[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"