[Seminar] Pursuing Graduate Study in US

It was insightful seminar from US Embassy and Indonesia Mengglobal in @america this afternoon. Some speakers shared their experiences and insight about pursuing graduate study in US. This event was separated into several sessions. It was opened by Mrs. Sophia Blake as Madam Ambassador of US. She mentioned three reason why we should pursue graduate study in US. First one, widely diversity. Second one, high quality infrastructure such as library, laboratory, even professor, etc. I forget the third one, actually.

Afterward Mr. Haryanto T. Budiman as graduated from MIT shared his tips:

1) GRE/GMAT/TOEFL and other score requirement should be prepare by along time before. It's not easy to get high score. That's why preparation is so important.

2) Please write essays personally. It should be tailor-made. State our short term and long term goal. Tell our unique background.

3) Please keep in mind that recommendation letter is important. We should get it specifically. For instance, if our recommendation letter just like "Mr. X is the partner of me in office. He is good person, fast learner, and you should accept it into the school". It was so general and cliche. The recommendation also need to be specifically written detail abour ourselves through people's point of view.

Actually Mr. Haryanto told more that what I wrote, but I cannot remember the detail. So I just share the big point. Then, seminar was continued by Mr. Donny. He showed us three different essays and discuss about the strength and weakness of those essays. So he shared some big points:

1) We don't need to be fully free of grammar. But, the silly grammar mistake is literally the problem. For instance, one of essays written as "Introducing, my name is XXX, you can call me XXX...". It would be better if the sentence is "Please let me introduce myself ......". Introducing is so silly, moreover written as opening sentence.

2) Do not write your essay gramatically boring. For instance, My name is Nizar, I am 23 years old, blablabla However blablablabala, furthermore, blablablabla. The sentences look like in high school student task which contain of conjuction, then subject, then verb. Then conjuction again, subject, and verb and so on and so on. Try to collaborate with passive sentence for example.

3) Write an essay directly fit to its school. If we want to pursue in Harvard, we should write that Harvard really fit to us because blablabla, please do not write general matter. Browse the website and get the information specifically. If we want to apply for another school, we can not just directly change the school name. We should match another sentence, about academic culture, or school vision, etc.

4) State the your goals. It can be short term, mid term, long term goals or even three of them. Make inspiring goal which can contribute to many people. But, please, once again, do not write general statement. For instance, I would continue to Harvard so that I can back to hometown then empower people there. But, we should write, what kind of people whom we want to empower? How's the way we empower them? Ya, it should be specifically.

5) Start your essay dramatically. One of essay written as "My aspiring career is being the first person who ring the bell in NASDAQ". I forget the detail of that essay. The point, we should attract people to continuously read our essay just by reading first sentence.

6) Tell your unique and exotic background confidently.

7) Do not try to figure out how to create a well-packaged essay. We do need to be the person in our dream or thought. Just be ourself uniquely. Admission officers are quite intelligent to distinguish whether the essay is really makes sense or not. Whether it personally described or an cliche article.

Beside Mr. Donny, There were also officer from LPDP and AMINEF for scholarship and also 4 graduated speakers who tell about their experience. I cannot write the detail, I will write some point down:

1) Please choose the RIGHT school. The school which fit to us. Please do not just consider the brand of university. Choose the fit program.

2) Taking master degree is too expensive just for showing that we have same academic background with friends of us, or just demanded by our parents.

3) We need to be have story, insight or anything which can be shared in school if we accepted. Graduate study is not just being sit in class, take notes, doing exam and get A score. It obviously more than that.

Yeay! Thank god I got this valuable book for free caused asking question

I think that's all I can share to you about the seminar. I know that this is to short and maybe so general. But It hard to me to write the detail one by one. I didn't take many notes. Just a few points. And so sorry for my silly grammar. I know that I still try to improve my english as well. If you need more information, I think it would be better ask @usembassyjkt or @IndoMengglobal. And you can visit www.indonesiamengglobal.com to get much information. See you :)

NIZARLAND

"Where The Land Inspires The World"

Eid Holiday - Anyer Trip

Have you done your summer holiday, dude? Ya, I know Indonesian doesn’t have summer holiday hahaha. One of the awaited vacation is in the Eid holiday. I was craving for family holiday. As I remember, last time we trip when I had recently graduated from university. It was two years ago.

Usually, we have some trip with our parents. We just wait for their decision where and when we are going. But this year, we decided to do a breakthrough, doing family trip without our parents. Yes, we did it.

That just using one car, we headed to Anyer at 3 a.m. Ya, it was memorable experience. My sister and I are the quite adult people than everybody in the car. So, we had to guide them. I know that they already grow up. But, I think, I still need to be their leader at least to decide where we have to stay and when we do kind of activities.

Our stayed hotel.

