Pengajian Universiti di Negara Jerman Bagi Lepasan SPM

Tulisan ini adalah pelengkap untuk satu thread yang telah saya tulis di Twitter pada 2 April 2020. Di sini saya ingin berkongsi sedikit sebanyak pengalaman dan pengetahuan saya tentang pengajian peringkat ijazah di negara Jerman ini, terutamanya tentang persediaan (pra-universiti) di Malaysia.

Ketika itu thread berkenaan ditujukan kepada lepasan SPM 2019 dan bakal-bakal calon SPM 2020. Oleh sebab COVID-19 telah melanda satu dunia, nampaknya SPM 2020 semakin tidak realistik. Maka saya tujukan juga perkongsian ini untuk calon-calon SPM 2021 pula. (Thread itu ada di penghujung artikel ini di bawah sekali)

Latar belakang penulis

Penulis di Berlin.

Akademik:

• Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia, MRSM Jasin (kini MRSM Tun Ghafar Baba)
  
• German A-Level Preparatory Program, German-Malaysian Institute (GMI), Kuala Lumpur
  
• Diplom-Ingenieur (FH) Mechatronics Engineering, Uni. of Applied Sciences Mittelhessen (Campus Friedberg)
  
• M. Sc. Computer Vision and Photonics, Darmstadt Uni. of Applied Sciences

Cocurricular:

• Ketua pelajar A-Levels GMI, batch 2003/2005
• Ahli Majlis Perwakilan Pelajar GMI, 2003/2004
  
• Setiausaha Agung MARA Kumpel (majlis pelajar MARA di Jerman), 2008

Bidang pekerjaan:

• robotics
• industrial computer vision 
• financial services (dari pertengahan 2017 hingga kini)

Langkah pertama selepas SPM

Selepas tamat SPM, bakal pelajar harus menyelidik apakah program-program yang ditawarkan oleh MARA dan JPA. Bagi mereka yang tidak memerlukan biasiswa yakni bakal pelajar persendirian, bolehlah merujuk terus kepada program A-Level di http://gmi.edu.my.

Persediaan di Malaysia dijangka mengambil masa setahun setengah, dengan intake setahun sekali, pada bulan Julai.

German-Malaysian Institute, kini di Bangi.

Program A-Level di GMI kebiasaannya disertai oleh pelajar tajaan MARA, JPA, yayasan tertentu dan persendirian. Majoriti pelajar JPA selalunya menjalani program persediaan di INTEC UiTM dan First City Universiy College (dahulunya dikenali sebagai KBU). Saya juga telah dimaklumkan bahawa sudah pun ada pelajar-pelajar MARA yang juga mengikuti persediaan di INTEC.

Penulis bersama rakan-rakan sekelas di GMI Kuala Lumpur.

 

Dari program persediaan di GMI ke negara Jerman

Laluan ke Jerman melalui GMI dapat dirumuskan seperti berikut:

1. A-Levels (Physics, Mathematics, Chemistry) + bahasa Jerman hingga tahap pertengahan + latihan asas industri - di Malaysia (22 bulan)
2. Kursus persediaan akhir bahasa Jerman intensif + ujian terakhir bahasa Jerman tahap universiti - di Jerman (6 bulan).
• di sini, pelajar-pelajar akan dibahagikan kepada kumpulan yang akan menjalani kursus intensif bahasa Jerman di institut yang berbeza.
  
3. Universiti: pengajian bermula dari semester pertama

Kursus-kursus kejuruteraan di negara Jerman

Contoh-contoh kursus teknikal yang boleh dipilih:

• Mechatronics engineering
  
• Technical computer science
• Physikalische Technik (susah untuk diterjemahkan)
• Optical engineering and industrial computer vision
• Plastics engineering
• Chemical engineering, etc. 

Kenapa belajar di negara Jerman

• Kos pengajian universiti dan kos hidup pelajar yang rendah
• Kelengkapan universiti awam yang sangat baik
• Accessibility untuk bahan-bahan ilmiah (perpustakaan dan akses percuma untuk scientific research articles)

Penulis semasa mengulangkaji subjek Robotik untuk peperiksaan semester.

• Teknologi tinggi di industri - tidak perlu dipertikaikan lagi.

 

Penulis semasa bekerja dalam bidang robotik di Jerman, tahun 2016.

• Lokasi Jerman yang strategik untuk mengembara ke negara-negara Eropah yang lain. 

Penulis dan rakan-rakan di Camp Nou - stadium rumah FC Barcelona

Penulis dan rakan-rakan di Istanbul

Penulis dan rakan-rakan di Saint Peter's Square.

• Reputasi universiti-universiti awam Jerman: kelulusan dari Jerman akan memudahkan anda untuk mencari pekerjaan di dalam Jerman.

