WANTED: Book cover photographs

Dear all,

Project What's After SPM is now inviting members of the public to submit photographs that will reflect the theme of the book - (dreams, diversity, education, youth, determination, life) for BOTH the front and back covers of the book.

All photographs can be either monochromed or colourful, should be clear, MUST be portrait shots (as opposed to landscape) and at least 1MB in size each. A short written explanation on the meaning of the photographs is optional but encouraged. The best entry will be decided by the organizing committee.Otherwise, there are no fixed rules for the photographs (obvious ones, such as no obscenity allowed, apply) - participants are encourage to utilise their creativity in submitting photos that convey the themes of the book.

For example, Gabrielle's personal idea goes like this:

"The front cover, a colour photo, shows a young adult jumping in the air in jubilee, against the backdrop of a university building. Meanwhile, the back cover, a black and white photo, shows a child jumping in air in jubilee, against the backdrop of an old primary school building. The parallel positions of the adult and the child juxtapose with the graphic depiction of the passing of time and change of place to evoke the quality of a journey."

Now try to come out with your own idea!

As this is a non-profit project, the photographer will not be paid any remunerations. We will, however, credit the photographer in the book (the best perk is, of course, the chance to showcase your photography to the world).

The organizing committee will also retain the copyright of the photos.Please submit your photographs by June 15 to whatsafterspm@gmail.com.

Feel free to contact us at the same e-mail for any inquiries. Thanks.

More Articles Needed!

As of now, we're still looking for more articles. We still need about 20 more articles to go. Hope to see more people submitting!

Deadline extended - 10th May 2009

In true Malaysian spirit, we have extended the deadline (again) for Project What's After SPM to May 10th, 2009 so that those of you who have not submitted your stories may still do so.  Spread the words around!

Do submit your article soonest possible :)

Deadline Extended to 30th April 2009

Thanks a lot to the overwhelming responses over the last few days. We have been asked by many on whether they can submit past the deadline, as they might have some exams or projects due.

And we have decided to postpone the deadline to 30th April 2009. Please kindly help to spread the words around to others.

To all of you who managed to get it in by the deadline, thanks a lot! That really helps us in starting the editing job! :)

Within the last 24 hours, we received 7 entries and many emails asking for extensions.

The status as of now:-
- We have gotten 48 entries within 31 days of the project launching.
- Our target is 100 entries to be published.

So, don't wait till the last day. Keep the submission coming in soon!

Thanks for your support!

A Reminder

We have received some very poignant and well-written submissions thus far for this project - thank you for the quick response in such a short time. We are now hard at work reading and editing your submissions and know that we will have a hard time selecting the final entries for publication. Don't stop sending in your stories - we would love to hear from you, and the deadline is still pretty far away!

As you write, please keep in mind the core message behind this project: that there are unlimited opportunities waiting for us after secondary school, and that there is no "best" or "right" path to take. Any path can be good if you make the best of it, work hard, and remain passionate about what you do. With this message, remember that we are looking for real, sincere stories that can offer insight into the many different directions that we have all taken our lives. We want the good, the bad, the ugly - everything. Don't sugarcoat or censor yourselves, as that would defeat the purpose of delivering honest, insightful stories to those who may otherwise have little awareness of the sheer abundance of choices that await them after SPM. Also, there is no place for self-righteousness or conceit in this project; there is no need to "sell" yourselves. We are not looking for stories that simply list awards and achievements, but otherwise offer little in terms of awareness of opportunities and their boons and banes.

A huge thank you to everyone who has submitted a story, and to those who haven't - what are you waiting for?

Note on 13th March: We have changed the age limit from 30 years old to 35 years old. Please spread the word!

Progress...

Since this is is a community-driven project, we feel that it is only fair that we share the progress of this project with everyone.

Day number: 38

Number of entries thus far: 53

Number of websites/blogs/forums promoting this: 35 (Sorry that the links on the right accidentally went missing. We'll recreate those).

Number of donations: RM1,000.00 (1 anonymous donor)

Number of persons who have volunteered to raise funds to donate the books to their alma mater: 4

Number of volunteer translators: 8 - Bahasa Malayia, 8 - Bahasa Cina

Please note that translation work will start, after English version is ready.

