YOGYAKARTA –Kamelia Dwi Jayanti, 27, is one of 1,025 graduates of Graduate School who were inaugurated in Grha Sabha Pramana on Thursday (25/4). The young woman born in Poso, Central Sulawesi, graduated cumlaude with GPA 3.89. Hailing from one of regions that is still left behind compared to other Indonesia’s provinces, Kamelia completed her studies in one and a half years only. She is also the first to graduate in the soil science study programme.
“Yes, for the misdirected students like me, I’m one that finishes quickly,” she said humbly.
What she meant was that she had not studied agriculture in her S1 programme, but physics. After graduating from Universitas Tadulako in 2009, she applied to become a lecturer in Agricultural Faculty of Universitas Sintumaroso, Palu. “At first, I taught physics only, then the Dean asked me to teach other agricultural subjects, that explains my agriculture study programme for S2,” said the older of two siblings.
The struggle before studying at Universitas Gadjah Mada was not easy. She was paid 800 thousands per semester for teaching. Despite her low salary, Kamelia did her job happily. Her goal to become a lecturer kept her spirit alive. “Maybe it’s because my mother was a teacher at an elementary school, so I had inherited her talent,” she said smiling.
After one year becoming a temporary lecturer, she was sworn in as a permanent one. She made use of this chance to enroll herself at UGM for S2 programme. “I had always wanted to study here,” she admitted.
The first three months of study, Kamelia found it difficult to understand the lectures as she did not know many of agricultural terminologies. Most of her fellow students had graduated from agricultural faculty so it was easy for them. “For the first two months, I was very frustrated and just wanted to cry,” she confessed.
Kamelia was not getting discouraged though. She tried to resolve her problem by jotting down agricultural terminologies that were delivered in lectures. After class, she would browse the Internet to learn the meaning. Kamelia said there was more memorising in agriculture than calculating in physics. After one semester, she was able to understand lectures well. “Good presentation of lectures which is easy to follow would be easy to understand, too,” she said.
Always attending lectures, studying at the library and downloading journals on the Internet were Kamelia’s ways to finish her study soon. She was fortunate to have a supervisor that always encouraged her to complete her thesis. “My supervisor always had the time for me for consultation,” she said.
What made her finish quicker than her fellow students is her thesis that relates to physics that was finished in 4 months only. “I chose to research on ground water scale for agricultural lands in Kalasan area, so I would do much calculating there,” she said happily.