Prepare in advance.
Ahead of time, consider the purpose of the interview. Review your UC application for admission as it may be brought up during your interview. Create mock questions you think might be asked. When formulating your answers, remember to emphasize your strengths.

Practice your interview skills with a friend.
Review your interview skills aloud with someone and brainstorm hypothetical situations the interview may encompass. Ask your friend to count the number of times you say “like” and “you know” to make sure you aren`t overusing such filler phrases.

Consider bringing letters of recommendation.
Letters of recommendation are optional. Submit them to your interviewer at the time of your interview. (Letters of recommendation sent to the office may not be considered.)
The Interview

Dress appropriately.
Dress comfortably for your interview, but not too casually. Rule of thumb: wear business casual and no more than two colors. If you are interviewing on the UC Berkeley campus, wear walking shoes.

Arrive on time.
Create a positive first impression by arriving on time.

Monitor your body language.
Good posture gives a confident impression. Keep your hands in your lap or on the table to seem calm rather than touching your hair and face.

Monitor your speech.
Answer in complete sentences when possible, avoiding interjections of “uhm”, “like”, and “you know”. When asked a yes/no question, follow up with a brief, interesting detail that the interviewer might remember. If you don`t understand a question, it`s perfectly acceptable to ask the interviewer to rephrase or repeat the question.

Make eye contact.
Make eye contact throughout the interview. Avoid looking at the floor or ceiling while listening and speaking.

Volunteer information.
When offering information during an interview, remember that it`s the interviewer`s job to decide what`s pertinent and what`s not. It`s your job to “flesh out” your application with details that will convince the interviewer of your strengths. Prepare answers to questions you think might highlight desirable qualities or accomplishments. Phrase what you say about yourself positively. If you are asked why you performed poorly in the sciences, emphasize your talent in creative writing, for example, instead of enumerating excuses.

Be prepared with a good close. At the end of the interview, you may be asked whether you have questions or something to add. You can ask a question, add information that you prepared before the interview, or follow up on a topic covered during the interview itself. Good closure shows that you have been engaged in the exchange. Thank the interviewer for giving you the opportunity to meet and make a timely exit, i.e. avoid running out, but also refrain from lingering.

What to avoid?

Don`t …
- chew gum
- tell sob stories
- yawn
- look at your watch
- appear bored
- fidget

As a college professor, many students approach me for letters of recommendation. Writing these letters is one of the most challenging aspects of my job. How do you fit a comprehensive profile and assessment of a student into a 1-2 page letter? How do you ensure that students provide you with all the relevant information that will help you to write the best letter than you can? How do you protect yourself from liability in writing letters of recommendation? This article takes a closer look at tips to help you in writing letters of recommendation.
Inform Students
Students tend to be uninformed about their needs and responsibilities in seeking letters of recommendation. Guide students by providing them with a detailed list of what will assist you in writing a letter on their behalf.

Many professors create a handout or web page listing the desired information. Here are some suggestions:
Explain the purpose of the letter
Desired focus of the letter (e.g., discuss my research skills and experiences in your lab, or discuss my responsibilities as a teaching assistant in your class)
Useful skills (e.g., computer, statistical, or interpersonal skills)
Related experiences (extracurricular, work experience, clubs, volunteer work)
Courses taken with the faculty member, with grades and sample work (e.g., term paper)
Reasons for pursing graduate study
Resume
Transcript
Think About It
Do not immediately agree to write a letter on behalf of a student. Instead, take a little bit of time to think about it and reflect on your experiences with the student.

Be Honest
If you don`t know a student well or cannot write a positive letter on his or her behalf, explain your reservations to inform the applicant. If he or she insists, you can either refuse, write a neutral letter, or include negative evaluations with supporting behavioral examples.

Get Permission
Obtain the student`s written permission (the signed recommendation form included in admissions packets for most graduate programs is suitable)

Be Specific
Use specific examples to support your statements. Specific examples will enhance the value of positive comments and will protect you from legal action. If you choose to include unfavorable information, you must include specific examples to illustrate your point.

Organize the Letter
An effective letter of recommendation is structured. Begin your letter by indicating for whom you are writing, what they are applying to, and an overview of the tone of the letter. Indicate to what extent and length of time you have known the student. Your next step should be to review grades and your records regarding the student.

Next, provide specific examples that illustrate the student`s intellectual ability, capacity for independent and original thought, knowledge of the field, or attitude and motivation. Close by reiterating your overall recommendation and its strength.

