I am not saying that students that passed their examinations with flying colours are surely not excellent students. Neither am I saying that students that failed every subjects in their examinations are excellent students. An excellent student, to me, is a student that can balance his or her life well between all aspects of life and the attitude and personality of a person plays the vital role in determining whether one can excel or not.

Many students think that if they cannot do well in their studies, then it will be pointless to talk about other aspects in their lives. Therefore they only strive to do well in their examinations. Here comes the real thing: You do well in your examination. You score straight A+ in your SPM. However, have you ever thought about the fact that you are not the only one that got straight As in this examination? There might be thousands of students all over Malaysia that got the same result as you. What is the thing that differentiate you from the others? How do you want to outshine the others while you yourself only concentrate on your studies and neglected other aspects in your life? This is a question that many should ponder.

During my visit to Majlis Bandaraya Ipoh for my JPA interview, I met with many students which scored straight As. They are neither geeks that shut themselves up in a room to study nor they are bookworms that only read text books and do homeworks in school. How do I know, you may ask? A word from their mouth and you will know it straightaway. What comes out of their mouth is not any political issues or facts in the textbooks. They talked about games, sports, and even joked among strangers. They are people of strong personality and attitude - charismatic, great sense of humour, good communicating skills, friendly, sociable and of course knowledgeable, not to mention that all of them had great achievements in their co-curriculum. Inside the interview room, they are serious enough to handle the questions bombarded by the interviewers and they can answer well in almost every general questions - hot topics that were discussed recently in Malaysia as well as international news - asked by the interviewers. Their vast knowledge and eloquence in pouring out their opinions on these issues amazed me before making me realize what teenagers or even young adults nowadays lack of - knowledge of current news.

Well, maybe it is not that all of them are of that kind as I only know those that are in the same panel as me. Nevertheless, these people are those that I choose to believe as excellent students. That being said, it does not means that those that fail to excel in their studies have absolutely no chance to being excellent. There are some people in Malaysia that stigmatize those that failed to excel academically, without realizing the fact that they are also people that experienced failure before they succeeded. For this very reason, I find those that brand others without second thought utterly disgraceful.

Failing one time does not make that person a total failure for nothing remains permanent. One might fail today, but become a successful person tomorrow. Who knows? As long as a person try his or her very best in every thing he or she do, I am sure that he or she can excel and success will just be a few steps ahead of him or her.

Thats all for now. Meeting with those bunch of great guys during my JPA interview really inspired me to change for the better! =D