College Year
At 18 years old, I had graduated from high school, and it was the right time to go to college. Studying at Udayana University wasn’t my first choice, but because I had only read the test preparation book three days before the exam and the exam was for Social Studies, something unfamiliar to me as a Science student. The result, no matter how hard I tried, was bound to be poor.
But it didn’t matter, getting into a public university is a dream for many people. And in Indonesia, regardless of the outcome, people are expected to be grateful. “Be grateful you can even go to college, many people can’t,” and other remarks that accept fate as it is without fighting harder for better. No problem, Bali is still Bali.
College turned out to be far less exciting than most high schoolers imagine. You attend class, don’t pay much attention because the lectures are often delivered by fellow students, go home after class, and in the evening just gather around and do the same activities. Even though I didn’t do much academically, at least I wasn’t idle. I joined a dozen committees, joining organization such as student press in the faculty, joining international conference from Precious Island, and joining the stock market community Istock. Then COVID arrived, sweeping us all.
COVID hit the whole world, and what could we do? Classes had to continue, tuition still had to be paid, and studying had to go on. Remote learning made the experience worse. If I was already reluctant to pay attention in a physical class, how could I be expected to focus without supervision or being in the same place? Grades were, of course, predictably high, since lecturers would face complaints if they gave anything less.
Bored with the repetitive material in my college courses, I started looking for online classes to take. By chance, I discovered CS50, a Harvard course that was free to access, you only had to pay if you wanted the certificate. The course was incredibly challenging, perhaps because I didn’t come from an IT background, but it was excellent at introducing the world of computing.