Beware of Ambiguity
Letters of recommendation tend to be overwhelmingly positive. Because most letters are inflated, readers examine them as if they were written in code. Recommendation letters thus become a projective test wherein any ambiguity is questioned. Any equivocal information might be interpreted in a negative light, even if you did not intend so.

Please kindly mention ScholarshipNet when applying for this position
PostDoc position on saliency maps for video (Saint Etienne, France and Gjovik, Norway)

Title: Extension of the saliency maps to video
Under natural viewing conditions (no tasks assigned to viewers) humans tend to fixate on specific parts of an image that are of interest to them naturally. These regions carry most of the useful information needed for our interpretation of the scenes we encounter in our daily life activities. Therefore, numerous applications in the field of engineering, marketing and art can benefit from understanding the human visual attention mechanisms, such as visual media quality evaluation, advertisement design, graphical user interface design, etc.

Several models are proposed in the literature for finding visually important regions in still images, based on the notion of saliency. Basically, a saliency map is the map of regions which are more prominent than others in terms of low level image properties such as intensity, color and orientation. This could be a very crude and simplistic way of approximating the human visual attention mechanisms; since it is known that familiar objects and especially faces present in an image are strong factors in drawing our attention to certain regions of an image.

This was the motivation for NCRL’ work on including face detection as an integral part of the new attention model Mr. Puneet Sharma has been working on for his MSc thesis at NCRL. His work on the automatic computation of saliency maps using low-level features such as intensity, color and orientation combined with high-level features was very promising and generated couple of publications. The objective of this research was to understand the factors that influence the saliency and gaze maps and to modify the saliency map extraction algorithm in order to make the obtained saliency maps more similar to the experimental gaze maps. Puneet has shown that we can achieve around 30% on average for the set of images used in the correlation between the automatically computed saliency maps and the experimentally generated gaze maps based on the new model.

An obvious continuation of this work is to extend this model to analyze video content. A straight forward way of doing that is by including a motion analysis module in the modified model. Dr. Marco Carli worked on a related problem, where he analyzed video content for the automatic evaluation of the perceived video quality. In his work he did not investigate in depth the use of low-level features such as color and did not use high-level objects detection as we did for the faces. He did however focus on motion information analysis and their contribution to the saliency of certain objects or regions in video. Therefore, a combination of both NCRL’ model with the face detection module and Dr. Carlis’ motion information processing would create a better modeling of the HVS attention mechanisms.

This PostDoc will be funded by the University of Saint-Etienne (France).

The candidate selected will work in the Laboratory Hubert Curien at Saint Etienne (France) under the supervision of Professor Alain Trémeau and at Gjovik (Norway) under the supervision of Dr. Faouzi Alaya Cheikh (http://www.ansatt.hig.no/faouzic/ ).

Candidacy:
We seek a strong and motivated candidate. Applicants should submit a CV including a brief research statement and a list of publications. Selection will be based on: 1. Excellence of the candidate: outstanding achievement in the applicant’s PhD degree level in imaging science, computer science, or any discipline pertaining to the quantitative description of image processing. 2. Language ability: the candidates must demonstrate sound knowledge of the language. 3. Candidate motivation to undertake the PostDoc and relevance to his/her professional development (explaining the application, the present situation, the interest in the PhD degree, the intentions after this PhD degree, …).

The application deadline is September 8, 2008 .

To get more information contact: Prof. Alain TREMEAU, Alain.Tremeau[ at ]univ-st-etienne.fr

Project Title: Investigation of the toughness of recycled polymer-clay nanocomposites for plastics recycling

We have a PhD scholarship available to work on Polymer Nanocomposites in the Department of Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering.

The project, which is funded by the Environmental Protection Agency in Ireland, aims to enhance the toughness of recycled plastics using nanoclays and study toughening mechanisms of clay in polymers. It will benefit plastics recycling industry by upgrading their products and other plastics industries by providing more choices of low-cost raw materials. The successful candidate will receive training in Polymer Science and Engineering, Composite Materials, Ceramics and Physical Chemistry.

Stipend: EUR 16,002 per annum (plus tuition fees and travel expenses).

Start date: September/October 2008.

Requirements: Candidates will have a primary degree (equivalent to 2:1 or higher) in an appropriate discipline.

