Student Again: Tips-Tips Gak Penting dalam Apply Kuliah (di UK)

Karena gue yakin, pasti ada seribu post lainnya dengan judul tips dalam apply kuliah, maka gue tambahkan sedikit unsur 'gak penting' disini, karena kayaknya yang akan gue bilang disini adalah hal-hal gak penting...

Pengalaman gue dalam apply kuliah sebenernya biasa aja sih. Tes IELTS, minta surat rekomendasi, dll dkk dsb, mari coba gue inget-inget apa tips tips ga penting yang bisa gue bagikan dalam proses mau apply kuliah ke UK,

(disclaimer: GUE GAK TAU KENAPA BISA KETERIMA. ASELIK -- ini bukan tips tips yang akan menjamin keberhasilan kamu dalam diterima di universitas, namanya aja tips gak penting)

1. Selalu cek kapan pendaftaran buka dan tutup, lebih cepat lebih baik

Jurusan gue kemarin buka pendaftaran bulan September awal, awal Oktober gue udah masukin aplikasi. Here's the thing: proses aplikasi kuliah di UK itu tipenya first come, first serve. Jadi lebih cepat, lebih baik. Apalagi kalo sebelom daftar beasiswa udah pegang LoA. Sebenernya gue pengen lanjut S2 tahun 2015, tapi pas itu gue lulus S1 aja belom, pendaftarannya udah tutup bulan Februari. Buset dah. (tapi tahun ini tutupnya bulan Juni hmmm apakah popularitasnya menurun)

2. Jangan tes IELTS mepet-mepet

Well... Kita kan ga tau ya apa yang akan terjadi. Amin langsung lolos di percobaan pertama, kalo nggak? IMHO, sebagai anak kuliahan, menurut gue harusnya kita-kita ini (lah siapa lu ngajak ngajak) biasanya ga akan menemukan kesulitan yang berarti di bagian Reading dan Listening. Apalagi kalo lo suka nonton TV series. Tapi mahasiswa-mahasiswa ordinary macem gue, mungkin akan kesulitan di bagian Writing, lah  bikin tugas aja kadang tata bahasa Indonesia masih salah. Gue taun lalu ngambil short course di IDP selama 2 minggu, membantu banget sih.

3. Bikin surat rekomendasi yang general

Planning yang baik itu yang punya back up plan. Daftar ke 2 sekolah atau lebih, jaga jaga jikalau ga keterima di pilihan pertama. Jangan kayak gue, pede setinggi langit daftarnya cuma satu, alhamdullillah sih keterima. Tapi kalo dosen kalian ribet dan bikin ga pengen berurusan lama-lama, bikin draft surat rekomendasi yang general, jangan cantumin nama universitas, bikin aja semacam "To Those Who Are Responsible" or something like that,  jadi bisa di daur ulang buat dipake daftar ke universitas lain.

4. Kalo paspor kira-kira udah sisa 2 tahun, perpanjang aja langsung ke e-paspor

Kalo diliat-liat sih sebenernya masih lama, tapi selama itu juga kita akan meninggalkan Indonesia kan? Sebelom daftar, pastikan paspor lo masih berlaku lama, kalo bisa masih fresh from the oven, daripada nanti ribet musti email email admin kampus ganti nomor paspor. Gue cukup ribet lho masalah ini, makanya gue taro disini. Dan perpanjang paspor harus ke London bapak ibu, tiketnya aja dah mahal, harus hari biasa pula.

5. Pastikan kamu nggak salah jurusan

Ini asli ga penting banget sih, tapi kemaren setelah gue daftar jurusan gue yang sekarang, gue sempet buka-buka lagi web universitas, terus nemu jurusan yang bikin 'eh kenapa gue ga daftar ini aja ya...' selama beberapa detik. Ga nyesel sih, tapi coba diperlebar lagi wawasannya, bacain satu-satu kalo perlu jurusan yang mengandung kata-kata menarik buat lo.

6. Gausah ribet-ribet pake agen

Asli deh, daftar kuliah ga ada ribet-ribetnya. Ga perlu pake agen segala. Emang sih formulirnya lumayan panjang, tapi beres lah itu satu weekend sebenernya. Malesnya pake agen nih ya: nambah biaya lagi (oh ini jelas!) dan bisa jadi alamat korespondensi yang dipake adalah alamat agen, yang menyebabkan ada beberapa dokumen yang ga sampe ke rumah lo (ini serius, banyak kejadian). Pake aja uangnya buat ke Dufan dah.

