“Studying Abroad: Why Not?”

Studying abroad is really a dream of most Indonesian students, especially having a chance to study by scholarship program. Many students compete to get it. Of course, it requires serious preparation, time planning and efforts to bring us closer to the scholarship opportunity.

On Saturday, July 7, 2018, Stube-HEMAT Yogyakarta felt so proud when Julianti Marbun, M.Si., alumny of Stube, who is currently teaching at Nusa Cendana University, Kupang, and her colleague, Tanda Soalagogo Sirait, M.Sc, alumni of University of Canberra, Australia visited Stube. Tanda continued his study on Regional and city planning, focusing on development in urban areas, through scholarships from Australian government. This discussion was attended by 13 students from various study backgrounds, regions and campuses in Yogyakarta.

According to Tanda, there are five important things to be prepared when someone wants to study abroad. First, Interest in specific field: Everyone has different talent and interest, and if he/she does not know, he/she has to find out what the interesting thing for him/her. Second, Be proactive: having an initiative to find information related to overseas scholarships and observing sources of the information, if the website is official or not. Third, Be a smart explorer: Observe the admission scheme because each campus has different system, such as the deadline for collecting administration, etc. In addition, it is also important to look for lecturers or professors to get letter of recommendation, commonly called Letter of Agreement. Don’t forget to improve the quality of your English and take TOEFL/IELTS test to achieve a high score. The conditions and weather abroad are different from our origin, so, it is important for us to keep good stamina. Fourth, self-improvement: Interpersonal skills are very important to train our confidence when we meet new people. Be active in organization, both locally and internationally and achieve best academic score and non-academic values. Like Tanda’s experience in attending Young Southeast Asia Leaders Initiative (YSEALI), it was really great to increase confidence. Fifth, Improve the quality of worship: surrender to God’s will because everything we do needs God's help to make everything goes well.

Let us prepare ourselves to welcome the future by observing many opportunities and by improving the quality of ourselves. Viva students. (RPA).