Fachhochschule, Hochschule dan Universität

Majoriti pelajar Malaysia akan mengaji di Fachhochschule atau Hochschule (university of applied sciences). Ada juga yang memilih Universität. Kedua-dua sistem universiti tersebut berbeza.

Di Fachhochschule (FH) atau Hochschule (HS), pengajian lebih menekankan sistem praktikal: lebih sesi makmal & latihan industri.

Manakala di Universität pula terdapat sistem klasik yang lebih mengutamakan pengetahuan teori. Universität juga menawarkan pengajian sehingga peringkat PhD.

Kedua-dua universiti menawarkan ijazah Bachelor dan Master.

Kelebihan di Fachhochschule/Hochschule:

• Nisbah bilangan pelajar kepada pensyarah lebih rendah berbanding di Universität.
• Saiz kuliah atau kelas lebih kecil - maka mudah untuk mendapatkan perhatian atau pertolongan daripada pensyarah.

Pesanan kepada pelajar-pelajar Malaysia di Jerman oleh MEC

Malaysia Engineering Community atau MEC - ialah satu pertubuhan baru yang ditubuhkan oleh sekumpulan jurutera Malaysia di Jerman, yang majoritinya terdiri daripada graduan universiti-universiti Jerman. Satu soal selidik telah diadakan pada bulan Julai 2020 tentang nasihat-nasihat yang ingin dikongsikan dengan bakal-bakal pelajar di negara Jerman. Graf di bawah merumuskan nasihat-nasihat tersebut, mengikut undian:

Tips oleh MEC untuk pelajar-pelajar Malaysia di Jerman.

 

Disclaimer dan akhir kata

Ada kemungkinan maklumat-maklumat di atas telah berubah mengikut keadaan semasa.

 

Banyak cabaran yang akan dihadapi oleh pelajar-pelajar Malaysia di perantauan. Saya memilih untuk tidak menghuraikan pengalaman milik diri sendiri mahupun rakan-rakan lain di blogpost ini. Hanya off the record sahaja.

 

Akhir kata, jika anda memilih untuk ke Jerman, saya ucapkan Viel Erfolg - selamat berjaya.

Penulis di Burg Eltz (Eltz Castle).

Follow @HafizVonPJ

 

Ada lepasan #SPM2019 atau calon #SPM2020 yang bercita-cita untuk belajar di negara Jerman tak?

Mungkin saya akan berkongsi sedikit sebanyak maklumat yang dapat membantu.

— der Hafız 🇲🇾 (@HafizVonPJ) April 2, 2020

Robotics, Coding, Linux, and Version Controlling

At this time, the author works for a small robotics company in Darmstadt, Germany. The company's product is an industrial lightweight robotic arm - aiming for collaborative robotics solutions in automotive, pharmaceutical, and every other industries.

Fig. 1: Self-built 3 DOF robot - using 3 servos, LEGO pieces, Arduino board, and ROS.

[YouTube gave a warning that the video below is unlisted - "Think twice before you share." The author has decided to go ahead as the author himself is featured in the video.]

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Coding

The author has to delve into software development with ROS (Robot Operating System): supporting the further development of the software to operate the robotic arm above. The languages C++ and Python and the Qt library play pivotal roles for ROS.

The author took a crash course for Python on Codecademy, right before taking the current job.

Linux

For ROS, the author has to opt to Ubuntu. At the office, the Unity desktop is set to default (K.I.S.S. - keep it simple, stupid). But at home, the author has also installed Ubuntu on his main and old laptops: with the desktop Gnome for the former and KDE for the latter.

Consequently the author has come to enjoy coding with Bash scripting on Linux terminal. The author has put this newly acquired skill in the maintenance of his comic book archives.

Version Controlling

Version controlling with Git is also a part of the job - thus making the author shifting slowly to Git from SVN, which the author has accustomed to since his postgraduate days at Hochschule Darmstadt.

For private / independent projects, the author uses his Dropbox for repository purposes. This is not ideal, as it doubles the storage usage for every single project on the local drive. Another option is to use the public repository provided by Github, or use its other paid options.

Job Hunting in Germany

The author has started to look for a job as soon as he graduated in the end of January 2015. The job search started seriously in February and then became more aggressive from April 2015 until the middle of May 2015. This post summarizes the process of job hunting by the author. With pleasure, the author has ended this hunt recently. The rōnin has finally found a new master to serve.

 

Online Profile

As suggested by local peers, the author has set up his profile on the website XING.com, considered as the top network site in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. It turned out to be positive, as the author has been approached by recruiters per e-mails and telephones. Apart from that, other websites have also been used, namely StepStone.de, MONSTER.de, and access.de. The author strongly  advises readers to avoid their facebook profiles from being accessible to prospective employers.

