From Clinical Psychology to HR Management: A 3-month reflection on living the dream

As this is the last month of the year, I’ve been actually living in London for 3 months. The most enriching time of my life, I have to say. I remember how last year, I wonder how would it feel to stroll around Big Ben as a daily basis thing, or seeing London Eye as I walk to school. It feels amazing, obviously. It is also as hard as it is fun for me. 

A month from now, I will be facing my final exams which will 100% determine my completion of the course. Unlike most of the UK (around Northern England & Scotland) students who already finished their term, many of students who are studying in London will have this sort of deadlines and exam right after the new year. A stressful winter break, eh?

I chose to do this sort of writing to ease the stress and to reflect on how blessed I am—and of course to complain a little less.

I just got home from The King’s College London sponsored student reception—basically a session that presented by the university for all sponsored students all over the world & any kind of scholarship— to gather around. It is sort of reminder how being part of King’s itself sometimes still feels surreal. I used to browse King’s website between my working days and now I am here with a full sponsor from the government. 

The #lifeatkings are both challenging and amazing. The lecturers are great, in a way they pushed us to read from 1911-ish until the paper that haven’t been published and will be up on early 2017 to have that sort of wide perspective on HR approaches. I still hardly remember the day I am lucky enough to be sponsored by IDX to attend HR Summit in Singapore, or to be in Shangri-la when Prof. Dave Ulrich, the HR guru that everyone respects visited Jakarta. Now I can see Prof. David Guest & Prof. Ricardo Peccei—huge names for HR in the UK—in daily basis. Even better, I can get access to their research and knowledge directly from the expert themselves.

King’s also has partnership with London HR Connection, a platform where HR practitioner in London gather and discuss HR issues nowadays. We do have (free) access to their events and able to meet and blend with those people I adore in the office with amazing view of London eye and so on.  Recently my friends also developed an HRM Society where we as students have the opportunity to learn from the HR practitioner just after our classes. I just met Deborah Rees, founder of one of most prominent UK based HR consultant that specialized in rewards. Learned a lot from her in terms of HR practices, how she built her career from being internal HR until reaching the point of Head of Rewards, then become one of the Willis Towers Watson consultant until starting up her consultancy in order to have more time with her kids. Always a good feeling in seeing highly successful career women who also put family as her top priority. 

So in terms of the academic and practical perspective of HR, I think the past 3 months has taught and enriched my knowledge and perspective in so many ways.

Having said that, I am amazed by the fact that I can be so sure that this is what I’d like to pursue in the future considering how I fall so deeply with clinical psychology before—not to mention the fact that I still have that passion right now—but I also want to share how can I fall for other stuff that I’ve never imagined before. If it’s not passion, I don’t know what is to have that sort of excitement to walk in to sessions from HR practitioner that I might never got the chance to learn from if I’m not in London.

That does not mean I’m not struggling, because I am, terribly. Shifting my perspective from psychology to business is not as easy as 1 2 3. I did have mental breakdown in doing my mock exams, cried a lot and called my emergency number back home to have that sort of social support, ended up missing them a bit more but finally finished the piece of writing that put me in a hard time. I also have zero background in business theory, accounting and putting HR into business context—but there’s sort of the point—to enrich my perspective from only human to cost-benefit. To put things in balance between being the voice of employees and also part of management who implemented policies.  I am not only learning about the Ulrich model but actually forced to criticize it in terms of the applicability within contemporary organization. That’s where my 3+year experiences in HR helped a lot. I can just go to masters right after I finished my bachelor degree but it might lead to something entirely different. Thus I am grateful for what Allah put me through—all the struggles, the wait, the tears or even the heart broken—part of my scholarship hunting experience until to the stage that I am today because there’s no better time than this year.

All in all, the lesson that I learned the most is passion is important but it is also sort of overrated. To all psychology graduate out there, having the dream to be a psychologist is great, actually learning to be one is even better, but not being able to pursue that path is NOT the end of the world. It might lead you to something that is completely different, not always better, but something worth doing, satisfying and of course meaningful.  

Studying in London is always been my dream since I’m 20. Now I am 25, it took 4 years for me to figure out what I want to do in life and to actually live the dream—also still struggling on doing that—but I have to say it is worth every effort.

Beside school, there are huge amount of things that I am thankful for by studying here. Having new friends from all over the world, new Indonesian friends that also come from huge range of backgrounds, enjoying myself once again as a student by joining @ppilondon, practice saman dance again (after 10 years! Never feel as young as I am today) and becoming a part of pengajian group that allow me to learn more about Islam—extensively, through Al-Qur’an recitation, discussion on hadists & also tausyiah from a Mba Dewina—a PhD student at UCL, BPRI LPDP Awardee, a writer & also a mother that I really look up to (something that I’ve never thought I’d do here), travel—sort of a lot—starting to cross out my UK checklist from Bath, Stonehenge, Leeds, Manchester, Cambridge, Aberdeen, Stonehaven & my favorite one, Edinburgh. 

Got to post a bit of breathtakingly beautiful Edinburgh, the city that I almost ended up with

I also handed myself a few concert tickets that I can’t hardly wait for next year. Winter in London is somehow magical, the lights and a number of Christmas markets all over town, the festivity of Winter Wonderland and also ice skating outdoor in this type of weather is sort of crazy but it seriously can’t get any better that this. I also got to mention the food, the books and also the museums—three things that you won’t get enough from London. The coffees are also nice, as I am not getting more British by having a lot of tea. I think I need to post this separately, but well that’s pretty much it. 

Anyway, the journey been amazing and I am both excited and nervous to face the rest of the year. It’s somehow unbelievable how a few months can change you in terms of what matter and what’s not—but something remains the same—the thought of home and faces I love and dearly miss. One thing that I also learned by being apart from home—family, friends, and everything that was a routine for me—is to prioritize & understand how much they actually meant for me, and to what extent I would travel the world to see them.  

Look forward to the day I can be in the same time zone with each of them. 

Cheers