Help Send Bob to Berkeley!

Hi, my name is Bobby and I am a 20-year-old dude waiting to enter college in Fall 2009. I have been accepted to University of California, Berkeley in the College of Letters & Science. I am currently based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia working in an internet startup. For novelty sake, I shall be known as BerkeleyBob.

It has always been my dream to go abroad to do my tertiary education either in the US or UK. Though I have technically studied abroad for the past 2 years in Anderson Junior College, Singapore, I would not really count that as an overseas education seeing how Singapore is just a neighbor separated by a small strait.

I was an outstanding student in school and did almost everything right to win myself a prestigious scholarship from Khazanah Nasional, a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund. I went through 4 rounds of interviews, assessments and selections tests – brought myself short-listed to 5 from the thousands – only to blunder my last interview with the Managing Director of UEM Group Tan Sri Dr Ahmad Tajuddin in a 10-minute session.

Well I do not hold any grudges for not winning a scholarship. I screwed up, period. No scholarship. But dreams never fade away. They don’t die. If we want something badly enough, we must go all the way in achieving our dreams.

Hence the idea of SendBobToBerkeley.com is a crazy idea of mine to fundraise some US$150,000 to pay for a 4 years education in UC Berkeley. As an international student, it costs almost US$50,000 per year for college. I would need close to US$200,000 to study in UC Berkeley for 4 years.

My parents would simply prefer I go to Singapore Management University, but I am adamant in wanting to pursue my dream of going to UC Berkeley. Dad would support me for 1 year and I would have to find my own way to raise the remaining money.

Is this crazy? You bet it is. The one thing that I have learnt is to never give up on dreams. I hold this quote by Tony Fernandes, the CEO of AirAsia very dearly:

Believe the Unbelievable
Dream the Impossible
Never take No for an Answer

I will not take no from Khazanah as an answer to my dream of going to UC Berkeley to study this mid-August. Will I be disappointed again? No way.

Visit http://www.sendbobtoberkeley.com for more info.

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