Undergraduate Journey [V]: Hungry for Competition >:(
B.Sc Mechanical Engineering ITB: A review of my 5th semester
Honestly this semester is, what the kids nowadays call, pretty mid. I guess what made this one different would be that I took my first two non-major (mechanical engineering) compulsory courses, that is Religion & Ethics as well as Indonesian Pancasila, that I absolutely knocked out of the park in those two — might have to take my Master’s degree in philosophy or something hahah.
Classes taken:
Engineering Measurement ; Mechanical Vibrations I ; Machine Element II ; Heat Transfer I ; Fluid Mechanics II ; Manufacturing Process ; Religion & Ethics ; Pancasila & Citizenship
Highlight #1: Director of General Affairs [IMechE ITB]
After dedicating two years at IMechE ITB, starting as a staff of engineering development in 2020 with a promotion to secretary in 2021, I was closely recruited to become the Director of General Affairs (shout-out kak Eca), making myself the youngest director in the IMechE ITB 2022 team. By being part of this organization, I was also able to take part in the Speak Out for Engineering competition as a finalist for the Indonesian region and gave a talk about “The Algorithm of War: An Engineering POV towards Autonomous Warfare”. The event itself held at Sampoerna University was very eye-opening and I had a blast meeting the welcoming students there.
Highlight #2: Manufacturing Process
Though I’m not one to giddy over a class subject, MS3130 Manufacturing Process had to be one of the most enjoyable and useful practicum curriculums taken so far in my studies. We learnt to weld, shred, cut, sand, bore, saw, bend, mill, drill, and every other engineering verb you can think of — which are all prevalent techniques used in the mechanical engineering environment. I was also able to volunteer in welcoming the South Korean representatives for Korea-Indonesia Machine Tools Industry Development Center when they visited ITB to hand off a warehouse filled amount of advanced modern machining tools that you would see in fiction movies, which we will hopefully get to use later on in our studies.
Highlight #3: Disappointment 😓
Though it is easy to showcase the positive moment’s from university life, I would like to dedicate this portion to reflecting on an area that I feel disappointed in myself for, that is my GPA for this semester. This semester was the lowest GPA I’ve had so far in my study. Granted I still meet the GPA requirement for most entry level jobs, in today’s competitive market, it is not enough to merely meet expectations but to exceed them.
Though I could have made excuses that has some truth in them, one resonating the most being that of how a professor refused to mark an assignment that I had submitted completely fair and square with all the evidence in the world, which would have been enough to fill in the 0.5 gap to the next grade level, or even having a mid “Bachelors degree” crises and thinking that I had chosen the wrong major— those excuses are all BS. After coming to terms with the result, I too have come to terms with the quote:
“Disappointments are a result of failed expectations. To have less disappointment, either expect less from other people or demand more from yourself.”
— Kevin Ngo
From this, it’s only clear that the only one to blame is myself. After reflection, I would claim that the root cause for my low GPA is that in this semester, after getting home from offline classes, it would take Sisyphus’s will to get any studying done at home as the in-person classes just felt much more exhausting, which is why for the dreaded sixth semester, I will be sure to confine all of my studying only on campus grounds, which would also mean not going home straight after class by spending an extra 2–3 hours, as to separate my studying focus from my home environment and prevent procrastination/ inefficient studying. The theme for the next semester is pure survival, and I can’t wait to take on the challenge.
