Empat Setengah Tahun (3)

The Struggle: Scholarships

It is not easy to finish something you don’t like from the beginning. It is already said that I don’t quite like college. In my department where I have recently finished my bachelor degree, I met a lot of cocky people. At first, I could obviously see their friendship groups. But it didn’t bother me at all. Who care who friends with whom. So I keep focused perfecting my college life. Since the day I stepped my feet in Jatinangor, I realized that I would never have the same social life at I had befor in high school. I am no good friends at all particularly at spreading first impression so I could gain some new friends. No, I was not raised to gain friends with first impression. Time shapes friendship. I am sure that friendship can’t be built in one night, one week, month or even one year. To me, it takes a life to know who’s our friends, the true one. so I skipped seeking for friends as I didn’t come to get one.

There was one thing that kept bugging me since I wrote down my first semester credit: How to get a Scholarship. But I was totally blind and clueless about university scholarships so I missed a lot of opportunities at the first year. But the next following year, I applied two scholarships: Peningkatan Prestasi Akademik (PPA) Unpad and Karya Salemba Empat (KSE). And Alhamdulillah I got it. So at that time I didn’t have to work my ass out to support my college needs. I got PPA for my sophomore year and  KSE for the next year. (You can google PPA Unpad and KSE for further information, in case you want to get their scholarship).

To be honest, it was a blessing because those were years I could actually concentrate in my study. I was able to optimize studying to get the best result. And the result was quite jaw-breaking. I mean, it was really different between having part time jobs while studying and laying my finger and eye on books. Hypothetically speaking, I thought the university kept me on scholarship, automatically. But the truth is, it did not. I had to apply to for the next year to get the scholarship but I missed it. I forgot to apply. I was so desperately down that I could not imagine I had to study at noon and work at night. To me the scholarship foundation was savior. They gave money to study. It is nice having people care about me, about us, who couldn’t study at maximum because of financial problems. That’s why I wrote a huge thank in my thesis, “ To all my scholarship sponsors, may Allah give you so many blessing in return.”

Later on, I found out that there’s BCA Finance. It was a scholarship supported by BCA, yes that bank. I was really fortunate because I got BCA Finance for my last year, the fourth year I assumed. But I was quite disappointed later on finding out a bit late. Because BCA Finance is a big fish! It will support your college living cost until eight semesters. But at least I had my last year cover so I could a bit relax.

In the end I was mistaken because I had to continue the 9th semester. It is because I took so many activities in third year so I couldn’t keep my eyes on thesis formulation. I was wrong to calculate I was able to finish it for only 6 months. The truth is it took 9 months to finish it. And that time I was pretty busy and cracked up to apply a scholarship so I had to pay it on my account. But it did not matter since I saved up some from my previous scholarships.

So I just want you guys to know that working and studying at the very same time is not an easy stuff. It is really nice if you guys are provided with such facilities to keep up with your study.  But don’t worry if you are in your own, you still got me. You must work your ass off in applying scholarships. Your academic records must be outstanding or at least good (min. GPA 3.00 of 4.00). But I don’t regret I had worked with studying at the same time. It got me good at handling times. 

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