Because No Result Betrays Effort

Hi readers.

This is basically my very first time writing a blog after years of hiatus on blogging (yes, I used to write a lot on Tumblr/blogspot/other blogging site --but I wrote cheesy personal stuff so I'll try to write something more useful from now on 😉).

For the past 4 years I realize that I have experienced a lot. I have transformed from a gullible and apathetic young adult to a more mature and responsible person. I have learned that the older I become, the more problems and responsibility will arise, thus I need to be more ready to face and deal with all of it. At some point, of course just like everybody else, sometimes I feel exhausted and I want to go back to my old life, but I guess life is indeed like a roller coaster. There will be ups and downs, but the most important thing of it is how you enjoy the ride. 

Anyways, the latest significant event that has just happened in my life was the day I was awarded LPDP Scholarship (4th Batch 2016) for my master's study in The University of Sydney. A lot of my friends asked me about the what-and-how of the scholarship test procedures and the preparation behind the test. I guess I will start writing my first blog by explaining a bit about it.

So I have been aiming for this scholarship since I was finishing my bachelor thesis. I wanted to pursue my master's degree abroad because I believed that the knowledge and the materials I have gained was not enough for me to understand the issues on international law comprehensively, and coming from a middle-class family, it was impossible for me to fund myself for the master's program as it would cost me a fortune.

Upon the completion of my bachelor's study, I started to prepare literally everything for the LPDP test. My strategy was to get the Conditional Letter of Acceptance (Conditional Offer) from the university first, and after I received the offer from the university I took the IELTS test to complete the university's requirement in order to obtain an Unconditional Letter of Acceptance (Unconditional Offer). The reason I did this was because I wanted to make sure that I was accepted in the university that I aimed for, so that I could predict on what IELTS score I should achieve. The process of obtaining the Conditional Offer from the university was approximately 2-6 weeks, depending on the university's admission office's condition. 

For the IELTS preparation, I had some intensive independent study for about 1,5 months (I literally studied from 9-4 nonstop) prior to the test day; with a son to raise and some work to do it was pretty crazy but all I had to do was to be persevering. I was quite nervous on the test day but fortunately everything went smoothly and I received the best I could get, because no result betrays effort, yes? 😊

After submitting all the documents needed for the LPDP administration matters, I waited for several weeks until the announcement of the substantive test came out. I was so lucky that the people who were applying for this scholarship in my city were very determined that they arranged some meetings for us to prepare and practice together. We discussed a lot about the recent national and international issues and we even practiced for the interview session. Honestly I was so amazed and I believed that these people really deserved the scholarship. 

The substantive test was quite unpredictable and I was pretty nervous because I failed once on this test so I was afraid that I would fail for the second time, but as my husband always said to me I've got nothing to lose, as long as I knew that I have done my best I just had to let God do the rest. 

The most frightening part of the test was the interview test. I was interviewed by a psychologist and two academicians, they were very smart and they paid really good attention to the details of my answers. The good thing about the interview was that the interviewers did not ask questions that could put me under pressure, but instead they asked me questions which I believed could dig up more potentials in me. 

The thing that I have learned from the interview session is that the interviewers only want to know whether we are the kind of individual who cares about other people around us (like the ones living in our neighborhood, our school or our community), whether we are the right person with the right solution to the nation's problem (even the very basic problem such as how to minimize the unemployment or how to solve the lack of the young people's interest in Indonesian culture), and last but not least is whether we have the right reason to get the scholarship. It is not about how good our targeted university is, or how great the country that we are going to study in is, but it is more about how relevant this university/country is to our academic and professional background and how our study is going to have a real impact and contribute to the nation's development. 

At the end of the day, I realize that nothing good comes easy, we sometimes need to make a bit of a bigger effort and sacrifices in order to achieve something we really want. And no result betrays effort after all, right? 

Anyways, I will try to elaborate more on the interview session and the reason I failed on the first attempt on my next post. I hope this post will be useful for those who are preparing for the scholarship. Cheers!