The plan to construct a power plant with a capacity of 35 thousand MW as initiated by President Joko Widodo will draw a surge of human resource to the construction.
“The HR demand for operation and maintenance is big. It needs acceleration of competence preparation to generate qualified HR. Academic skills are important, but more is needed. We need also to have competence, character, and good value,” said Director of PT Pembangkitan Jawa Bali (PJB), Ir. Iwan Agung Firstantara, M.M., in the seminar Learning with CEOs, on Wednesday (19/10) at Faculty of Engineering UGM.
The seminar is a collaboration between Mechanical Engineering UGM and PT PJB. The UGM alumnus talked to the engineering students about the significance of building student characters to have a bright future. He said competence is important amidst the ASEAN Economic Society.
He also recounted the research conducted at Yale University where students were asked to write down their vision in the next 20 years. Only some was able to do it. “It’s not easy to put our vision into writing, but we are motioned by the vision of ours, whether written or not,. How strong that vision will determine how we live our lives. All needs to be prepared from now when we are still students at a university to have a better future,” he said.
Vice-Dean for Academic and Student Affairs, Ir. Muhammad Waziz Wildan, M.Sc., Ph.D., described the importance to develop soft skills for students since they study at college.”Through a tracer study, it is known that soft skills are still important for them, so it is a homework to us to equip the students with skills for their use after graduation,” he said.
So, faculties at UGM started to develop knowledge and information canals for academics, students and general public to share information and knowledge, as well as organising events to develop student’s interests and skills.