Studying Abroad Is a Good Choice

Introduction

Over the years, many international students choose to study abroad, one of them are Indonesian students. Studying abroad is a choice of life. Some students study abroad since middle school, high school, or even college. Whenever the time has come, there will still be many things taught in the life of an international student that cannot be obtained by those who continue to curl up in their comfort zones called “home”.

Being a student studying abroad can be challenging. It may seem fun and “fabulous”.

Walking in the afternoon at the park in the Summer, sipping tea in the fall. Wearing Winter coats like in the movies. Doesn’t that seem fun? What is so unique about students that study abroad? Obviously studying abroad is not an easy thing to deal with. Just imagine having to adapt living in a completely new environment. Everything starts from zero when learning the culture, habits, and finding new friends.

This is what makes students that study abroad unique, because they have the guts to do all of that.

One thing that make international students tough is that they have to figure out their own problems, without the help of their families who are across the country. When you become a student who studies abroad, automatically you have become an independent individual who stands alone to deal with your own problems.

In the article ‘The Commencement Speech You’ll Never Hear’, The writer Jacob Neusner explains how college education doesn’t prepare us for the real world in the way that it is fun, that mistakes are failed to be noticed and professors are understanding or unconcerned.

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Considering that he opposes it with reality and eventually wishes us to disregard what we are being taught. He is saying that life is full of experiences and that we must learn from our mistakes and from others as well.

Real-life starts in college, it is where we meet new people, learn new things, have responsibility, and getting an image of what we are going to do in the future. He points out that failure marks you and that you should learn from your own errors. Failure makes you dig deeper and reach new understandings. My essay is about how the life here in the United States, including college life, is different from my country and I find this article useful because it talks about the reality of college and I think that I can infer this on my essay later on by combining the different aspects of culture, education, and lifestyle between my country and the United States.

Research Questions

One of the most popular destinations for international students to continue their college education is the United States. Based on international students’ experiences, studying in the U.S made them mature, wise, and critical. Studying in the U.S will give them access to a better education. Universities in the U.S are ranked in the top 10 and a lot of U.S graduates who come back to their home country will most likely get a high paying job. When studying in the U.S, meeting new people and dealing with the cultural difference can get frustrating most of the time, but that is where you truly find your true self and gain the amazing experience. Studying abroad will give you new experiences and perspectives of life. By looking through sources and events, I have come up with questions for my research which are:

1. What makes international students come to the U.S?
2. How is the education different between the U.S and Indonesia?

The Event: Indonesian Barbeque Gathering

On Saturday, September 8, 2018, I attended a barbeque gathering with the Indonesian Student Association at the Eldorado Canyon State Park. We had a lovely dinner, did some hike and took really good pictures. It was really nice to catch up with the other fellow Indonesian students here in Boulder. There were about twelve Indonesian students in total who attended this event.

All of them go to CU Boulder but some of them were sophomores, graduate students, and alumni. They came from different cities in Indonesia, some came from Jakarta, West Java and Surabaya. I feel surprised that there were Indonesian students here in Boulder, since Boulder is a small city and it is not really known in Indonesia.

This gathering makes me remind of home, I felt really comfortable telling them my concern and asking them questions of how to succeed my studies here and they were being very helpful and genuine when giving me the suggestions. Some of the most interesting part of the gathering I think was the fact that we shared different opinions on how the college life in America was. We talked about the culture differences, education system, people, and other things. Most of them were saying that the students here in the United states are very committed to their studies and because of that the Indonesian students are highly motivated to study harder in order to accomplish their studies. I find this gathering really helpful and important because I definitely got more information and suggestions of how to succeed in an American university.

Cons of Studying in the United States

I interviewed the president of the Indonesian Association Organization. One of the questions were “Why did Indonesians choose the United States to complete their studies”. She explains that the United States has one of the world’s best education systems. Students have the opportunity to experience prestigious research and educational opportunities. Moreover, a U.S university is balanced because they teach you education principles and also gives the opportunity for the students to specialize in the social sciences and arts.

This means that students will have a wide variety of programs. International students who are continuing their studies in the United States, are making a choice to expand their educational skills and cultural experiences. Most of the universities in the U.S provide a variety of student clubs and organizations. Students will have the opportunity to meet new people when joining these clubs and organizations.

Getting a degree in the United States will be very beneficial for international students. It will offer a competitive boundary when we get a job. Interacting with people from around the world while studying in the United States will strengthen our potential to interact with people from other cultures and it will give us a global perspective. Studying abroad is one way develop your open-mindedness to other cultures, it adds another aspect to your life, presenting you to the American culture and to the languages and beliefs of people from around the world.

Education System in Indonesia

At this time, the education system in Indonesia is currently very concerning. One of the reasons is because the government of Indonesia does not care enough about education. Thus, there are many difficulties caused by the lack of education in Indonesia. The education in Indonesia has been of great discussion for a while now. It is caused by the undeveloped education system in Indonesia.

This is due to several fundamental reasons. One of them is that in this 21st century, the progress of technology and the changes that have taken place shows that Indonesia is no longer a developed country. While we live in a modern world, the current education system in Indonesia, both formal and informal education, is falling behind. This is shown after comparing the education in Indonesia to other countries.

Education has been essential in Indonesia to build our nation. The factors that led to the undeveloped education in Indonesia involves the troubles of the level teaching. However, the specific problems in the world of education in the world of education are low physical facilities, quality of teacher, student’s achievement and the relevance of educational needs. The standard of education in Indonesia is a big problem. As a matter of fact, the teachers nowadays are not skilled and less professional.

The methods of teaching in Indonesia is very useless. One of the examples is that the teachers just points out the subject while not knowing what the goals are. For example, in Indonesia the Math subject that is taught is not relevant to a high school level, they teach very advanced college level Math that will be taught again in college. They make students do so much homework until the students are depressed. When students have questions, most of the teachers will tell them that they are stupid and that they should study more.

One of the reasons why education in Indonesia is really bad is because everything is about money. This means that anyone that has money can get a free high school or college degree. Thousands of students that are rejected to a university in Indonesia will pay so much money so that they can get accepted. Nothing in Indonesia is genuine, if they do not get good grades in High School they can also pay money to the teachers to boost their grades up. Also, the majors in Indonesia are not variant. When we pick a major, we will be stuck with that major forever. The classes are chosen by the university, in that case we cannot study other subjects outside our academic ability.

In the book “Befriend your Emotions” the authors are trying to convey on how to deal with our negative emotions. I really like when the authors say that we should observe and befriend our negative emotions rather than fighting them. It reminds me of when I am emotionally anxious, I ask myself, why is this anxiety controlling my mind? what is the point of being anxious? I continually ask and ask myself until I understand the point which leads to observing my own emotions. In this way, my emotions will settle down and transform on its own. We have to be open minded and see things in different perspectives to control our emotions. If you see something on one side, you won’t clearly understand what it means. By seeing something in a different perspective you will gain meaningful aspects of life.