2014-2015 Scholarship Essay

Grade ten has ended, flagged by the end of the IGCSE exam and I am now entering the second semester of eleventh grade, which is the first year of the IB Diploma Programme, taking higher level biology, physics and Indonesian and standard level chemistry, mathematics and English. The period of time in between, was perhaps the most arduous yet most valuable of my years so far; a process in His plans, which purposes to prosper and not to harm, plans that gives hope and a future.

In the tenth grade, Mr. Marisi said that I was going to be signed up to a competition, and so, at the beginning of the school, with his supervision I begun my research that is to be competed in the Young Scientists Competition or YSC. I came up with a hypothesis. Mr. Marisi booked the lab in Surabaya University and put my hypothesis to experimentation that costs two days of hard work and missing my classes. But to my surprise, it failed. I came up with a second hypothesis, but it failed just like the first. The same thing went for the third.

My heart broke, three times, but I didn’t give up. I came up with a fourth hypothesis, a very good idea and will be a great research topic if experimentally proven to be correct. To my surprise, it works, and the results were outstanding. I received a bronze medal for my research in the YSC and currently had had two out of three coaching to prepare me to compete in the International Conference of Young Scientist or ICYS in Serbia, in the midst of April 2014.

Bronze Medal, YSC

This reminded me of a movie I watched as a child that inspires me to pursue in the field of science: Disney’s “Meet the Robinsons ” as well as what Thomas Alva Edison said in response to his numerous attempts of finding the correct material of the filament his light bulb: “I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.” The messages from the two combined tells that failure is a part of success, we may look backwards to our failures, but not to dwell in it, but to learn from it, so that we keep moving forward.

Participating in the ICYS while in the IB Diploma Programme is a tough challenge for me. There are a lot of things that needs to be done in strict deadlines. I sacrificed my piano lessons to allow me to fully concentrate on the competition and my lessons at school.

I missed piano so bad as well as reading books, although I still had my piano lessons until the midst of the first semester. I hope I can return back to playing piano next year.

However, it is an honor and blessing to represent my alma mater in competitions and to be able to get all the experiences and lessons from it; it was all worth it. The research and experiments allowed me to practice my research skills, technical experimenting skills, and gave me an experience of how scientific research is like, which may be useful for my future university study and career which will be in the field of science, perhaps biomedical engineering.

 I was also drilled in my presentation skills, by having to do presentations in numerous audiences and being given lessons on presentation and PowerPoint making techniques. I performed a presentation during the IB night as a participation as well as practice for the competition. I am now more confident and doing much better in presentations.

IB Night

I also learned to manage my time and myself better through facing the numerous tasks given in strict period of time.

I am trying to be as active as possible in OSIS. Although I was not taking any important roles in the events, I pushed myself to give ideas and opinions to find the best way in situations during the activity. Participating in OSIS challenged my organization and teamwork skills as well as my perseverance quite well.

            I will compete in the ICYS this April, aiming for the best. I am now working and praying hard. Please pray for me as well. God bless.