Application: Highly motivated applicants with an interest in Polymers should send a full CV including names and contact details of two referees to:

Dr. Biqiong Chen
Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering
Trinity College Dublin
College Green
Dublin 2, Ireland

Email: chenb[ at ]tcd.ie

TRINITY COLLEGE IS AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES EMPLOYER

1. Nonton film dengan Bahasa Inggris dengan menggunakan subtitle Bahasa Inggris saja.
2. Gunakan Internet untuk berbicara dengan dan mencari teman dari negara-negara yang menggunakan Bahasa Inggris.
3. Baca koran-koran dan majalah-majalah yang menggunakan Bahasa Inggris. Ada ratusan koran dan majalah Bahasa Inggris yang bisa kamu baca dari Internet.
4. Coba berbicara menggunakan Bahasa Inggris dengan anggota keluarga dan teman-teman setiap hari. Semakin rajin kamu berlatih, semakin percaya diri kamu dalam menggunakannya.
5. Buat catatan khusus untuk kata-kata yang baru kamu pelajari.Ini cara yang baik sekali untuk menambah perbendaharaan kata.
6. Kenapa tidak buat blog kamu sendiri dalam Bahasa Inggris?
7. Ikuti siaran berita dari BBC World atau CNN secara rutin.
8. Coba untuk berlatih dengan penutur asli yang bisa kamu jumpai disekitar kamu. Pusat-pusat perbelanjaan dan tempat pariwisata adalah tempat yang paling ideal untuk bertemu orang asing.
9. Kunjungi situs-situs belajar Bahasa Inggris yang ada di Internet-kamu dapat melakukan beberapa latihan dan tes gratis

Berkaitan dengan score TOEFL, biasanya tiap-tiap universitas memiliki standar yang berbeda-beda. Ada yang mensyaratkan cukup 500 (PTN dalam negeri), 550 (nilai min standar), 580 atau bisa juga diatas 600 terutama untuk program-program tertentu seperti MBA.

Terlepas dari berapa score TOEFL yang dibutuhkan, sebenarnya TOEFL ini termasuk ujian yang gampang-gampang susah untuk ditaklukkan. Bagi kebanyakan orang dari beberapa section ujian TOEFL, listening adalah section yang paling berat. Sepertinya susah sekali mencuri angka di section ini, beda halnya dengan section lain terutama structure dan reading. Untuk structure dan reading mungkin bisa kita antisipasi dengan banyak belajar dan latihan, persiapan satu dua bulan bisa dirasa cukup untuk mendapatkan score yang bagus disection ini. Bisa lah kita katakan, semakin banyak latihan dan persiapan maka semakin besar peluang untuk mencuri angka.

Tapi bagaimana dengan listening? sepertinya susah sekali, meskipun kita sudah berusaha latihan sekuat tenaga sampai telinga ini mau pecah dengerin obrolan-obrolan di kaset/ CD tetap aja susah untuk mendapatkan point. Padahal untuk mendapatkan nilai TOEFL diatas 600, keberhasilan di section ini sangat menentukan sekali. Tidak hanya bisa bergantung pada section yang lain saja (structure & writing). Biasanya jika seseorang itu hanya mengandalkan section structure & reading (PBT), score TOEFL yang diperoleh umumnya hanya berkisar antara 550-570.

Sedikit berbeda dengan section yang lain, kemampuan listening tidak bisa ditingkatkan hanya dalam waktu singkat. Perlu tahap dan proses yang berangsur-angsur sampai seseorang itu benar-benar mampu untuk memilah kata yang didengar dengan baik.

Memulai belajar listening secara bertahap semenjak bangku kuliah adalah cara yang tepat. Disamping task yang tidak terlalu banyak hanya berkutat di study, konsentrasi dan daya serap otak juga masih fresh. Jadwal kuliah yang padat juga tidak menjadi masalah, kita bisa lah mencuri waktu 1 atau 2 jam sehari untuk belajar listening. Justru pola belajar yang berangsur-angsur seperti ini lebih baik dibanding persiapan instensif 3 bulan.

Bagaimana dengan materi listening? biasanya kita susah sekali untuk mendapatkan materi listening yang cukup. Hanya bermodal kaset Barron, Cliff atau buku-buku terbitan lokal. Geli juga mendengar beberapa orang teman yang menanyakan hal ini. Padahal di internet sekarang ini banyak sekali media website yang menyediakan materi-materi listening yang siap untuk di download setiap saat. Gratisss lagi.

Misalnya saja voanews.com (http://voanews.com) menyediakan materi listening dalam bentuk berita yang dapat didownload. Jumlahnya materinya banyak sekali, rata-rata untuk setiap berita yang di keluarkan oleh VOA selain ditampilkan dalam format .html website, biasanya juga disediakan file .mp3 nya yang bisa kita download. Jadi kita bisa dengar berita sambil belajar bahasa inggris. Klo teman-teman ada yang bingung dengan kosa kata yang didengar, kita tinggal lihat aja di transcript berita.

