On being a Scholar

Since I got here, many have asked how is it like to be a master student? Is it really worth the effort?  I genuinely asked the same question while I’m stressed out during the exam period. I mean I had a quite decent job that offers me lots of chance to learn and grow professionally and also afford a decent living, to some extent. So why bother doing a master degree? Why don’t I focus on building a career, whether internally or looking for a better opportunity outside the organisation?

I think the reason behind it would be very personal. I will never say that pursuing a master degree, particularly abroad, is the best possible way to spend your quarter-life crisis period. I have friends who settled down so soon, have a kid, pursuing a career in a non-business related area, volunteer for a year in such a rural area and indeed, they’re having the time of their life. I mean, individual difference plays such a huge role here. So the answer to the question that many have asked earlier would be yes and no. It really depends on what you really want in life. And of course, if you know me, you’d know that I’ve been dreaming of this for a very, very long time.  

So is it worth the effort in terms of career? Let’s talk based on data.

Above is a UK based data, which found that a lot of graduates ended up being underpaid due to a huge amount of graduates that didn’t match with the employment opportunities. There is a diminishing proportion of high-quality jobs relative to the supply of high skills. In essence, I fully understand that having the MSc degree behind my name is NOT going to guarantee a better future in terms of career.

I took this year off knowing that my employer has a performance management practice that implements pay for performance approach, which means your salary increase, annual bonus, career progression and also learning opportunities will be correlated with your previous performance. It is highly used in a large organisation and I am sometimes proud knowing that the organisation that I work for is actually moving to that sort of high-commitment HR practices. Having said that, though, taking this year off also means that I missed a year of work. In other words, I might go back to my old job, doing the same task, paid the same amount as before I earned the degree. So yes, I do understand that.

So is master degree still relevant? In a logical sense, not necessarily. Yet in my experience, it is worth every effort, time and also struggles. I pour it here how amazing my first three months here. Now, I learned that being here is not only giving me the chance to experience the best possible quality of education, or learning from the very own researcher (who also work as an academics and HR practitioner), or having the chance to meet with London HR executives in networking events but to have an open mind in seeing things from a various different perspective. To have the certain belief that the world is not too big, Paris, London or even New York is not too far, meeting new people that taught me that there’s no such thing as boundaries for creation, as I learned from Mba Dewina, an LPDP awardee who lead my monthly pengajian, who produces 3 books, 3-ongoing research project while pursuing a PhD, not to mention raising a beautiful kid and also being a devoted wife. Yes, people can do that. I also learn that you can do anything, but not everything. We all have the same 24 hours, we need to focus on the most important thing in life—in this case, our education. It’s an overwhelming experience that helps me grow in so many ways.

All of this experience makes pursuing a higher degree worth every effort.

Having said that, we all still need to work for a living. So let’s get back to the reality that I found in the UK High Flier Research (2016) where almost one-third of graduate entry-level jobs expected to be filled by those who had already worked for the organisation during an internship, work placement or vacation work. So employability—the importance of doing a variety of jobs to get a range of experience, acquiring a variety of skills and building up one’s CV—is a factor that needs to be emphasised. I will always recommend having certain work experience before getting a higher degree to be sure about your choice, but this data suggests that it is important to have work experience. The labour market does not look really pretty right now, probably in several industries like oil and gas, the trend is getting lower and lower in terms of hiring. The flexible working form is getting more popular where firms tend to use part-time, temporary and also outsourcing to ensure cost-effectiveness. So I do get that some people take a master degree as a ‘runaway’ program from unemployment. I still think that it’s not entirely a bad way as they do gain new knowledge, expose to a new environment, probably new opportunities and career that would not expect before.

The most important thing I guess is to make the most of our time here to learn new skills, experience new things, meet new people and of course, gaining our employability or even creating our own business. I and my friends in PPI just finished a proposal for an event that will hopefully facilitate those needs of enhancing perspective in the various field of career and ways to contribute back to the nation. So yes, we sort of doing the best that we can to make the most of it—not only travel, but to actually develop ourselves, or even better, others.

On Being part of LPDP

Moving forward, since this particular article went viral, my timeline is full of two general points of view. One is from fellow awardees who are both proud and excited to have more people join the family and experience what we have right now, and those who are being sceptical on whether the government doing a good job in distributing their tax money. I genuinely understand why they have a certain point of view, as I also paid for my own tax income, and of course, I want it to be used properly. This also rings a bell to the past few weeks where I saw a lot of irritated post on social media from other LPDP awardees regarding this guy’s tweet that more or less saying that “It is not okay for the parliament members to take a vacation with government money while it’s okay for LPDP awardees did the same.” As much as I got irritated as well, I can’t fully agree with those who answer it with harsh words of saying that this guy probably just got jealous, seeing that he probably got rejected by LPDP, or showing that they got the distinction, or seeing vacation as a reward.

I got rejected at first, so being cynical about the scholarship body is pretty understandable, in a sense. I mean we are human who is basically driven by emotion, aren’t we? Nonetheless, whoever that guy is, whatever the reason nor background of saying that, I’d rather say that his analogy is basically irrelevant. I believe that what he meant by parliament member take a vacation with the government’s money are those people who took advantages of their role—say on a having a vacation after a ‘so-called meeting’ or ‘comparison field study’—or so on. I don’t think we have the right to judge if they took a vacation with their own money. I mean, if you work for the government, your salary practically comes from the government money. If they can manage their own income and travel say, once a year, who are we to judge? That’s how it works with these scholarship awardees, I guess. LPDP is a very generous body, who take into account the standard of decent living in each city based on their allowance. I received the exact number that the UK government require in order to get a student visa—which obviously the minimum living expense as a student in London. If we, the scholarship awardees able to manage the money—read: living in quite cheaper flats, cook a lot and not spending it too much on things—and choose to travel during the break, I don’t really see the harm in that as long as we put our study as a priority.

