From High School to University

Three months from now, I’ll be leaving high school. My time in high school felt short. It’s just like yesterday when I registered and first came to my school. When I met so many strangers from around the country, who are now my closest friends, was always been an exciting moments. We have spent so much time together, and we had been through pleasant and difficult moments. I just realized that our togetherness will soon come to an end. And it felt dreary.

But the sky is still high above me, and no matter what, I have to go on. And the nearest obstacle for me to overcome is choosing and entering university. It’s not as easy as everyone think, after all. It will affect my whole aspect of life. This 4 years stage of life will determine what and who I will be. And this time, I will be really really far apart from my family. So, I will be on my own, dead or alive. It require deep and mindful thought to choose which one is best for me. Although I have chosen the faculty of my choice : Computer Science, which is the heart of my life, I still have to choose which university to enter.

I have two universities of my dream, The University of Indonesia and Bandung Institute of Technology. Just forget about MIT, Harvard, or NUS which are currently out of my reach. Still, I don’t know which is better. Because both of them offer the perfect kind of education and social life that I needed. As for me, I need the social life more than the education itself, because it’s the environment that shape me to be the person I wanna be. The education part can only give me the skills and provisions needed.

Because I am a member of Indonesia’s Informatics Olympiad Team, I gained a free access to enter University of Indonesia. But I’m still unsure whether I will be 100% accepted or not. It’s a high risk gambling if I only put all my eggs in this one basket. But if I want to study at ITB, I must apply through the National University Entrance Examination. Believe me, it’s a damn tough test to beat. Over a million and half high school graduates will be engaged in this test. It will enforce me to study too much difficult materials within this short time. Sigh.

For now, before my second stage of National Informatics Olympiad training began, I will study as hard as I can to go after the damn examination. It’ll be a tough mission, but I am sure I can do it if I’m for real. Watch me. 🙂