Today is the 21st of February 2018. I am in Sydney, studying Master of Petroleum Engineering. Many things, moments, events have occurred. I could not believe that the time flies so fast.

I probably just write on my blog almost once a year.

Let’s look back and see the highlights of what has been happening in my life after the graduation in October 2015 in UTP.

Well, I landed a job in Jakarta as a document processing analyst at a law firm. I had such amazing co-workers, nice experience and time of being an employee as well as a committee member of the wellness society. It was such a nice experience. Although it only occurred for less than a year.

On September 2016, I received a scholarship from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) Australia, the Australia Awards Scholarship. Alhamdulillah. This scholarship allows me to study at one of the universities in Australia.

Upon the announcement of the scholarship, I had to say goodbye to my job. It was because the PDT (pre-departure training) would start soon. So, the 6-7 weeks were spent at IALF to learn about EAP (English for Academic Purposes). They also provided us with computer training and cultural lessons to prepare us to live in Australia for studying.

On January 2017, I arrived in Sydney and started the IAP (Introductory Academic Program). Indonesia is the only country that has more than 10 AAS students in the IAP class, while other students only consist of 1 – 5 people. They come from Fiji, Pakistan, Mongolia, Vietnam, etc. I started the first semester of Master study by the end of February 2017.

Now, I am about to start my 3rd semester of Master degree in Petroleum Engineering. I hope it would be a good semester. I hope that I can finish the remaining of study very well. in sya Allah. Amin.

Today is the November first, 2016. Few days ago, which was 25th of October, marked a year after graduation from my undergraduate study. The time went by quite fast. Even though I have not worked as a petroleum engineer yet, I am still very grateful because I could attain a job and gain experience as a full time worker. My job gave me not only skills and experience, but also friends who are lovely and engaging.

I feel like my team at work are just like a family. We can be serious at times, on the other hand, we can also be completely joking about stuffs and laugh out loud like nothing to worry about. I can share many things to my colleagues, even about my romance life. One of the great things about them is that they accept me the way I am. I mean, I can seriously be me, for example I don’t need to hesitate to admit that as a girl, even though it might be weird for some, I kind of having a great appetite on many different types of foods. They are having fun watching me eating and munching. They said that I am still slim so that I have to eat a lot and more. On the whole, it is completely fun having them as my colleagues at work.

Other than work, I tried several different new things throughout the year, which are writing life journal, volunteering in social activities, reading English books and also being involved in sports activities (running, ping pong and female futsal). I started writing journal because I found that successful people have one thing in common: they write journals about their lives. Then, I simply wanted to be successful as well, so that I tried this method. These journals are the tools or keys that track down successful people’s lives and how they can plan and also figure out what their skills or passions they should pursue. I knew this information after I attended a higher education fair where there was a seminar about how to choose which education course in undergraduate or further study.  Continue reading →

LPDP is an Indonesian abbreviation version of Indonesia Endowment Fund for Education. It is a body that provides scholarships for Indonesian citizens who want to pursue post graduate study (Masters and PhD) either in Indonesia or in the overseas. LPDP is quite a famous and favorite scholarship for Indonesians. They can provide up to thousands of scholarships annually. However, the selection process to get this prestigious scholarship is not a piece of cake.

I would like to tell you about my personal experience of applying for LPDP scholarship. First of all, I graduated from my university on 25th October 2015. A friend of mine who graduated at the same time, was already applying for the scholarship on the batch 4 of 2015. Meanwhile, I was still considering and searching for information about LPDP scholarship. I probably would not know about it if she did not tell me that she was going to apply. So, apparently, after my graduation and arrival in my home country, I was still in the preparation process. Continue reading →

Pengumuman beasiswa PETRONAS untuk intake 2016 sudah terbit beberapa waktu lalu, deadline-nya pun sudah lewat. Banyak pelajar SMA / SMK atau sederajat dari Indonesia yang mendaftarkan diri dengan sangat antusias.

Sayangnya, hanya ada puluhan orang yang dipanggil untuk interview dan test. Menurut para kandidat, mereka mendapat undangan test dan interview di hari Senin atau Selasa minggu depan. Tinggal beberapa hari lagi menjelang peristiwa bersejarah untuk hidup mereka itu.

Beberapa dari mereka meminta saya untuk menceritakan pengalaman saya sewaktu dulu ikut test dan interview PETRONAS. Daripada saya bercerita panjang lebar dari awal sampai akhir ke setiap kandidat yang bertanya, lebih baik saya tulis di sini. Semoga bisa bermanfaat.