Saking dedicatednya :-B, VOA juga menyedikan website khusus untuk pemula yang ingin belajar bahasa inggris. Namanya VOA Special English (http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/index.cfm). Disini materi berita listening disediakan dalam tempo lambat mungkin sekitar 3/4 lebih lambat dibanding conversation standard. Jadi kita bisa lebih fokus untuk mencoba memilah kata. Untuk awal Special English adalah pilihan yang tepat, jika sudah mulai terbiasa coba naik level dengan mendengarkan materi listening berita yang ada di VoaNews nya sendiri dengan tempo standar.

So gampang kan? dari segi materi bisa dikatakan tidak ada masalah. Tinggal kemauan dan komitmen disini, karena kembali lagi ke awal pembicaraan, kemampuan listening bukan hal yang ditingkatkan dalam waktu singkat. So butuh kesabaran dan konsistensi juga.

BBC juga menyediakan materi listening dalam bentuk berita yang juga dapat didownload. Tapi karena basenya Inggris, tentu pelafalan dan kosa katanya sedikit berbeda. Mungkin untuk teman-teman yang mau belajar IELTS dapat menjadi source yang bagus.

Research Assistant (RA)
Jalur ini bagi spv./calon spv. yang mempunyai proyek (IRPA atau swasta). Cara mengetahuinya dengan membuka website Universitas yg akan dituju (gunakan search engine/google etc.), kemudian cari faculty/department yg diminati. Biasanya juga ada informasi mengenai proyek2 yg sedang/akan dijalankan. Atau coba email lgs Prof. yg mempunyai kepakaran sesuai dg bidang yg diminati, ceritakan latar belakang akademik dan pengalaman anda, terus tanyakan kemungkinan mendapat RA/Scholarship bidang tsb. Tidak menutup kemungkinan Prof. akan mencarikan solusi atau menginformasikan rekan sejawat yg mempunyai proyek. Perlu diketahui bahwa untuk RA, umumnya pelajar menempuh studi by research/thesis atau kombinasi coursework & thesis.
Malaysia melalui beberapa forum juga menyediakan beasiswa untuk negara2 anggota ASEAN, OIC, atau lainnya seperti Malaysian Technical Cooperation Program (MTCP). Coba browse: http://www.epu.jpm.my/Bi/mtcp/MTCPFRAME.htm. Prosesnya melalui kedutaan/konsulat Mly di Indonesia.

Beasiswa dari universitas
Beasiswa ini disediakan oleh masing-masing universitas, dan berbeda-beda bentuknya sesuai dengan kebijakan univ. Informasi bisa dilihat di website univ. Biasanya pada Graduate Institute/Center of Graduate Studies atau tanyakan langsung by email.

Sponsor-sponsor lain
Coba browse kemungkinan lain untuk mendapat informasi beasiswa studi di Mly, spt yg ada di website Islamic Development Bank:
http://www.isdb.org/english_docs/idb_home/sac.htm

atau coba explore info yg ada di website:
http://www.studymalaysia.com/student/scholarship.php

How to get scholarship, step by step

1. Lay an eye to particular scholarship.

I usually look at scholarship advertisment. If I found it interested, then I will apply. Although it is possible to find the department where you want to study first then apply the scholarship, I don`t do that because usually the nominal of scholarship is small. I am only interested to fully funding scholarship. Some scholarship, however, request you to apply officially to university and get accepted before apply the scholarship (mostly European scholarship I think)

2. Get the scholarship form and read it carefully.

Make sure that you are elligible to the scholarship, you are within the age range, the topic you want is included, your background is acceptable etc. Some scholarship is mainly for gov. employee, some are for age 35 and below, you fulfil the minimum language requirements etc.

3. Find the university you want to go.

Make sure that you know where you want to go. Only very few scholarship that just want you to write down what subject you want to do and you can choose the university later. Again, check the requirements carefully

4. Collecting the requirement.

Be very careful with the requirement. If it requires international TOEFL/IELTS, then do it. If it is not specified, better ask than sorry. If it asked for 2 recommendations, get two, some even specifically asked for direct supervisor, make sure you get it as well. Some scholarship request you to develop contact with the department you want to study, then try to get it.

