The world has changed rapidly when innovation and technology touch various aspects of life and even change conventional ways of business, communication, and organization management. The business model developed by Amazon, Uber, and Alibaba.com, for instance, make many people realize the importance of sharing an economic principle and even find a different perspective in addressing issues by producing high productivity, cheaper price, and service convenience.
UGM Rector, Prof. Ir. Panut Mulyono, M.Eng., D.Eng. said the change of the world through the development of technology innovation demands universities including UGM to improve itself and encourage the implementation of various innovations. The change of UGM status into State University with Legal Status provides more flexible space for making innovations to achieve progress. However, this still cannot fulfill the expectation to make an optimal innovation. “The university requires flexibility and courage to take a risk. This narrow space will not restrict UGM to improve itself, UGM will focus on qualified and competitive education,” said Rector in his speech during graduation event for UGM graduate programme at Grha Sabha Pramana UGM on Thursday (19/10).
Following up those challenges, Panut affirmed that UGM whether independently or collaborating with partners has initiated and developed several educational models that have potential to produce technological innovation works. Several strategies that are currently implemented are by recruiting prospective students that during this time are left out by existing admission programs. All this while, National Selection for State Universities, Joint Selection to State Universities, and Writing Test have become the structured students’ admission. But the unequal quality between high schools has caused the conventional mechanism ignoring the potential of prospective students who are not studying in high quality schools. These selection models have to be equipped with a better program which can identify the prospective students’ potential not only from their high school reputation.
Today (19/10), UGM has inaugurated as many as 1,260 new graduates from the graduate programme. The youngest graduate from the master programme is Muhammad Fajar Marsuki from Chemistry Study Programme, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences who earns master’s degree at the age of 22 years and 8 months. For the specialist programme, the youngest graduate is Septiyani Kaswindiarti from Pediatric Dentistry study programme who completed her degree at the age of 28 years. Meanwhile, the youngest graduate for the doctoral degree is achieved by Rony Marsyal Kunda from Veterinary Science study program, Faculty of Veterinary Science, who succeeds to complete his doctoral degree at the age of 30 years and 7 months.
The highest Grade Point Average (GPA) for the master programme is achieved by 20 graduates with GPA of 4.00. Of the 20 graduates, the shortest study period is achieved by Yuli Triyani from Electrical Engineering study programme, Faculty of Engineering. The highest GPA for the specialist programme is achieved by Yenny Yokung Yong from Periodontal study programme, Faculty of Dentistry, with GPA of 3.96. Meanwhile, the highest GPA for the doctoral programme is achieved by Aulia Nusantara from Agricultural Science study programme, Faculty of Agriculture with GPA of 4.00.