, and what is not. If you have blogs of controversial nature, it is up to you to have your own disclaimer. Think of it as a pre-nuptual agreement between you and your reader(s).

On a personal note, when I was hired for my current job, my interviewer has access to my blog. His verdict? I obviously knew how to program in PHP, and my offbeat ramblings showed creativity skills for problem solving. Though I’d still recommend everyone to style their online presence in their social bookmarking sites to a more “people friendly” manner.

For a better insight, refer to the June 2008 issue of Reader’s Digest (Malaysian Edition), on the article How To Click & Clean by Andy Simmons.

Attention everyone. This is a public service announcement to those who always have that thirst for charity. Remember you won’t be paid for this and that is the reason it’s called public service or voluntary work.

Well cut things short, we are seeking for volunteers to teach English, Science and Maths for student in SRJK (T) Bangsar. This is to cater for all those students who cant afford to pay private tuition fee. So we need people to come over to the school on every Saturday for only 2 hours. Maybe from 11am till 1pm (time yet to be confirmed)

The classes will be conducted for students from Standard 1 and Standard 2 primary. If you have the heart and you think that you would want to extend your help to us, do email me your contact and I will call you up. You may provide contact via email rujjcoomarh@yahoo.com with the subject line “SRJKT Bangsar – Voluntary Work”

My email will be running on filters so you wouldn’t want your emails to go into my junk folder, right? J

This will be our first project and we hope to expand this activity to several schools.
Do take note that we are not politically involved with any parties or even NGO’s or society. We are on our own. Just bunch of people who are willing to help.

Thank you and hoping for a good response.

Valgha Tamizh, Valarga Samuthaayam

Rujjcoomarh

Greetings. Since everyone has shared their experience in Universities, I would like to take this opportunity to share my piece studying in private college (now its University-College). Before I could start I would like to clarify that my write up here does not reflect 100% of the happenings or attitude of every individuals in a private college. This is merely my own experience.

I graduated from APIIT a.k.a UCTI. Immediately after SPM I told my dad that I want to do audio engineering, he just showed me his middle finger and asked to study something where I can make easy money. So there I was, first year APIIT. I am someone who always wanted to go to public universities and I don’t know why. It’s more like a fascination. End of the day I have no choice; I got no balls to do STPM, so I decided to go to private college.
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As promised.

Plenty of comments were put up on tzarina’s post on Malaysian Indians in Malaysian Universities. Since questions were put up regarding the validity of the talked about issue in private universities, I would like to regale my experiences. Furthermore, I graduated from a Indian-majority university, which was set up by an Indian-based political party. I will reserve my thoughts on the university itself for the time being, and would rather, for now, care to explain more about the student mentality there.

Entering an Indian-majority surrounding at 18 years old was a big culture shock, to say the least. Growing up as a minority in the city (so to speak), it felt kinda weird being a majority race for the first time. Since the university was still in its infancy, I got to see a bunch of colorful characters there.

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