1.

MPK Agama Islam (2 credits)

Background:
To be honest, I didn’t want to choose this course because I had always wanted to
learn something other than Islam. I would like to know and study other religions too, in
which Catholicism was something particular on my mind. But, sadly, there weren’t any
available Catholic studies course at the time or there were but it was too bureaucratic for
me. So, I was left with choosing Islam. Not that I hated it though, I just thought that in a
university where I was free to select any courses that I wanted, I would get the chance to
actually learn something new.
Learning process:
The class was a bit dull, I suppose. There was nothing energetic or too fiery. I was
a bit disappointed knowing that in a religious study course I expected something “hot”
like a debate or something. I guess the students were the kind of obedient ones. The class
schedule comprised of an opening from the lecturer (in which he would chant Islamic
prayers or words), a preamble or introductory story from him (like a study case where
he’d say colloquial things such as how he met his wife, his point of view regarding
polygamous marriage, recent issues in the society, etc.), and then group activity.
Group activity was like this: we were given a topic per group, and then we had to
discuss and divide the topic further per person. We had to search reliable resources in
regards to the topic and make an essay about it. We then submit the essay one week later
to the lecturer and also explain it to our group. After that, the following week we moved
to a new group to discuss with our new group what we had learned from our previous
group (more like we shared the knowledge that we had gained before).
In the end, we had to do a presentation of the whole topic that was given by the
lecturer with our new group. Of course there were some intriguing questions asked by the
students and we had to answer it or the lecturer did. After all, it was really flat of a
learning experience that one would receive in college.
Assignments and exams:
The only assignments that we had to do were essays of the selected subtopic for us
and slides for presentation. We asked to search for reliable and trusted sources or as the
lecturers would say, the book that they had published. I didn’t buy one because I thought
it would just be a waste of money. I didn’t really need to purchase a book that would not
be in any use of me for later courses. So, I had to look harder to write my essay or I
would just simply take pictures of the book that my friends owned.
There were only two exams, mid and final. For the midterm, the lecturer gave us
hints and clues about the questions of the exam. It was not really making the students to
memorize anything though, more like how to know the bigger picture and analyze the
questions. Final didn’t have any hints so it was a bit hard to get the general idea about the
questions. Fortunately, the questions weren’t too difficult but yeah, it would be more
beneficial if we were to know the hints.
Study style:
Personally, I didn’t stress this course enough. The only thing that made me feel
burdened was the essays. It was like I had to really understand the topic and look for a
whole lot of sources where my friends would just very well be copying the course’s book.
I felt like I did the essays for one to two days with four to six pages long.
When it comes to exams, I was like, “chill dude, you’ve been studying this for like
12 years, what’s the worst that could happen?” Yeah. I studied for the exams only the day
before and not memorizing anything. I just read the general idea of the topic and tried to
understand it with the essays that I wrote. This course really didn’t give enough pressure
to vent about it.

The lecturer:
He was a man with a degree in preaching. He was a usual religious study teacher
and to my surprise, he was a lot less prejudiced towards certain issues. He was calm,
probably laughed a lot and he took some notice on me (that was because I was the head of
my class). He was kind and chill and not really burning with passion. To me, it wasn’t the
perfect lecturer of religious study but I couldn’t ask less.
Conclusion and personal note:
This course didn’t challenge me enough to stimulate any real religious study in
college experience. It was the usual college course that many students would get. Just
being with the flow was enough to survive it. Perhaps we should say that we had to
manage our expectations of religious study. The course certainly wasn’t one of those
heated debate of religions. To all those who’d take this course, there wasn’t anything new
or exciting for this. Be dutiful and that’s it.
Rating: 7/10
2. MPKT A (6 credits)
Background:
I had known for a very long time that this course was a mixture of philosophy, humanity,
language, and civics. I had researched it long before I was enrolled in university. I was
very interested in this course because I got to learn anything ranging from philosophy to
anthropology. Even if this course was a bit heavy, I enjoyed it wholeheartedly even from
the beginning. The course took two days and two and a half hours to complete because of
the high credit. Oh and also, the course required the students to wear batik because it was
supposedly making the students to love their nation even more.

Learning process:
This course required a rigorous approach to group activity. All the time we were only
studying in groups because the course required us to do so. There were only once in a
lifetime lecture from the lecturer that it was almost comparable to none. Most of the time
we were given stimulus questions regarding a topic of the subject and then we had to
discuss the answer with our group. For example, when we reached logics and reasoning,
we were asked to classify which sentences belonged to which reasonings. After that, we
had to present our findings to the entire class and the same went to other groups and that
would make a pretty boring presentation because we did the exact same thing. The
interesting thing was, there were almost certainly differences in between the groups. The
whole class would then discuss it and that also made the lecturer intrigued before we
came into a hard and long conclusion. The other times we were asked to sum up some
topics among our group and then we had to do a presentation with every groups presented
different topics.
Assignments and exams:
Study style:
The lecturer:
Conclusion and personal note:
Rating: