As what the title stated, I know a lot of my non Form 6 friends would definitely call me crazy. But the truth is I really did enjoy my life as a Form 6 student! I graduated in 2013 and yes, I was one of the guinea pigs for the new system of semester based STPM examinations. Basically, I chose Form 6 because I wanted to pursue my undergraduate studies in the United States of America that I was still working on. Before I start, let me just tell you that all the information presented in this article are based on my own experiences and further research I did out of curiosity. I’m not being paid to write or even represent any organizations. It is just my opinion and point of view. So enough about me, let’s get into the reasons why I thought Form 6 was a great choice!
First, flexibility!
I know what you are thinking. How can Form 6 be flexible since the system is so rigid and limited in subject choice? What I meant about flexibility is you could choose to pursue your studies abroad or locally after Form 6. This is probably the best choice for people whom have no idea what they want to do after SPM. Most countries especially the Commonwealth countries recognize STPM. Of course, as a citizen of a country where English is not the first language, you are required to take an English proficiency test such as the IELTS or the TOEFL.
“What about A Level? They could choose to study locally or overseas too right?”
While that statement is valid. A Level leavers are provided a choice of all IPTS or very few IPTA, for instead, USM and overseas universities. Unlike STPM leavers which has the advantage of ALL IPTS and ALL IPTA plus overseas universities to choose from. But keep in mind, for any pre university students, if you choose to study abroad after your chosen pre university program, make sure you know what are the requirements and procedures for your chosen destination. The main reason for this is application to overseas universities are usually done a year ahead of the academic year which you would like to admit into the university. For example, if you want to study in the USA by the fall (that is August/ September) 2017, you should have submitted your application between November 2016 till January 2017.
Secondly, STPM prepares you for university studies.
You could probably say that about majority of the other pre university programs, but I felt that STPM does the job best. Why? Let me just take time to explain to students whom are still in secondary school. If you think that SPM was tough on you, then I’m really sorry to say that tertiary education is much much much harder than Form 5. Secondary school education basically spoon feeds you knowledge and the questions on the SPM are really direct. Tertiary education requires you to have critical thinking. Especially in the STPM which loves to set questions with hidden implications that you spend more time thinking what the question wants than answering the question. Overall, SPM requires you to name a theory or asks you to explain a process whereas STPM provides you a situation and you have to act as a consultant and give advice based on the theory you have learnt and relate it to the situation of the question which is commonly the style of teaching and questioning in university. Moreover, the new system of STPM is not solely exam oriented but it requires Form 6 students to do PBS and presentations just like in university. But compared to the lecturer in universities, you are guided extensively by your subject teachers where they take time to even instruct you on proper citation formats for when you take other people’s work as reference.
Third, choice of friends.
My mom used to be very strict with my choice of friends when I was Form 1. She even went to the extend of meeting a friend’s parents before I could go hang out with their child and now I can see why. In secondary school, most of us would spend more time with our friends than our family. We are who we are because of the people we mixed with. In my opinion, majority of my classmates in Form 6 are either from a below average income or an average income family. There are still those who are well off, of course. Why is this point very important? Well because having friends whom like you the way you are and not liking you because of the money you have is really easy to find. Form 6 students are more humble, not so judgemental of how you dress and there’s no such thing as peer pressure. We helped each other a lot especially in terms of studies as we all did horribly in the 1st semester. Form 6 students are more serious about doing great in studies compared to college students where they go around the town splashing money. Not to say that we are antisocial people because we do have hang out like once a week or once a fortnight but we don’t go burning money in any possible way.
In a nutshell, these are the top 3 reasons why I loved Form 6. If only I had more time to explain more! Lol…. Thank you for reading!
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