Two alumni of UGM briefed students that will be inaugurated tomorrow from UGM Graduate Programme to have confidence and integrity to play their roles in society.
“We have to have confidence to succeed, being humble but confident that our knowledge can be useful to others,” said Deputy Head for Nuclear Utilisation of National Nuclear Energy Agency (BATAN), Dr. Hendig Winarno, M.Sc.
Hendig talked about this topic on Tuesday (17/10) in Grha Sabha Pramana UGM. In the inauguration ceremony to run from Wednesday – Thursday, the Rector of UGM will inaugurate some 2,178 graduates from master, specialist, and doctoral programme.
Hendig recounted the story from when he was graduating from UGM until where he is now at BATAN. In his opinion this was the fruit of his long hard work. The mandate given to him can only be earned by giving your best and doing things responsibly.
“In everything we do we have to do as best as we could, not just finishing things off,” he said.
To have good performance, graduates need to have the ability to control themselves, have commitment to do things including those that are never done by others, as well as refraining from doing what is not supposed to be done although other people do it.
He further criticised state officials that have no integrity nor serve as a good role model to society. Hendig hoped the UGM graduates could uphold integrity and build good culture to support state progress.
“Integrity comes first, then let’s have good attitude and spread this to others, then Indonesia can become a progressive country,” said Hendig.
This view was shared by Dr. Harry Widianto, Director of Cultural Heritage and Museum in the Education and Culture Ministry. The alumnus of Archeology is known for his expertise in paleoanthropology after writing many scientific works, including Trilogi Sangiran published in 2011 by Education and Culture Ministry in collaboration with Centre for Conservation of Sangiran Ancient Man, as well as his reconstruction of the bones of ancient man that makes up a full skeleton model.
Harry told the new graduates about starting his career in paleoanthropology where he was inconfident enough at that time. But the good assessment from others of him made him go forward and pursue his education higher.
“After a while I was granted a 60-month scholarship for graduate and doctoral courses. I was surprised, actually, but then this made me able to explore more what I liked in this subject,” he said.
He then suggested the graduates to step on to the work force fully equipped with their knowledge they had learned at UGM and utilise those for the state and the nation to progress.