Contoh Essai untuk Apply Beasiswa LPDP dan BPI (Bagian 3): My great success

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C. My Greatest Success

A success, one word that has many different meanings. Although, we can find the definition of it in the dictionary, I believe that everybody has their own sentences to write about it. Some people may define success philosophically, but for me success is just simple. I define success when I can reach what I am dreaming of, when I can make my family proud of it and when I can give a contribution to others. However, at most the process I pass through to gain success is not as simple as what I defined beforehand. One example of that is what I am going to describe in this essay. It is about my story in finishing a master program which conducted by a cooperation between DIKTI Indonesia and STUNED The Netherlands. 

To begin with, I will write about my background. I was born not in a rich family. My mother is an elementary teacher and my father was a construction laborer. When I was a child, I ever heard my mom said that being a teacher is a great profession, at least there are two reasons. First, she believes that the God will gives reward for people who share knowledge with others even when they already passed away. Second, the world will need teachers all the time, so there will always job available for them. These two reasons brought me to take a bachelor degree of education. But, instead of being a teacher, I planed to be a lecturer and dreamed about continuing study abroad.

At that time I interested to apply for an International Master Program on Mathematics Education (IMPoME) scholarship. This is a collaboration between Utrecht University, Unsri and Unesa. It was funded by DIKTI and STUNED. There were three steps of selection: interviews with the Indonesian professor, workshop and interview with the Dutch lecturer, and the IELTS. After finishing the second step, there were about thirty candidates (including me) who could continue to the last step. The committee divided us into two groups to get the IELTS preparation course, fourteen candidates went to Unesa Surabaya and the rest went to Unsri Palembang. The condition of the scholarship was it should be at least ten persons got the total band 6.5 with the writing score 6 or more.

The IELTS preparation was the hardest phase of the selection for me and might also for my colleagues. Within four months, we had class 6 days a week and 8 hours a day. However, the exact time we used was more than that. It seemed that the whole week full of IELTS things. We practiced English all the time, at home, at the cafeteria, at the mosque, everywhere. We made a rule that in the classroom, we should speak in English, when we used other languages we should pay fine. After four months we took an IELTS test, only two persons got 6.5 but the writing is below 6. Therefore, we should take the second test a couple weeks later. Fortunately, ten of us fulfilled the criteria and could go to the Netherlands.

The IELTS preparation phase taught me about hard work, focus and togetherness. It also made me realize that do not underestimate a tiny obstacle. Sometimes it could block you from your dream like the 0.5 in the IELTS score that make some of my friends could not go to Utrecht University, because they just get 6. They could not get the chance to experience living and studying in Europe.

I thank God for giving me such wonderful experience in studying outside Indonesia. It was hard in the beginning, since I should adapt to a very different culture both in daily life and academic life. Nevertheless, finally one year at Utrecht university was done and then I went back to Indonesia to finish the thesis in Unesa Surabaya.

At the end, I got my Master of Science degree and I declare that this is one of the greatest success in my life. I can reach my dream to study abroad and my family proud of it. In addition, I am a lecturer now, with my position and experience I can give my contribution as a part of the development of Indonesian generation.