Establishing a relationship is hard, even with your dream.

It was a busy daytime in Indonesia, and I was just starting with my work when an email popped up. It was neither a newsletter from some website which I stupidly put my email address on only to access their free Wi-Fi, nor an email from my supervisor asking for my last week’s works. I’d been exchanging emails with the coordinator from an Erasmus program I was applying to whom I always asked or confirmed my careless mistakes during the application process, and at that morning, the email that I described in the beginning of this post was from her. There were a bunch of documents in the email and the first thing I searched on the email was the letter of acceptance with the statement “You’ve been granted with Erasmus scholarship” and I was dying in tremor trying to find it in all those documents.

Guess what. I did find it, and I couldn’t believe it.

My journey in finding scholarship started early in my college years. I didn’t know what I would like to have for my job at that time, but I knew for sure that I’d like to go to Europe for a master’s degree. Back then, it was just a pure dream, I didn’t know what I’d like to do with it and how would I shape the future with it. It was just a dream of an inlander who had never seen snow and who was engulfed in the desire of living in Europe. As naïve as that. As time passes by, I realized that those were surely not the suitable reasons to go for a master’s degree. It takes more than that, and to commit in the journey is surely taking more than just “I want to travel in Europe”. That’s for sure.

Starting with that very goal, the desire to live in Europe, I was committing in my journey. I established a relationship with it, firstly I was in this all flowery feelings, “butterflies in my stomach” things. I dreamt of living a different life, with diverse people, away from home. I was searching for the opportunities, for the universities, for the scholarships. It was in the first year of my college, so 2013. At that point, I knew that to be selected as a scholarship grantee, I should stand out among other applicants. I knew that I would face competitors with better skills and experiences. I started small, I joined organizations to practice my soft skills, such as public speaking. By the way, I am a forestry student and my background are in Forest science majoring in Silviculture, and currently studying in the University of Eastern Finland and AgroParisTech Nancy for the program EMJMD European Forestry. Well then, I continued the journey by participating in national conferences and local organizations, so my goals at that time were getting good grades and practicing my leadership skills.

In the second to third year, I realized that I needed to practice my English. Believe me, my English was as rustic as that storage door in my house which makes a creaking sound when I open it. My first experience was as a volunteer in an international program held by my former university. I had an interview in English at that time, and at this point, I really don’t want to remember how bad my English was. I couldn’t differentiate the past, present and future, and I used repetitive words. I was also writing blog at that time, but I deleted the posts because “THAT’S JUST HOW BAD I WAS”. If you could find many grammatical mistakes in my writing, you could imagine how bad my spoken English was. There’s this funny story when I told this to Finnish secondary students and the way I used to practice English is by talking or telling stories, and the teacher said “yeah, I can see that” because during the lecture, I was talking non-stop. I am a chirping bird. Going back to the story, since then I was still in the beginning of the relationship with my dream, now it’s about putting an effort to take it to a more serious bond. I sent applications to many international programs. Conferences, summits, exchanges, summer schools, you name it.

Then we came to a serious problem; I failed in many applications, and I doubted my commitment to my dream. I doubted if I should pursue it or if I should just live a regular life, like finishing my study and getting a job. I applied to many programs, yet none accepted me. I was almost putting an end on it, but then a call from Vietnam woke me up. Vietnam was the first country that I went to for an international program. Then many ways opened since then. I didn’t graduate in 3,5 years which I still don’t understand why it is a matter for many Indonesians. I even graduated 6 months later than I was supposed to be. What I want to say is I used my last year where I didn’t have many courses to participate in many programs. Use your chance to participate in international programs when you’re a student, cause based on my experience, you don’t get much chances to do that if you’ve graduated.

But, upon my graduation, I was still in doubt. At first, I really wanted to go to Europe because I wanted to live differently. Upon this time, I was thinking what would I do with the degree? It’s difficult to get a job with a master’s degree in Indonesia. What do I want to do in the future? Taking a master’s degree does not make my future any clearer, I won’t have an income, and upon my come back, I will be lacking behind. My friends might be getting promotion by the time I come back. At that time, I could just apply for a company, go through a training, and have a settled, stable life in 2 years. I could provide my parents if I did that. But I chose a master’s degree program. Why?

The reason is I want to have bigger opportunities. Going abroad is not only about “having rich experiences” but it’s about independency, self-freedom, and mind development. I want to be known. I want to know people and grow my network. I want to do research, and for that I want to appear in the network of researchers. Europe is a conducive place to grow my mind, to stimulate that critical thinking, and to build connection with people who have greater way of thinking. At that moment, whenever people ask me “why did you go abroad?” I answer, “There are opportunities out there, I want to find them”. Chances will not come when you’re just sitting on your couch while scrolling other people’s Instagram holiday pictures, they happen when you move your ass from there and start doing.

In the next post, I will talk in detail about the reason of going abroad and what is the outcome upon my stay in here for one year.