Question: Matriculation students often face a lot of challenges. What are some of these challenges?

          A fortnight ago, I visited my cousin who is studying in the Johor Matriculation College. I was shocked to see her at first. With dark circles around her eyes and severe weight loss, she looked pale and tired. After much enquiry, she admitted she faced hard times in the college. Indeed, matriculation students do face many challenges namely, time management, adapting to the new lifestyle and competition in studies.

Firstly, time management is one of the great challenges faced by matriculation students. Students find it hard to manage their time due to their busy and demanding schedule. For example, a matriculation student’s daily routine starts at 8 am and ends at 5 pm. Between this time, students have to manage lectures, tutorials and science practicals wisely. Besides, students have to finish up loads of homework amidst limited resting time. Usually the homework must be submitted within one or two days only. So students will have to sacrifice other activities such as playing games or jogging in order to finish the tasks given to them on time. However, if the students planned and used time wisely, activities that they desired to be carried out can go without any hindrance. It is clear that matriculation students do face difficulties in managing their time.

Secondly, adapting to the new lifestyle is another challenge for matriculation students. New lifestyle refers to the new life students are experiencing in matriculation colleges. Nearly all the students here graduated from high schools where they were often spoon-fed with all kinds of information and knowledge. However, in matriculation programmes, university-like learning style is implemented and this is a major change for the students. For instance, students have to find extra inputs such as lecture notes, reference books and exercise papers on their own. This change might be difficult for students who are used to being provided with all the necessities in high school. This is because in matriculation colleges, they have to shed their old habit of depending on others to being a 21st century independent learner. This transformation to adapt to the new lifestyle is certainly a big challenge for matriculation students.

Finally, competition in studies is also one of the challenges faced by the students in matriculation colleges. It is a known fact that students who got into matriculation colleges are students who passed their SPM examinations with flying colours. Now, we have all the smart students in one place: the matriculation college. As a result, competition in studies increases. All the students have to compete to obtain the ‘perfect’ results in order to be the best among the best. For example, ten students would like to pursue their studies in the same field. So, they have to obtain not only outstanding results in their matriculation examinations but also high co-curricular marks as well. Other than that, students have to score well in pop quizzes and assignments to add on extra marks that will be collected throughout the matriculation programme. The competition is so tough that even a slight mistake might push down the rank of a student way below the line. As a conclusion, matriculation students have to compete among themselves in studies in order to succeed in their lives academically.

In a nutshell, the challenges faced by the matriculation students are time management, adapting to a new lifestyle, and competition in studies. Students have to prepare themselves mentally and physically so that they can strive towards victory in their matriculation lives.