Sementara ini aja dulu, next gue bakal share tips-tips dalam apply visa Tier 4, terutama bagian gak pentingnya, apalagi kalo lo self-funded, yang mana ada beberapa yang beda, terutama bayar-bayar kuliah.

Cheers!

Student Again: Kenapa UK?

I'm going to have the biggest change in my life in a week.

Hah ada apaan sih?
Jadi gini, insya Allah minggu depan, gue bakal berangkat ke UK, ngelanjutin kuliah S2. Alhamdulillah berhasil keterima di University of Manchester, almamaternya om Benedict, meskipun jurusannya jauh pisan.
Kenapa S2?
Kenapa ya... Sebenernya banyak alasannya sih, dengan porsi yang berbeda-beda pula. Pertama, ada bidang yang ingin gue tekunin, tapi pendidikan formal gue belom mumpuni di bidang itu. Bayangin aja, dari 144 SKS selama kuliah, gue cuma dapet 3 SKS mata kuliah tentang ini. Ya amplop. Yakali. 20 years of being alive, 4,5 years in college, I think I have my heart and eyes set on this field, so it's natural that I want to understand this field more. Kenapa ga kerja aja? I tried, really, but it wasn't enough. Ini bukan bidang yang cukup populer disini, jadi semua pengetahuan yang gue dapet selama kerja mostly berasal dari common sense dan trial and error. I would like some solid knowledge tho. Dan... Kalo dibilang gue kabur dari keharusan gue bekerja, mungkin iya juga. Mungkin. Meskipun gue bilang gue kerja, ga selama itu juga sih. My life has been such in a hurry since starting college, so I decided I need to take a step back a little to really understand what I really want to do in life, instead of rushing without objectives. I think I figured it out.
Kenapa UK?
INI JELAS. Gue ga mau belajar bahasa lain lagi selain bahasa Inggris. Itu faktor utama. Jadi jelas gue ga akan berusaha nyari di luar negara berbahasa Inggris. Call me weak, I don't care.
That leaves me with 3 options, UK, US, and Oz. Gue explore beberapa opsi di US, tapi kebanyakan universitas juga offer program yang gue pengen di dalam MBA, which is big no. Pertama, gue jelas ga qualified untuk MBA, kedua, gue emang ga ada niatan untuk MBA, dan ketiga, MBA feels like Teknik Industri v2.0. Lo akan belajar semua hal yang ada di dalam dunia bisnis, dan dalam kasus gue, I ended up mastering none of them. So yeah. For Oz, kenapa ya, gue rasanya udah ga pengen duluan untuk ke Australia. Hahaha. I had one teacher from Aus once, I legit didn't understand 50% of his sayings. Itu juga jadi pertimbangan gue sih, I mean, kalo gue aja udah kesulitan memahami bahasanya, apalagi buat belajar dan mendengarkan dosennya. So I crossed both of them.
That leaves me with UK.
OK SEBENERNYA GINI.
Gue googling aja jurusan gue yang pengen + MSc, eh langsung keluar halamannya di page 1 urutan 1. Selesai dah masalah gue.
But in all seriousness, gue emang pengen ke UK sih. It's not too far like US, but far enough not like Oz. Gue selalu ngerasa UK tuh kayak Bandung, it's calm in certain aspects, but modern enough. US feels like Jakarta, if you know what I'm saying. Mungkin kalo hasil googlingan gue keluarnya universitas di US atau Australia, mungkin gue bakal bingung. Tapi yaudah, udah takdirnya kesana emang, hahaha. Gue tetep nyari-nyari sih, gue cek semua top universities di UK, kebetulan satu-satunya universitas yang offer jurusan yang gue mau cuma University of Manchester. Yaudah. Sikat. Alhamdulillah. Keterima.

Next kalo ada niatan gue cerita proses aplikasinya deh. Wish me luck!

#MaybeHeDoesntHitYou But...