All contributors, donors and volunteers will be credited in the book.

This page was last updated on April 7, 2009 .

Topics, Rules, Guidelines

Am empty classroom: what's outside? (photo by Max Kilngensmith)

Project What's After SPM: A Hundred Different Journeys

One book. One hundred stories.
For you. For hundreds of thousands of Malaysian youths.

(Yes you heard that right - hundreds of thousands of readers!)

For most of us, the end of secondary school education (or the lack of it) marked a turning point in our lives where we moved from studying together under an umbrella education system (SPM) to embarking upon vastly different pathways.

The transition process for the more fortunate among us would no doubt have been aided by the various resources made available to us: school counselors, advice from worried parents and knowledgeable seniors, counsel from helpful relatives, visits to campus open day sessions, mountainous stacks of college brochures, education sections in local newspapers, education resource websites etc.

The same, however, cannot be said of hundreds of thousands of kids all over Malaysia who have no regular access to the internet, are not blessed with well-informed family and friends, and who complete secondary school with little or almost no awareness of the opportunities that abound for them, as well as kids who are simply ignorant of the opportunities that surround them or just do not possess the faith and self-confidence to pursue their passions.

Therefore, we have decided to spearhead this project in hopes of reaching those kids and sending them this message: "Look, kids, now that you have completed secondary school, there are a million opportunities out there for you, a million pathways that you can undertake, a million places to visit, and you should explore those choices as much as you can. You can do anything you set your mind to. All it takes is keyakinan, a little bit of strategi, a little bit of tuah, and lots and lots of semangat dan usaha."

We are now looking for a plethoric collection of stories of young Malaysians who have pursued different pathways after SPM. The stories will be published in a book to be distributed to as many students and secondary schools as possible (tentative target: to distribute at least 2 books to each of the 5000 secondary schools in Malaysia). And we would like to invite you to participate in this project by submitting your story, or persuading your friends to submit their stories.

It does not matter whether you are a scholar with stellar results and a 3-inch thick resume, a typical student who went to a local university after finishing Form 6, or a youth who has to work in the pasar malam at night to foot your technical college fees in the day. It does not matter whether you have chosen the oft-beaten path or the road less travelled. We believe that there every education background offers its own boons and banes. And we believe that there are merits in telling any story.

Topics

Participants may touch on all or concentrate on a few of the following topics:

(a) What socioeconomic/education background did you come from and how did it contribute towards making you the person that you are today?

(b) What obstacles did you face in pursuing tertiary education and how did you overcome those obstacles?

(c) What prompted/who inspired you to pursue the pathway that you have undertaken/are currently undertaking?

(d) How did you find out about the pathway that you have undertaken/ are currently undertaking?

(e) What are the advantages and disadvantages of pursuing the pathway that you have taken/are currently undertaking?

(f) If you have had had a unique education background, please elaborate on your unusual circumstances (Examples: kampung boy who ended up in Yale University/home-schooled girl who faced difficulty persuading university admissions officers to admit her/student who pursued cosmological astrophysics at Cambridge under the prestigious Gates Scholarship/teenager who dropped out of school and pursued full-time modelling/youth who took a gap year after SPM to participate in humanitarian missions in Tibet/boy who has worked as a professional computer hacker since age 14/youth who entered a seminary to pursue priesthood/student who designed a new degree course at Smith College).

(g) If you have succeeded in securing a rare/prestigious scholarship/ undergone a rigorous university application process (Examples: Kofi Annan International Scholarship), please elaborate on the application process.

(h) What advice would you give to someone who hopes to pursue the same pathway that you have undertaken/are currently undertaking?

(i) How was the experience at your previous/current place of study and how has it changed your life? If you have had a non-academic pursuit (s) (establishing your own restaurant/working full-time as a social worker etc), how has your pursuit impacted other people?

(j) Is there any other issue regarding post-SPM education that you wish to discuss? What other pertinent advice would you give to someone who is about to complete SPM/secondary school?

Reminder: Remember that the purpose of writing your story is not to flaunt your achievements, but to share your unique experiences with your readers. as you write, rememebr to try to retain the relevancy between your experience and the reader's interest.