 

Resumé / CV

The author has prepared 2-page CVs - in German and English. The 2 pages were due to the intention of being simple and direct / straight to the point, as these are common in Germany. One of the recruiters, hinted on how the author's resumé / CV can be improved. The recruiter suggested to add the summary of the 2 theses written by the author into the CV. Consequently the author added 2 more pages to each CV - 1 page of summary for each thesis. The following figures give an overview of the author's German CV.

Figure 1 - The author's CV, written in German.

Figure 2 - 2 summaries in the CV for the 2 theses by the writer.  

Results

The following figure sums up the job applications sent by the author.

Figure 3 - The numbers of sent job applications, rejections, and interviews experienced by the writer from February 2015 until middle of June 2015.

  Interviews

Prior to certain face-to-face interviews, there were phone interviews. Regardless of the type of an interview, job hunters must do their homework ahead. The expected questions were - academic background, projects, earlier experience, thesis/dissertation, expected salary, etc.

If an interview is conducted far away from the residence of the job hunter, reimbursement for the travel expenses can be requested after the interview. Regarding the travel method, there were 2 times when the author had to switch to express bus, instead of long distance train. These were due to the strikes by Gewerkschaft Deutscher Lokomotivführer or GDL (trade union for German train crews).

The author went as far as to München / Munich for a job interview. There were also interviews in the cities Herzogenaurach (near Nürnberg / Nuremberg), Rüsselsheim, and Stuttgart. Finally the author has landed a job in Darmstadt, near to his former college.

 

Salary, Taxes, and Living Costs

This article by IngenieurKarriere.de can help engineering graduates to estimate an expected salary for entry level. On the other hand, several websites also provide assistance in calculating monthly income after taxes, e.g., Steuerklassen.com and Brutto Netto Rechner.

The main factor for the author to estimate an expected salary is the total of living costs per month. This consists of:

• rent and utilities,
• broadcasting services tax,
• cellphone bill,
• laundry,
• commute/train ticket, and
• workdays' expenses.

 Save before spending. Spend what is left after saving.
[Credits to Warren Buffett]

Apart from that, savings money for general purposes and investments is also crucial.

 

Conclusion

It has been very adventurous and challenging in finding a job in Germany. Foreign job hunters are advised to sharpen and refresh their German language skill, which will be definitely advantageous during any interview. The author looks forward to share this experience with other Malaysian students, probably in a formal presentation session or talk.

FingKinector - Interacting with the Kinect Motor

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The pivot which connects the Kinect sensor to its base is motorized. This post is about an app called 'FingKinector', which is developed to utilize that motorized pivot without having to rotate the Kinect sensor manually. This is tested only on the Kinect sensor for XBOX 360 and developed for Windows 7.

"K.I.S.S. = Keep It Stupid, Simple"

Image 1: Kinect Sensor for XBOX 360, equipped with a wide-angle lens.

To be able to control the Kinect sensor from a PC, you will need an AC-adapter for your Kinect. It costs around € 8.00 on the Amazon. It has 2 outputs: the orange plug connector is used to supply the Kinect with 12 V at 1 A, whereas the second output is a regular USB connector [1].

If your Kinect is connected to your PC for the first time, by default Windows will attempt to automatically download and install the driver for that Kinect, which comes from PrimeSense. PrimeSense is the developer of the range camera in the Kinect sensor and it is an Israeli 3D sensing technology. As of this time - PrimeSense has become a subsidiary of Apple Inc [2].

At the bottom of this post, the writer puts a link for you to download FingKinector.

FingKinector works in 2 options:

1. Single run
2. Sequential run

The following image shows the first mode (single run). It is known from [3] that the motor is allowed to be tilted to an angle between -27° and 27°.

Image 2: Single Run mode on FingKinector

The second mode, as seen in Image 3 below - the sequential run, uses a factor to divide the range [-27°,27°] up to 10 sectors. By default this mode will first turn the Kinect to the position of 0°, then starts the sequential movement from either top (at 27°) or bottom (at -27°).

Image 3: Sequential mode on FingKinector

The writer also took a liberty to record an amateur video to demonstrate the sequential mode. The Kinect here is seen with an extra hardware called Kinect Zoom Wide-Angle Lens by Nyko [4]. Its cost is around € 14.00.

Sources:

[1]: Kinect Adapter in Amazon.de

[2]: PrimeSense (Wikipedia)

[3]: Kinect Sensor - Microsoft Developer Network

[4]: Kinect Zoom Wide-Angle Lense by Nyko (Amazon.de)

REMINDER / WARNING:

1. For Windows only. (Linux version will be made available in the next development)
2. The writer is NOT liable for any damage.
3. Use at your own risk.

Have fun!

Download link:
Download link for FingKinector (Windows)