Gue lagi sering ngeliat hashtag ini. Well, ga sering juga sih, tapi ada satu artikel di Buzzfeed (and damn I lost it) yang didedikasikan untuk hashtag ini, and it brings back some (bad) memories.
I am still trying so hard, until now, to not regret anything that ever happened in my life and enjoy it, even if sometimes the result is not like you wanted. Tapi ada satu kejadian sampe sekarang, well I guess, that I still can't forgive myself for.
To not standing up for myself and letting myself feeling little.

Beberapa tahun yang lalu, I was in a relationship. It was... if I recalled it again now, I was sure there was nothing good in it.
He didn't hit me, no.
But he made myself feeling little.
He never let me met my friends.
He cut all of my social connection.
He got angry if I went out with my friends.
He blamed everything on me, even if I just stayed at home all day and literally doing nothing, he would find some problem to argue at night, and it would end with me begging for his forgiveness, while actually I didn't know what I was apologized for.
He made me feel stupid.
He made me feel like I should downgrade myself, instead him upgrading himself, so we could be equal. Well no, he didn't want to be equal, he wanted to be better.
He was emotionally abusive to me, and it was wrong.

I still hold grunge until now. I am still angry. Sometimes, I still wish for his life to be hard, to pay back what he has done to my life. Sometimes, I still wish his life would be troubled, or difficult. Well, maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I've cut all kind of contacts with him when we broke up anyway.
I am really trying to forgive myself, but it's hard. It's hard to acknowledge that even though he did that to me, but what mattered most is that, I LET HIM DO THAT. I let him to be.
Kadang-kadang gue masih merasa bodoh sampe sekarang. Kadang-kadang gue masih berusaha me-recall memori masa itu, berusah mengingat-ingat apa yang menyebabkan gue bisa sebodoh itu, bisa membiarkan hidup gue diatur-atur seperti itu. I don't know, mungkin gue emang benar-benar bodoh waktu itu.

I let this sit on my draft for months. I literally forget I had this until I opened this blog again to post something. When did I make this post?
But anyway, I think my life is getting better. The moment I left this on my draft, I didn't know what to write anymore beside the above paragraph, because I let my emotions drove me. But now, with major changes coming in my life, I think it's time to let this one go.
Just, fingers crossed, I hope I don't make this kind of mistake again.

Adulting

I don't know about you, but I'm definitely 22~

Birthdays never really put any different perspective to me. Life does.
See, here's the thing, eventhough I'm 22, I live in the world of 24s, 25s, even the 27s. The moment I turned 20, I already felt my life in a hurry, because I was surrounded by 22s, and that was they do. Adulting. Anxious about the future.
So the past year has been giving me a pause, since I literally stopped doing anything, because I really felt I like I need to figure it out on my own what I wanna do in my life. So I shut everyone out.

I think I know now.
Welcome to adult life!

Quick Thought: Am I Getting Cynical

First of all, it is 2 am and I just ranted in my Twitter - something I haven't done in a long long way, considering nobody is in Twitter anymore anyway.

I just had finished scrolling through my Facebook timeline, which mostly resulting in me unfollowing some people (because unfriend is too harsh and don't make any more drama), but this time, I tried to read every people's thoughts through their status or whatever, and it just got me more depressed than over.

It's just, maybe I don't fit in anymore. It's like everyone in there trying to shove their thoughts and opionions over others' throat, which is actually the most uselesa things ever??? Is it just me or people forgetting the idea of 'let's just agree to disagree'?

I hate to see that it feels like a sin to have different opinion from the majority. You will get attacked from every side if you are voicing your opinion, which maybe happen to be different from others'. I feel like that is what causing the silence in young generations, because the moment they open their mouth, the internet will just throw the hate to them. Or it is at least happened to me.

Then, I get cynical. I feel like I don't matter, because I might be different. Because actually, getting hate is not a pleasant feeling. Not everybody was buily strong.

So I decide I don't care. Whatever happened, as long as it doesn't affect me, I wont care and I wont give a damn about that. And I might be not alone on this, which might be a good thing, because it means less drama in society.

Well, anything I said above might be looked like I give no attention to life, but here's the thing: I believe everyone should be free to be themselves, as long as it doesn't affect others. It doesn't affect me, and it doesn't affect you, then why should you be the one to drag people down? Don't you have a better thing to do?

Okay this post might sound meaningless, but truly, I am so tired with every negativity on my social media. I wish I had followed the right people, but what is right anyway? Opinions are neither right nor wrong, fact is.

Cheers.