The Beginning: Abroad

Ever since high school, I’ve been dreaming of going abroad and even traveling the world. Why? I don’t know, I just thought it was cool. But then I realized that going overseas meant I could experience something different, meet new people, and understand other people’s cultures. Indeed, those things are fascinating. As a broke student (I’m still broke now), it seemed impossible to realize that dream, so I had to find a way to go abroad without burning a hole in my wallet.

The first idea that came to my mind was joining a science Olympiad competition with the expectation that I could represent my country at the international science Olympiad competition. (You can notice that it’s totally the wrong intention LOL, and I guess you will know what happened next).

In short, I failed in that science Olympiad competition; I just made it to the provincial level. By the way, I chose astronomy as my subject, for no particular reason. At that time, I didn’t realize how ill-suited I was for the science Olympiad thing, but yeah, at least I learned a little bit about constellations, planets, and dark matter, haha. The first plan didn’t work, so I had to find another way to go abroad – by continuing my higher education in another country with a full scholarship.

During my senior year, I started to research fully-funded scholarships to pursue a bachelor’s degree abroad. I found a lot of information regarding scholarships in various countries such as Turkey, Japan, China, South Korea, India, Russia, Malaysia, Brunei, the Netherlands, Singapore, etc. (I already made a post about this, but it’s in Bahasa Indonesia). I really wanted to apply to every single scholarship program out there, but unfortunately, I didn’t have a lot of money to take the English proficiency exam and the standardized test required by most of the scholarship programs. I didn’t want to burden my parents with that because those tests are incredibly expensive! In the end, during my senior year, I could only apply to one scholarship program in Turkey called Turkiye Burslari because it didn’t require me to have the tests that I mentioned before, so it’s the simplest scholarship program to apply.

Plot twist: After graduating from high school, I got a lot of information about exchange programs like AFS from Binabud and how to continue your high school abroad through the UWC program. I really regret not knowing about those programs earlier. I wish I knew about it, so I could dedicate myself to those programs instead of spending my time on the Olympiad stuff LOL. Trust me! Exchange programs and conferences are ‘easier’ to get rather than a medal in a science Olympiad, especially for a person like me, haha. So for you guys who are still in high school, please use your time wisely so you won’t regret your high school life.

This is just the beginning. This story led me to such a roller coaster journey that I am going to tell next. I hope you guys enjoy my story, and thank you for reading it. See you~

-written on November 17, 2019-