At the first semester of my university, I did have a learning problem because I could not

catch up with syllabus and found myself did not familiar with the learning subject. I
remember after the mid-term examination, I got bad marks, around 50-60 out of 100 for
each subject. I was so stressed out, but I did not quit. That bad marks motivated me to be a
better student. To improve my grades, the first thing I did was to figure out what is my study
type in university, I used to study alone in my bedroom the night before examination when I
was in high school, but I did not think it is still reliable because the syllabus was too much to
be learned in a night. To reduce the syllabus, after the mid-term examination, I started to
learn in groups with some of my friends, and we did that constantly every week so we could
follow the syllabus and prepare the examinations earlier. Study groups made study easier,
because we could divide the course material and syllabus equally for each person, and after
studied that course’s subject, we would try to teach each other about what we had read
before. For me and my friends, this method worked out superbly, after final examination,
my grades rocketed, I found my final GPA was above 3.5 for my first semester, I was so
proud of myself. The next semester, we made this study group a habit to help us survive all
the tests, examinations, and homework.
Walking to second year, I had to choose my specific major, there were mechanical
engineering, aeronautical engineering, and material engineering. Due to my good grades, I
did not have any problem to be in any major, but after talked to my friend, a senior student,
discussing about every major. I decided to take material engineering as my major, because I
thought It was unique to learn about material for machinery itself, and this major is the only
one major in Indonesia. So, in this major, students learn about 4 major materials, there are
metal, polymer, composite, and ceramics. Thankfully even though learning about material
was kind of difficult because it involved understanding, critical thinking and memorization, I
could adapt swiftly this time, and it helped me to maintain my grades. In the second year, I
joined Material Engineering Student Community (MTM ITB) to know more about material
engineering association and to know a lot of people and gained friendship in this major.
In the third year, I was quite busy because I just joined Liga Film Mahasiswa (LFM)
Community. In that year, I was curious to learn about photography so I found that there was
a student community about photography, videography and Film Review that was called LFM
ITB. Joining to LFM was one of the greatest joy that I felt in the third year, even though I was
busy with my formal education like classes and assignments, learning something that I like
(a.k.a photography) helped me to relax and charge myself. In this community, I was taught
how to use fully mechanical camera, that still used film to take pictures. It was so interesting
to me to learn about film camera, they lent the camera to the new members so they could
explore how to use camera, I was so grateful that I have tried to use analog camera. And this
experience grow in me and I make analog photography as one of my hobby now. Back than I
did not have any analog camera, but now I owe my own cameras because I feel analog
photography is fun and interesting. In the third year, is not about just this community, In
this year, I was given responsibility with my teacher to be one of his lecturer assistant, even
though I had to learn about the courses again, but I was thankful about this opportunity.
Not just ended there, I was also becoming one of the head divisions in MTM ITB, it was such
an honor for me to be the leader in that division. I used to be the head of propaganda
department in the at the MTM’s senate department. The problem that I faced when I was in
this position that I did not have any ability to run Photoshop to make some propagandas
and infographics. So, I challenged myself to learned it by myself and some of my friends
helped me to understand the basic operation. Due to strong determination, I could make
some simple yet attractive infographics. Well, I had to say that third year of college was the
time that I was one of the best period of my live, because I could prove myself what I was
capable of, even I improved myself.
The last year story was also as interesting as the third-year story. This year something
unpredictable happened to me. I was thinking that this year I wanted to try something new
that more challenging so I applied to be a part-time barista at PT. Sari Coffee Indonesia
(Known as Starbucks Indonesia). I didn’t have any expectation to be hired in this company,
but The God of Fortune was on my side, that He decided that I could work as part-time
barista. Working as a part-time barista, was really challenging for me, it was something that
I have never done before, so I learned everything about coffee from the scratch. I did not
need a lot of time to be a part-time barista, after one month of trainee, I officially became a
barista. Being a barista thought me a lot of things, such as hospitality, customer service,
sales and promotion, up-selling skill and multi-tasking, I had to say that being a barista is not
an easy job, it really requires an energetic and strong people. The most important thing that
I learned about being barista was time management, because back at that time I was doing
my bachelor thesis project, so I had to manage my time to do the final project and working
in the same day every weekday. It was exhausting because I had to do the research in the
lab at 8 AM, because it was the opening hour of the laboratory, and I had to be there until 1
in the noon to do my experiments and researches. Usually my shift would start at 2 PM, so I
had to be in the store 15-minute minimum before my shift started. I would work for 9 hours,
and after I got back home I would wrote down my analysis about the experiment result that
I got in the morning. This schedule made me tired but I had to stick with the schedule,
because with persistence I believed that I could achieve my goal to graduate in October
2019. Speaking about the bachelor thesis project, I took advance welding as my project
topic. I chose the topic because it was new in Indonesia, the fact there is no factories in
Indonesia yet that already used this method. This topic was difficult for me personally
because it rarely discussed as bachelor thesis project in Indonesia, it was discussed by
master degree student in ITB before, but the number of sample was relatively a few. Due to
lack of references, I had to do trial and error method while experimenting to find the
optimum parameters for this processing method, that is why I said it was difficult and tricky.
Even though it was challenging, because the trial and error methods and, I had to split my
time to work, I graduated in October 2019. I would say that I was able to achieve graduation
right after 4 years I joined this institution. After I graduated, I was still working until March
2020, because I had to finish the working contract.