News Reporting

University Level: Gives You Better Life or Not?

As people in Indonesia believe, that having a higher level of education is more respectable than others who only get to have the education itself until High School level only. Those students from University, in the society’s point of view, will always have good opportunity to get better jobs in the future. In their minds, university sertificate will give you guarantee for a higher position or better place in the business world.

However, those perceptions of the society can be objected by the experiences of a simple energetic girl named Pradita Ningrum. Dita, as she usually called by her friends, is a 7 Vocational High School-graduated student in 2012. She was majoring in Computer and Networking Department. Together with her friends, she finished her study in her Vocational High School after 4 years learning every skills given to her.

“I used to register myself to Yogyakarta State University at that time. I got my place there, but I decided to postpone it since there was another offering from PT KAI”, said Dita in the middle of the interview,”I was confused what I should choose first. Then, God answered it by leading my decision to choose the work offer than to study in Yogyakarta State University."

In the end, Dita worked at PT KAI. She followed what her heart said about her opportunity at that time. She has been working at that place since 2012 until now, means that she has been working for 3 years. However, one thing that people have to know that when she entered her job as IT staff, she had not even entered any universities. As what she has said before that she has rejected the study offering, but she still believes that University life can be postponed for a while to get a better future.

Hence, Dita still has no desire to stop her education. She then registered to STMIK AMIKOM Purwokerto in 2014 to study. Eventhough she is a busy girl with a lot of work, she still can divide her time to spend a little of time to get her undergraduate status in that University. Now, this first child from her family is in the second semester of IT major there.

In life, there will be no fun if you never get such kind of obstacles. As you can see, Dita can still divide her time well between working and studying in University. One day, there was a selection for all staffs in PT KAI to join the seminar of International Transport Federation in Kolkatta, India. ILO (International Labour Organization), with the help of ITF held this event to discuss about some transportation issues. Only one staff could join the seminar. Dita then decided to follow the selection, in hope that she would get the chance to go abroad to India. She got selected at that time, but before that there were so many obstacles for her to face first.

Dita is now the student of STMIK AMIKOM, means that she has to follow the lectures no matter what to get better mark. However, since she had to arrange her needs to go abroad, she got a lot of absences in her classes. Not to mention how her boss, the Director of PT KAI looked down on her to join the seminar because at that time, she only had been working for 2 years. However, Dita never gives up, as what her motto, “Don’t change your dreams, if you ever fail to reach them, but change your way to get the dreams itself”. To prove that she is able to be the representative of PT KAI from Indonesia, she then showed the Director all sertificates she got when she was in Vocational High School. After showing those sertificates, she then get her permision to be the representative to go to India.

“In the seminar, there were representatives from India, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and me from Indonesia. I was the youngest participant in the seminar, since I was still in my 21 at that time. Because I used to join debate extracuriccular in my Vocational High School before, even I followed some championships and got the winner place, I could follow the seminar well”, Dita explained proudly about it, “I wanted to go abroad, that is why I wanted to get scholarship if I was in the Univesity. Now, it is changed since I get the chance go abroad because of my job. I never give up that is why I can be in this position now. Even my family always support what I will do.”

Dita can get such success in her life not because she is graduated from University, yet. She is just a Vocational-High-School-Graduated student, but she can feel how the situation in India. This is the reason which the perception of getting University sertificate is more honoured can be objected. Dita can be like what she is now because of her hardwork and struggle, not certificate or higher level of education. So, that is why, after knowing Dita’s story, people should understand that a better life can be reached if you tend to be hardworking. In the future, there is a hope: there will be another Dita, who can get better life and who can reach their dreams by struggling. However, remember, education is still needed, even Dita continues her postponed study in STMIK AMIKOM.