5. Make sure that your application is “selling”.

Imagine yourself the person who need to select which application is acceptable, which is not. That person need to look hundreds and maybe thousands of application. Make sure that your application is neat, clear, concise, to the point and rich instead making it a flowery boring story that nobody want to finish reading it. Think, what is your strong point that makes you different from others, what is the founder agenda etc. Also make sure that when they say one page explanation, it`s one page. Try to put as much related information in the limited space

6. Pay attention to deadline
Things to consider:

1. Scholarship cost lots of money. Think that it is the founder investing the money on you. What can you give them in return. Therefore you must have a clear idea why you want to take the degree, why it is important for you to take that degree, what your future plan is, how the degree will support your plan, what is the benefit of your degree and knowledge for you, for your office, for your country and for the founder. Remember, no need to bluffing and saying things like “solving poverty problem in Indonesia” but be more specific and achievable such enhancing teaching language curriculum in University ABC, particularly in terms of develooping comprehensive student learning by doing approach. You must have the confidence that you need the degree, you can do it, and you can implement your knowledge in your work.
2. Master and above degree is not a path to get a job. I was wrong and tought master is sellable to get a better job. To some extend yes, but it is actually wiser to think that master should be used to enhance your qualification at work. Therefore, make sure that your educational background, your work and your proposed study are matched, or at least try to matched them.
3. Have confidence. Technically, passing the administration selection is the most difficult part. Possibility for a person to pass interview is much higher than passing the administration part. If you keep failing in the interview part, means that you are not really clear about your own proposed study (or you can`t express it well). During the interview, make sure that it is you that lead the interview, you should elaborate each question, and it is quite important to be original. Sometimes it looks nice if you quote from other sources (to make you look smarter). I like to quote Confucius saying during interview. During my interview for ASF, the major question was, “why do you want to this topic, and why you do it in South China? .” The answer: “Majority of research in this issue discuss the problems that occur in North China. If I do it in the north like other scholars, what will be my additional value? The project will use new approach in looking at the China`s one child policy beyond the common pattern where instead of comparing single and non single child, I compare male and female single child. That is my scholarly contribution for the discourse. Later one of the professor said that he is very impress with that answer, because they looking for original approach. So, make sure that you have the confidence, you have the educational background in that issue, and you seems know what you are going to do,
4. Get the requirements they want. Make sure that you can fulfil all the requirements. It is very useful if you have some additional things that you can offer. In my situation, I get involve with lots of social organisations dealing with HIV, drug abuse, community empowerment etc. Since I am doing social studies, these are very positive addition for my applications. Trainings, seminars, articles are important too.

Hope that the info are useful.

Anggiet

You are eligible for this scholarship if you are an international student seeking admission to pursue a full-time MBA programme at NTU. Eligibility criteria

• Singaporeans and Singapore Permanent Residents are not eligible to apply
• Selection is based on the your scholastic achievements as well as financial circumstances and other relevant factors
• You should not be on paid employment or accept paid employment or concurrently hold any other scholarship, fellowship, bursary or top-up allowance during the prescribed period of the award

Coverage

Coverage of tuition fees for up to 4 trimesters.

Bond

There is no bond attached to the scholarship.

Application procedure

You can apply for this scholarship when you are filling in your application form.

• Application forms may be obtained from the MBA Office when applications for the MBA programme open in October each year.
• Application for the scholarship should be submitted to the MBA Office together with the application for admission to the MBA programme.
• For enquiries, please contact the MBA office at nbsmba@ntu.edu.sg

Research work and duties

As a recipient of the scholarship, you may be called upon to assist in some administrative or research work of not more than 5 hours per week

http://www.nanyangmba.ntu.edu.sg/scholar.asp

LBI FIBUI is holding a scholarship workshop in the 3rd week of July at two optional venues: Salemba and Depok Campus. If you or someone you know has been trying (or planning) to win a scholarship, but is in doubt because of its intricacy, here’s the answer.

Held in 3 sessions, the workshop will guide you all thru the way to plan, write, and present your scholarship proposal, as well as to train you to go through the interview smoothly. LBI Scholarship Workshop A 9 hour workshop to maximize your chances of winning a scholarship:

- How do I start to write a winning scholarship proposal?
- What personal information is crucial to include?
- How Should I organize my essay to get me noticed?
- What kinds of question should I anticipate for the interview?
- How can I give distinctive impression to the interviewer?
- What are the do’s and don’ts during the interview?

Investment Rp. 350.000,00 for 3 session at LBI FIBUI Depok at July 17, 22, 24 2008, 13.00-16.00 Or LBI FIBUI Salemba at July 18, 23,25, 2008; 18.00-21.00

Registration:
LBI FIB UI Depok 78849082, LBI FIBUI Salemba 31930335, 3922436, 31902112

All the best,
Rachma
Lembaga Bahasa Internasional FIBUI
University of Indonesia’s Salemba Campus
University of Indonesia’s Depok Campus
Ph. (62-21) 31930335, 31902112, 3922436, 7864075
Fax. (62-21) 3156341, 78849082
Cell. 0813 15203620