Seingat saya, pendaftaran waktu itu Bulan Juli – Agustus 2009. Yup, saya lulus SMA tahun 2009. Dapat undangan interview dan test sekitar satu atau dua minggu sebelum hari-H, yaitu di bulan Oktober. Pada hari yang sama, saya ada jadwal UTS kalkulus. Saya tidak tahu kalau pelaksanaan-nya di dua hari yang berbeda. Saya juga enggan meminta ganti hari ke PETRONAS, maka rela tidak rela saya tinggalkan UTS yang setelah diskusi dengan dosen-nya, beliau bilang tidak ada replacement test, unless karena sakit dan harus ada surat resmi dari dokter.

Malam sebelum hari-H, saya menginap di rumah sahabat saya di Cengkareng. Karena kantor PETRONAS di Jakarta, dulu masih di Jalan Sudirman. Sedangkan rumah saya di luar kota. Jadi kawan saya ini mengizinkan saya untuk menginap di rumah-nya. Sahabat saya yang satu ini orang yang sangat luar biasa, sahabat sekaligus roommate waktu kami sekolah di Jakarta. Dia juga yang memberi kabar saya bahwa ada beasiswa PETRONAS ini, kita sama-sama berjuang untuk ikut test dan interview.

Baiklah, ini cerita tentang hari-H. Continue reading →

As I mentioned in my previous post that upcoming posts will be about scholarships and study in the overseas, I would like to start with the one I had been having for several years. Yup, it is the PETRONAS Scholarship. Deadline application: 31 October 2015.

For 2016 intake, PETRONAS only provides these courses to choose:

Chemical Engineering (ChE), Mechanical Engineering (ME), Petroleum Engineering (PE) and Petroleum Geoscience (PG).

Even though there are more courses in UTP, which are Civil Engineering (CvE), Electronic and Electrical Engineering (EEE), Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and also Business and Information System (BIS). These courses are not available to choose for the scholarship. But for those who want to be private students, you can choose any of these. Private student means that you pay for your studies by your own, and the application process is directly to UTP, not through PETRONAS Jakarta.

If you are eligible to apply for this scholarship, kindly find the application form from this link:

Application Form

and then attach it with other required and relevant documents, you can submit directly to PETRONAS office at the address on the poster or send them through mail. Please ensure that you do not exceed the application deadline. Continue reading →

Hi, it’s been almost two years that I have paused posting on my blog. Today I would like to write something on it. First of all, today is my birthday. I still can’t believe that I am 24 years old now. Time flies incredibly fast. Praise to God, Allah the All Mighty, for every single thing in my life. For every single phase, struggle, sacrifice, bitterness, happiness, fun and joy, Alhamdulillah, I have arrived to this point of life. I would also like to express my gratitude to my beloved parents for all the pray and support for my study and life. Continue reading →

I went to a great market in Jakarta just yesterday. I was waiting in a line to get a turn of occupying toilet. There were two women also standing in different line with me. They were talking and I was listening. Once, they arrived into a discussion about a woman become a worker as well as become a mother. One of them said, “It’s much better to work than taking care of children.” The other one said, “Well, I agree. I’d prefer to work too.” The first woman said again, “I’ve been living my children since the first child to be taken care of someone else, n I go to work.”
Isn’t it an irony? or a dilemma?
It hurt me inside when I heard it. Taking care of children seemed so much tiring and too hard to do for a mother. The way she expressed that, was really revealing everyone else who heard, that she did it because she didn’t want to do taking care of children, instead of being in need of money.
Well, as a young woman -who’s never been being a mother- what she did couldn’t be blamed as a whole thing. In one hand, she had a reason to earn money for her children, in the other hand she ain’t responsible to her own children, but in the concept of ‘responsibility’ of being a mother, she took someone else to take her position to take care of children while she’s going to work. This is not a thing that a mother leaves her children at all, not feeding, not providing clothes, house to live in, etc. This is about a mother who’s got to work.
Back again, it’s a dilemma, isn’t it?
Well, you might have been thinking about “Hey, why bother thinking about a mother got work, where’s the father? What’s he been doing until he let the mother work n let their children home, being taken care of someone else.” Dude, this is Indonesia, where anybody can work, work as anything. Even a woman might work as a mechanic, a bus driver, anything. Asking why? -MONEY-
The fathers also work, for sure. Somehow, women feel it’s better to work too, for their family.

…………………………….

Someone had ever said, it’s much better for a woman to raise a child properly than to lead a great world-classed company. Which means, nothing more important for a mother than raising her children with whole love and heart.

…………………………………….

How about you all, young women? Are you gonna be a great mother or … ?

It’s your life, your right to choose, to live it happily, together with your children 🙂