Zero to hero

This is a part of my appreciation post 

It all starts when this special lecturer (he is going mad if I reveal himself so in this section, just call him my lecturer), he never taught me actually but he's from my faculty and software department.

During that time, it was me, and my other two classmates, See Nai and Syaddad. The lecturer persuaded us to take part in a software building competition held in our faculty. He told us the benefits of taking part, and if we ever selected to go to final, we may go to compete overseas.

btw Syaddad: the first from left, See Nai: center, girl wearing specs from our workshop group members photo welfie

We were willing to take part, but we rarely went to the training as the training usually held on weekends and I got errands during weekends, mostly attending events for my Theatre club or PERSADA (club for Felda generations).

A week before trial competition, the three of us almost gave up. We didn't put any effort for this competition. We were planning to withdraw but at the same time we were thinking of the lecturer that kept convincing us.

At the day of the trial, Syaddad didn't come for a reasonable excuse. He went for JPJ test (test for getting driving license). It was me and See Nai left, plus another 50++ candidates. Yes, we indeed believed that we won't even selected, and may be the worst of all candidates.

It was an open competition, anyone can join. We need to build a software for Marathon event using C# language. C# is not in our syllabus. We need to learn and explore ourselves, that's what we didn't do.

This is me before competition

Confident is the key. I just walked in to the lab and hell ever did whatever See Nai taught me. Yes, See Nai went to like 2 times training and taught me and Syaddad on coding. I didn't even understand the codes, I just remembered and type everything what I did remember during the trial.

It has 2 sections, programming and database design. The programming is an open question while the database is a closed question. 70% and 30% marks respectively.

I thought I did only 4% of the programming section. Well, that's the only percentages that I learned. For database section, I didn't worry much. I'm learning database every semester.

A few days after the trial, Badrul, one of the candidates and also the lecturer's favourite told me that I'm selected. Of course I didn't believe him until the lecturer told my to get ready for the next competition, which is the final. 10 candidates were selected, 7 from our university, the rest are from TAR UC.

We started our second training during semester break, which should be our internship duration. There were 3 people from my batch that were selected and we need to sacrifice our internship programme to this training. We got permission to replace our internship programme with this training.

At first, it wasn't fun at all. Every finalist need to go to the lab and do programming every day, office hours. I didn't know anyone accept Badrul.

We call him Bad. I knew him because he was my classmate for Public Speaking (Malay) class.

I tried to get to know them. We tried.

What we did was typing on own laptop/pc all day long. No fun at all buddy.

We slowly getting know each other. Sometimes we went to lunch together. Sometimes we talked and share our ideas. But not much. Just a little. A few.

But as time passes, we did know a bit about each other. Sometimes we talked and share about our personal lives and problems.

It was getting better.

Apart from that, I gained knowledge on C#. Actually, there was a senior, Simon. He was a genius (in any programming language I think). He went to Asia rank for this competition and got Silver medal. He shared his solution to each of us.

He was there with us, sitting on the lab. Whenever we have errors or questions on programming, we'll ask him. He's a problem solver (for programming mainly).

I actually felt relieved as I got to pay attention and focus on this competition only.

All we did for more than a month was programming. We only celebrated Hari Raya Aldilfitri a week while others celebrated a month. We need to stay at the hostel while others can be with their families. We did sacrifices.



This is the best part, the final.

The final was held in Shah Alam. There are 9 of us including the lecturer and Simon, and two other students,  one of them was taking part in IT network.

On our way to Shah Alam, it was a quite long journey. Usually it only takes 2 to 3 hours trip but became 5 1/2 hours as the highway was blocked. There was an accident involving a tanker that brings chemical blocks the road.

The roadblock made us arrive the final competition held late. Luckily we arrived a day before final. We rushed to CIAST, to check out hardware and software. Only IT network candidates needed to set up a few things.

We were staying at a very nice homestay. This is where and when we get to knowing each other better.

That was where I realize they aren't that 'not fun'. We were crazy too sometimes.
We ate together, revising together, even sleep together. The night before final, I learned many things too from them. We shared our ways to answer the questions and everybody has their own ways. We even walked from CIAST to homestay and vice versa. It took 10-15 minutes moderate walk.

The one moral that really impress me is that, the competition is individually, but we work as a team. We didn't selfish keeping the solution ourselves, we share. It was an open questions, we got a few month ago and we find solutions together. Simon did share his solution, then every of us has their own unique ways modified solutions. And we share. Even when entering the lab for final, we were still a team, we proudly wore our faculty lab coat as if we were a team, representative for our university.

There were 15 hours total time for final and divided into 4 modules. Our lecturer became one of the judges and Simon became the examiner. It took 2 days, our competition.

At first, I was very nervous. I did a very careless mistake, which I mis-click made me couldn't find what I'm searching for, TWICE. But luckily there was Simon cooling me down. Hahahah I felt like an idiot back there. He patted my shoulder and asked me to calm down. Walao I never been that nervous before. This isn't my first time competing. Luckily I was good until finish all modules and still OK now.

Every of us seemed fine and did well on Module 1. We were given 3 hours and most of us finished earlier including me. We had trained answering the questions with timers.

The first day went smooth for me. But the second day made me a bit emotional as the codes are a bit confusing and hard to be remembered.

BUT I was so grateful I finally did it to the end. YEAYY.

We did our best. I'm sure our marks varies very little on programming section, I guaranteed. Cause we did almost the same solutions on the final as we trained the same solution.

I'm gonna miss the memories we created and couldn't thank more to the lecturer, Simon, Badrul, Chuan, Ang, Hisham, Mus, Siau Wey, Yu Ben, Zafif, Hafiz and Ammar for this great opportunity to be heroes together.

We noticed our efforts from zero to hero. Hahahaha not a real hero lah.
Here's a few photos of us.

During fighting

Bad

Err.. next

Hisham

After the final, everybody went back to their home except me, Chuan and Ang. We need to do project for internship and we are a still in not going back home neither rest yet. And tonight, we decided to have dinner with Simon before he went to internship and left us (he's in his final year and done his fyp). That's all. I'm tired typing. There are more stories and memories that are hardly to be explained. I'm just gonna keep the memories on my mind, that's why I said, this is a part of appreciation post.

I wish I could make a paragraph or two for everyone but tak mampu lah. I also couldn't post the complete picture of us, the heroes. Hahahah. Till we meet again. Hopefully kalau lepas ni terserempak tegur okay.

That's all. Bye

From left: Ang, me, Simon and Chuan