That would only express my point of view. Just my two scents that obviously you don’t need to agree with. I also not going to be defensive on travel, concert tickets and stuff because indeed did all of that. Yet I also believe that we all have the self-control and responsibilities to put our study as the number one priority.

Moreover, on how people’s expectation that we will contribute back to the nation right after study, I believe most of us will. I haven’t met all 16,000+ awardees across Indonesia, but I met 126 of them in Persiapan Keberangkatan (PK) program before I left. I have to say that all of them have their own way of making my 25 years of living feels like a waste of time. I might not be the best example of an awardee, but I met a doctor who works in Africa, or the one who worked in Papua and now pursuing a PhD for Malaria vaccine, an army who will pursue Public Policy, an English teacher who is now studying English in England, an inspiring ‘santri’ who’s pursuing a degree in education, a former consultant who’s taking an MBA, a girl who has her own architecture firm who's now studying design management, a guy who’s studying election studies, marine, and all of those degrees that you wouldn’t really think that they exist, but would beneficial for our country. I know there are just those people who are really being cynical on Twitter about my fellow awardee who's studying religion in Egypt or Saudi. I know it’s not an easy fact to swallow that our country actually cares about developing a wide range of field of studies.

I met other students from all over the world at King’s College London scholarship recipient reception and found that they’re so amazed by how our country put so much investment in their young generation. Brazil only has less than 30 people a year, while Brunei relies on Chevening, just like most of the other countries that I met that night. I believe that the initiative is great. It’s amazing to see how people who haven’t stepped their feet in Jakarta is now getting the experience of learning in huge cities like London and New York. This program indeed changed most of our lives and honestly, I can’t be more thankful to be surrounded by such highly intellectual people who would love to contribute back to their home.

Of course, there will also be people who don’t want to contribute at the end of the day. If you invest in stocks, there’s always the risk that you’ll lose right? We’re talking about investing in people here, of course, there are also risks that need to take into account. I’m not saying that this program is perfect, in my personal opinion, it has a lot of room for improvement. I’d love to see the scholarship body transform their recruitment process, create more reliable rules and regulations, focus on more than just number but qualities and also the pre-departure training that emphasizing more on preparation on how to thrive in masters and PhD as well as how to live abroad instead of having huge range of tasks that slightly irrelevant. So we won’t hear irrelevant questions in our awardees group and so on. There are also things that we need to appreciate, how Mata Garuda (LPDP Alumni organisation) work with a lot of companies, government and create an annual welcoming reception that is not only focused on the celebration but also formal discussion in this countries' problems. Not to mention a lot of academic achievement that received by a huge number of awardees. I can't help myself but proud and beyond blessed to be part of this family. 

All in all, being critical and sceptical is actually good. All of us needs constructive criticism to be better, aren’t we? I just don’t see that being judgmental is getting you to a better place, though. I personally believe that whether or not we receive a scholarship, we all have the same responsibility in contributing to the nation, in our own way, in our own portion and of course in our own time. Of course, granting this scholarship put me in a forever debt to the nation, in a sense. I feel that I have more obligation than others to be responsible in my study, ensuring that people’s money will not go to be wasted for nothing.

Finally, I believe, residing outside of the country, working in multinational companies, or taking the traditional route of contributing back, such as being a lecturer, a researcher or going back to the ‘regular’ type of corporate worker does not mean that they’re not cannot contribute in their own field. LPDP taught me well about their values on Integrity, Professionalism, and also Sinergy. I guess the most important one is the synergy. They didn’t design this program for all of us to work in government because it takes more than just the government to build this country. I didn't fancy singing the LPDP MARS every time during PK, but it pretty much explains “Beragam peran, satu tujuan, bersinergi membangun Indonesia. Berkeadian berdemokasi, menjadi bangsa yang terus berinovasi.”

It takes all possible fields of work to move towards one certain direction, better Indonesia. Of course, I don’t have to explain how a doctor who creates a Malaria vaccine can contribute to the country, just like a good friend of mine, a dentist who’s doing research in Tissue Engineering for Bone Augmentation in Maxillofacial Surgery. She (from what I understand) creates bones for teeth. I know, how cool is that again? My personal plan is not that huge. I'd like to contribute through developing the capital market industry, in my very tiny bit portion, by implementing high-commitment HR practices and supporting its employees to develop to ensure that IDX truly becomes a centre of excellence and competence. It's a super tiny way to contribute, isn't it? Who knows that I will move to another organisation afterwards? I guess what LPDP believe is each of their awardees have their own goodwill for the country. I think that's a good point of starting to believe in others and also focus on our way of contributing back.

Moreover, YIPA also opened my perspective that working abroad doesn’t mean that you can’t contribute back to your home country. They put a lot of effort in helping Indonesian students to enhance their employability as well as building a relationship with the UK government. Working in a multinational company also allow others to drive the economy as well, so it goes to your purpose, to begin with, I believe. You may work for the government and end up involved in corruption, or working in a prestigious consulting firm yet create an amazing platform for connecting startups in Indonesia like my friend did in McKinsey before she went to Imperial College London.

I do not really expect that you’d agree on everything I said because it is highly subjective and I guess full of bias, nor having an interest in any debate whatsoever. My honest purpose in writing this long note is in the hope that you can get a wider perspective on how it feels to be a scholar—the risks, responsibility and why pursuing another degree is still worth every effort—as long as it really what you want (and need) in life. 

Happy 5th birthday, LPDP! Thank you for amazingly change 16,000+ Indonesian students' lives and making dreams come true. Hope we all can contribute through our own path. 

Cheers,

Clarissa