Never Give Up

I strongly believe that the most important thing to be successful is never to give up. I have proven it throughout my life. The latest proof is when I successfully got a pathway scholarship for a doctoral degree program. As many as 45 candidates get the scholarship. The program will help us to reach our goal of studying in the US at least in 2026. 

I have been struggling and waiting around ten years to get it which is the biggest of my dreams. I started the long journey to make my dream come true in 2014. I decided to learn English more discipline until I got a TOEFL ITP score of 500. The score was enough to get a scholarship for English training from the Indonesian Educational Ministry, the IELTS test preparation, in late 2015. The selected participants were around 40 from several universities in the entire Indonesia. We attended the full two months of training in the Language Office Centre at Gadjah Mada University. 

We learned enthusiastically because the instructors were friendly and mastered their expertise. We were given a lot of knowledge and skills for success in the test. At the end of training, we also had an opportunity to take the IELTS official test. Fortunately, I got a good overall score of 6.5. The score was enough to apply to many universities in Australia, the UK, and the US. 

Armed with the score I applied to some universities in those countries. The peak was when I was admitted and got the Letter of Acceptance (LoA) from the University of Newcastle, Australia. Sadly, I did not get a scholarship to fund my study there. Indeed, I almost got a Fullbright and LPDP scholarship. Nevertheless, because of my lack of speaking, I always failed in the interview sessions, even up to three times. It was a very disappointing moment.

I then decreased my standard. I applied to a country that did not require a high English score and without an interview, Chinese Taipei. I had a university as well as a scholarship to fund my studies. Again, I could not attend it because of another reason.

I had tried many times to make my dream come true. Unfortunately, I got nothing. Then, I stopped to apply for scholarships. I hibernated for a long time, five years, to solve another big problem I faced. At that period, I never tried anything related to the future of my career or academics. For exception, I did not stop to learn. I have been learning English until now.

Surely, I didn't surrender. In the middle of 2024, when I was 42, I tried again. I applied to the pathway of doctoral study in the US scholarship program. Finally, I was successful. I got it. I was also offered by a professor from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities in the US to join her project in the PhD program. 

Now, my friends and I are fighting to go to the US at least in 2026.  I hope everything will be okay this time. Let us pray together, and wish Allah to grant our requests.