We had been stayed for 2 nights in Wira Asri or Wira Carita. I forgot that name. It is the hotel which exactly located in front of Villa Carita. Please don’t expect we stayed in fancy hotel. Since our parents weren’t join this trip, so we just have limited budget. The hotel fee just IDR 450.000 per night. The room included 4 beds which six of us can sleep on it. An air conditioner, a cupboard, and clean-proper bathroom. We can’t enjoy beach view directly from our room. It quite far from beach and even from hotel lobby. We need to walk around 50-100 meters to enjoy the beach.

In the first day, we just wake up around 3 p.m. We had been sleeping about 4 hours after we got the hotel. We cleaned up ourselves then visited to Nusa Krakatoa, where some of family members stayed. We have been there before in our last two years holiday. You can see it in this post (masukin alamat blognya). Actually our main aim were having dinner for free hahahaha I knew it was so tricky. Since our aunt and uncle stayed there with their kids, and it was appropriate to give us some dinner :p. We burned the fish and shrimp by ourselves. Yeaaah, it was so hilarious. You can enjoy the moment through picture below.

Oh ya, I forgot to share that we had enjoy the beach together. We played football. Some of us were made tattoos. And I absolutely hunted some human interests in the beach. Yeah, once again. I love this holiday. The picture can be seen below:

Sunset

More pictures 

2nd day, we started by spending time at the beach. Do kind of wave-surf-playing. Just using small surfing board and enjoy the wave. Anyway it doesn’t surfing board. You can see the pictures below to understand what kind of board it is. We also took banana boat, though I wasn’t pleasant because my cousin didn’t capture our moment well. The picture of us so small. But it’s okay. At least we have the pictures.

After enjoying the beach, we took a bath. Then we continued to play both billiard and table-tennis. I was giving up first. I don’t know why, but I just felt so sleepy and the weather so bright. It made me sleepier. I decided to take a nap for a while. After I had woken up, I headed to the beach to create a temporary tattoo.

We had dinner quite far from our hotel. We tried to seek fancy and cozy place. But, we didn’t found what we expect. We entered “lesehan” restaurant which its price is so relatively cheap yet the taste was so absolutely delicious. I forgot the name. It’s not the famous one, I think.

3rd day was our last day. One of my cousin (Reza) and I woke up in early morning. We tried to enjoy the morning by reading a book combine with a glass of hot chocolate milk. Suddenly, we’ve heard the annoying music. When we spin our head, we saw 19 years old woman coming to us and asked where can she buy a cigarette? We simply answered, but she won’t go caused by dogs running over the street. She sat next to us and openly share her stories. She told that she had been sex with police recently and said that the police just can get hard for 5 minutes. Yeah, so crazy. I thought, she was drunk. She also told the reason why she had been like this. It caused by her unfulfilled request to get a motorbike. She had been request it. But her stepmother ignored it. I cannot continue the story. There’s still embarrassing yet funny stories which to long to share in this post.

Afterward, we swam for a while. Then back to home. Before that, we visited our uncle and aunt in their new hotel. They moved on after 2 nights in Cracatoa. We took some pictures, lunch and directly back to home. Waaaaah, it was so fully delighted and joyful eid holiday. I wish we can do some this crazy holiday in other day. See you :)

Other pictures of us 

Big Chess

NIZARLAND

"Where The Land Inspires The World"

Eid Days 1425 H

What did you do in Eid day? In the first day, I did Eid pray then was going around my neighbor to apologize while handshake as usual. Then some of my family came to my home. Otherwise, I also came to my other family’s houses. I love Eid day. The day when we apologize each other. The day which full of smile and happiness.

Anyway I made this special Eid Card for my special relatives.

Photos in the 1st day can be seen here 

Feels like Eid Pray in Kuwait

Some of my family

Gicung, mt'10

One my cute cousin :D

The second day, I went to Purwakarta. Eventually, I did "mudik" as same as my other friends hahaha. Normally, I was just going around the town. Ya, in some years we went to Purwakarta. But, last year we skipped it.

We used public transportation to reach there. Catched busway to Kampung Rambutan, then sat in the bus until Purwakarta. Even, the trip was not really long, about 2-3 hours. But, it was so delighted. I capture some pictures and share to my instagram. And here these are:

The pictures in Purwakarta can be seen in this box

Click show button! 

Third day still special for me. It was caused by my college mates #metal08, came to my house to enjoy the lunch while were doing Eid tradition. Thus, #metal08 and I continued the city tour to other friend’s house. After my house, we visited Vanny’s house then continued to Allam’s staff house as the final destination.

I just feel glad, we can share some stories and laughed each other. This Eid year was wonderful for me. Thanks god :)

Metal'08 in my house

Photo compilation

NIZARLAND

"Where The Land Inspires The World"

You Can Be Journalist

It was just celebration of my blog. In the first year, I made this. The second year is this post. And this is for the third year. I forgot to celebrate in fourth year. And in this fifth year, I celebrated in simple way. I made this quote as this poster. I wish I can share much insightful and inspiring stuff here onwards.

NIZARLAND

"Where The Land Inspires The World"