Contoh Essai untuk Apply Beasiswa LPDP dan BPI (Bagian 1): Personal Statement

 Judul postingan ini memang begitu menggugah. Mencerminkan tingkat PD yang tinggi.
Ah biarlah, toh ini blog saya yang punya. Tempat menuliskan ini dan itu dan lain sebagainya.

Selama tidak menyinggung orang lain, maka saya akan pd saja untuk menuliskan apa yang ingin saya share.
________________Demikian disclaimer untuk postingan di blog ini.

ALhamdulillah setelah perjalanan panjang dan melelahkan, dengan penuh rasa syukur akhirnya saya bisa memulai study phd di bulan februari 2023. Tepatnya tanggal 14 February saya sampai di Bumi Allah Melbourne dengan selamat Alhamdulillah.
Cerita tentang ini kapan-kapan lah saya tulis. Mari kita fokus dulu ke judul ini.

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Banyak diantara teman-teman saya yang juga sedang berjuang untuk mendapatkan beasiswa dan sebagai orang yang telah Allah berikan kesempatan untuk memperoleh beasiswa lebih dahulu, saya banyak ditanyai oleh teman-teman tentang tips dan trik nya. Salah satunya tentang essay ataupun jawaban untuk beberapa pertanyaan yang biasanya ditanyakan di beasiswa.

Untuk itu saya berniat untuk membagikannya disini.

Ini bukanlah tulisan yang bagus dan ideal, bukan pula contoh yang benar dan paling top. Ini murni hanyalah tulisan yang saya gunakan saat apply beasiswa dan LoA sejak tahun 2018 lalu. Tulisan ini saya padu padankan seadanya dan semampu saya saat itu. Gaya bahasa dan juga tata kalimat serta diksi nya mungkin hanya apalah-apalah.

Tapi setidaknya tulisan-tulisan ini yang pernah mengantarkan saya lulus beasiswa LPPD pada tahun 2018 (PK 139 Dipamartani PK-139 DIPAMARTANI (@pk139lpdp) • Instagram photos and videos) dan lulus beasiswa BPI Kemdikbudristek 2022.

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A. PERSONAL STATEMENT

My name is Ronal Rifandi. I am a lecturer in Mathematics Education study program at Universitas Negeri Padang. I took my bachelor degree of education at Universitas Negeri Padang and then continued it with an International Master Program on Mathematics Education. This program was a collaboration between Universitas Negeri Surabaya (Indonesia) and Utrecht University (The Netherlands).

In this letter I will explain about “my contribution”. In my point of view, contribution is the hearth of my success. When I said “success” it is not only about myself, but also about the positive effects I can give to the community. In the following I will point out some activities that I have already done, the things I currently work in and the vision of my contribution in the future. Then, I will describe about my dream of Indonesia in the future along with my role in reaching that dream.

To begin with, I started to realize that ones really cannot live without others when I was in junior high school. It was the time when I started to define myself. I came up with a conclusion that being clever in the classroom only is not enough to face the world. Therefore, I joined with several students’ organizations. When I was in my undergraduate university I ever be the chairman of a student association. Together with my team, we conducted several programs that gave effect not only for the students in my department but also to the people outside the institution. For example, when there was a big earthquake happened in Padang (2009) our association also took part in the trauma healing process. Another example of I and my association contribution to the community was that we conducted a voluntary teaching for children in an orphan house.

Furthermore, in my current carrier as a lecturer, I actively contribute in the three main duties of Indonesian lecturer namely, teaching, conducting research and community services. In term of teaching, I am one of the lecturers who is given responsibility by the university to teach in the international class. To support my teaching, especially when the pandemic covid-19 attack our country, I manage to develop learning videos to support my students during the distance learning and I disseminate it through my youtube channel. Moreover, in term of research, in the past 5 years I got research funding from my university and also one from overseas institution.

In addition, I am also active in publishing scientific papers both in Scopus-indexed international seminar proceedings and in accredited national journals. In community service, I am involved in various activities whose primary purpose is to support teachers in schools related to learning mathematics in accordance with my scientific field. One example of the activity is my participation in the activities of the driving organization, which is the flagship program of the Ministry of Education and Culture. Through this program, we assist elementary school teachers in designing and implementing innovative learning based on realistic mathematics approaches.

I plan to take a higher degree by research in mathematics education at Deakin University, Australia. I already joint with a pre departure program conducted by Deakin University and Andalas University in 2015. I got a completion certificate declare that I already completed the module of language intensive, developing academic study skills, academic writing workshop, cultural introduction, preparing a PhD application, and English Language Testing. I also already have correspondence with my potential supervisors from Deakin to discuss about my research topic. Further, I got the offer to continue my study there. The only condition stated in my Letter of Offer is about the funding. When I got a scholarship, I can start as the PhD student at Deakin University.

There are at least two reasons for me to choose Deakin University as the place to take a PhD. First, regarding the area of research and the potential supervisor availability, I found that there are experts at the mathematics education department of Deakin University that also concern about integrating Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) in education. This is the area of study that I propose in my research proposal. Some of them also have a connection or ever work together on a project with my previous supervisors from Indonesia and also from the Netherlands. The second reason to choose Deakin University is because the Deakin University provides several offers for their students such as the quality of the degree, the lively campus atmosphere, the flexibility of the learning methods used, the focus for the career and also it has won numerous awards.