Malaysian children: dreams come in all packages (image from pro.corbis.com)

Participation rules

1. Participants must be Malaysian citizens.

2. Participants must be of age 35 or below as of 2009. (We have changed the age limit from 30 to 35, as of 13th March 2009).

3. Each entry will consist of a photo (to be printed in black & white), an introduction blurb written in 3rd person perspective and a main article written in 1st person perspective.

4. The introduction blurb is to be between 30-50 words, and must mention the participant's age and place(s) of study/pursuit (see below for examples).

5. The main article is to be between 600-800 words.

6. All articles are to be written in English. Participants who struggle with English may write in Malay/Chinese and have their articles translated by the committee members.

7. Articles may be edited for clarity, brevity and/or intelligibility, though the committee will strive not to tamper them.

8. All participants must use their real names. Pseudonyms will not be allowed.

9. About 100 entries will be selected for publishing. The committee's decisions will be final.

10. Photos may be of any style as long as it shows the participant's face, though black & white photos will be preferred as the book will be published in black & white.

11. All participants will retain the copyright of their articles and photos.

12. All entires are to be sent to whatsafterspm@gmail.com.

Deadline

March 31 2009

Diversity

We encourage young Malaysians from all walks of life to participate in this project. We strive for inclusivity and diversity in terms of:

(a) Socioeconomic, ethnic and geographical background of participants

(b) Secondary school background of participants (national schools, vernacular schools, international schools, private schools, religious schools, boarding schools, home-schooling, apprenticeship, dropouts etc)

(c) Pre-university education background of participants (STPM, matriculation, A Level, IB, SAM, ICPU, AUSMAT, ADP, foundation program, diploma, home-schooling etc)

(d) How did you find out about the pathway that you have undertaken/ are currently undertaking?

(e) What are the advantages and disadvantages of pursuing the pathway that you have taken/are currently undertaking?

(f) If you have had had a unique education background, please elaborate on your unusual circumstances (Examples: kampung boy who ended up in Yale University/home-schooled girl who faced difficulty persuading university admissions officers to admit her/student who pursued cosmological astrophysics at Cambridge under the prestigious Gates Scholarship/teenager who dropped out of school and pursued full-time modelling/youth who took a gap year after SPM to participate in humanitarian missions in Tibet/boy who has worked as a professional computer hacker since age 14/youth who entered a seminary to pursue priesthood/student who designed a new degree course at Smith College).

(g) Fields of interest of participants (pure sciences, arts & humanities, social sciences, medicine, law, engineering, entertainment, culinary arts, business, entrepreneurship etc)

Samples of introductory blurbs

(a) Mohammad Ghazali, 18, is currently setting up his own football memorabilia business at Berjaya Times Square with his ex-classmates after completing SPM at SMK USJ14. He spends his free time coaching orphans in football for free. He also owns a personal collection of jerseys autographed by over 50 Manchester United players, and wants the Devils to reclaim the English Premier League


(b) Tee Le Yin, 26, a former national swimmer and philately enthusiast, studied A Level at Hwa Chong Institution, Singapore under the ASEAN scholarship prior to pursuing War Studies in King's College, UK. The former national swimmer is currently pursuing her MBA at INSEAD, France under the Maxis scholarship.

Book specifications

1. The book will be printed in black & white to minimise production cost and market price.
2. The book will be between 200-300 pages thick.
3. The book will be published by end of 2009.

Royalty/Payment

1. As this is a community service project, none of the participants, project committee members and project advisors will receive any form of royalty or payment.

2. A fund raising campaign will be held later to raise money for the project. However, all excess funds will go towards distributing the books to students and secondary schools for free.

Contribute

1. We would greatly appreciate anyone who wishes to contribute towards our publishing fees.

2. We also welcome anyone who wishes to help in translating the book into Chinese and Malay after the first edition of the book goes into print.

Enquiries/Contact

The organising committee members, Chen Chow Yeoh, Chong Yong Wei Gabrielle, Goh Jing Pei, Kimberley Mei Kay, Tara Thean, and Charis Loke are not committed to any organisation. They were simply brought together for this project and are bound by their sincere enthusiasm for community service.

Participants, parents, interested sponsors and translators, as well as general inquirers may contact committee at whatsafterspm@gmail.com.