My BNM Pre-D experience

I attended Bank's Pre-Departure program last weekend. The first three days were held in Rumah Peranginan BNM, PD while the last day was carried out in Sasana Kijang, the all new training facility of BNM in KL. 

Day 1

I arrived in PD around 5 o'clock due to unforeseen cicumstances in KL Sentral where we had to wait for Anisah. Though the 10 of us were late, we didn't seem to miss much because the initial briefing was still underway. All of us were briefed by Dr. Saiful and Dr. Santhiru, two officers from Human Resource (HR) Department. To be honest with you, this is the first time I knew these two guys existed in HR department, they were very cool and easy to be approached too. After the ice-breaking session handled by Saiful, that night all of listened to the welcoming speech by Assistant Governor, Mr Maznurhisham. 

Day 2

During the day we met Mr Adhari, the Director of Corporate Resource Department for a session on i-ACTED, the infamous Core Shared Values of BNM, something that they like to have in all of their staffs and scholars, good values vital in upholding the Bank's vision. Since he had a degree in Psychology from Michigan if I remember correctly, he talked to us as if he was a shrink of sort. I could still remember the first couple of questions he asked us all that morning, 'what is the most valuable thing you have with you right now?' and 'what do you day-dream about?'. Apparently these two involuntary things that we take for granted can give us a general idea of what kind of a person we truly are, they can tell us what you are most inclined to. Don't take me wrong though, I didn't mean to say that he is boring, the sessions with him are exciting, but the first half an hour in the room with him kind of makes me feel like as if I went to see a shrink or sort. He really was a greatly knowledgeable person, I can see that from the conversations we had over lunch.

Today was all about success stories. We got the opportunity to talk to four other Bank staffs, listened to their experiences while studying and coming back to serve the Bank. One of the most interesting stories was AG Mr Aznurhisham who was also a Bank scholar who has a degree in Economics from Cambridge. It was interesting to know that almost 60% of the Bank's senior management team are Bank's scholars. 

Day 3

On may part, this has got to be the most boring day among the four. Today is Get Motivated Day as I would like to call it, since this was when the Bank called their consultant, Pak Leh (as he likes to be called as) to instill good team-building behaviors within us scholars. Though it supposedly is my birthday, but I kept thinking about Bna most of the time. How I wish to have her by my side the entire day. So in order to make up for that, I had the whole bus of scholars to shout her something through the phone. Hehe~

Day 4

Final day. Lanai Kijang is so much fun! It's supposedly a facility to all Bank staffs, but it is also kind of a hotel. I'll post the pictures of how the rooms look like in the next post, alright. My roommate was Hidayat, a 22 year old who works in the HR department. He's not a Bank scholar, his degree in Marketing, but somehow he ends up here. He's in the Recruitment part, so I think that's gonna be useful for me when I get back here after my degree. We talked about a lot of things last night, and I also got to know quite some inside things happening in the Bank, but no scandal though. 

Today's session was held in Sasana Kijang, a newly built training facility of the Bank to replace the old one they have in PJ. Sasana Kijang is just nearby to Lanai. Man, the Bank with all these names. But these places are all so stylish and hi-tech. In the morning, we met with people from HR and Legal department. Frankly, when the Legal people came to talk to us all, my table was already so bored, so Saiful and Bukh decided to play the P*n*s Game, but this game we change the P to Jasmina, the lady lawyer. Hahaha, I'm so glad that Bukh didn't raised his hand and shout her name out loud! Before lunch, we got an opportunity to mingle with scholars who just finished their studies and also those who's in the middle of their study, asked them questions and experiences. I learnt that during my 3-year study I will be summoned back to do a compulsory internship with the Bank at least once. Some of them even got the chance to intern in the monetary policy department, how cool is that? Afterwards we met people from MAS to brief us about our flights and all, followed by MABECS, the agency responsible to help us with our visas to UK. I learnt that a UK visa costs about RM1000 and I can't start my application until my results are out because I need the CAS number which only be available from my uni once the results are out.

Last couple of agendas of the day, a dialog session with Dato' Muhammad bin Ibrahim, one of the Deputy Governors of Malaysia, the 2nd in command of Malaysia's economy. What caught my attention the most was the fact how humble he was, from the way he talks to us. He's been here in BNM for 27 years and he enjoyed it very much. He told us that learning is a continuous process that ought not to end once we school ends, challenging ourselves to do new things and to get out of our comfort zone is a must if we are to grow. Which reminded me why I chose to do Economics in the first place a couple of years ago, I wanted to do something different for once, and see how I'd cope with it. To close the Pre-D, all scholars were invited to a high-tea event, together with a few of the Directors.

So all in all, pre-departure was very exciting indeed! I got the chance to meet fellow scholars, who were all very nice and cool people! The people from the Bank was also very friendly, easy to be approached and all. Besides, the program was carried out on in a very relaxed and casual way that made it easy to interact with the Bank's people, even the Assistant Governor was very friendly to us all!