Undergraduate / Challenge. From jaw-breaking rides to ambitious projects - Essay for Stanford [4]

Challenge. From jaw-breaking rides to ambitious projects, from pageant contest to semi-military clubs, I can't live without challenge. I doubt anyone else could, as we were grown up by challenges since we were born. Just for example, everyone challenges themselves to walk and take the risk of falling when they were babies. Indubitably, challenge advance people to their next level.

Many people stop challenging themselves as they grow up and find their comfort zone. They settle down, play safe, and risk nothing. But for me, what a monotonous life is that! I see no point in life without challenge, as challenge give purpose to life. Challenge also create thrill in the process and satisfaction in the end, which keep life interesting.

I've been through three years of bullying, wrong arrest, student delinquencies, and some other troubles in junior high school. Those were unintentional at first, I felt them hard to get through. However, when everything became 'normal', I found myself trapped in monotony; I no longer had purpose to live. My troubles had unexpectedly given me challenge that drove my life day by day.

Now, I may be a role-model student; I rank first in my class and won many competitions. But deep inside, I'm still the same person as I was in junior high; I live with the thrill. I take risks and push my fears; I challenge myself. Only I have objectives instead of troubles as challenge.

Undergraduate / My Father's Dedication - my values and principles were altered because of him [3]

Prompt : Tell us about a person who has influenced you in a significant way.
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My father is the most dedicating person I've ever known. When doing something, he doesn't expect any return; all he expects is merely good impact to the community. He wanted to give his best, not to get the best. For eleven years, I saw him going to work at 4 a.m. and commuting 100 kilometers away everyday to go to work, something you wouldn't find in any other teachers. Yet he still involved himself much further beyond teacher's duties in his community. He iss only a physical education teacher, but he has revolutionized school health system in Jombang, the city where he previously taught before he was finally transferred to Madiun, my family's city of residence, last year.

Growing up with such dedicating person, I found my values and principles were altered. I felt ashamed to be selfish. I judge people based on their dedication in things they care about. I want to give the best to my community and leave signatures in everything I am involved.

Besides altering my perspective, my father taught me how to win honor; that honor can only be won not by mere ambition, but also by dedication, for mere ambition will only lead to jealousy and hatred. Proven by the award my father received from the Minister of Environment, I learned that dedication will eventually brings you honor; ambition was only to make it faster. I practiced them, and as the result, I held leadership positions in clubs and organizations I was / am involved. I was the captain of my school debate team and 10th division of the student government, and now I am the secretary of Pakandayu, the organization of tourism ambassadors of my city.

The most precious lesson I learned from my father is not to let circumstances prevent me from contributing to my community and achieving my goals. Just like his position as regular high school teacher didn't prevent him from revolutionizing school health system in the entire city, I do not let my limited resources prevent me from achieving my goals.

To pursue my goals, I can rarely depend on anyone except myself; I have to act. I don't have much money to do charity, so I conducted fundraisers. My school couldn't fund events because it charged no tuition, so I looked for sponsors to fund my school's events. There's no debate coach in Madiun, so I trained my debate team with merely my experience as guide. I self-trained for the regional selection of the National Science Olympiad in Informatics because I was out of teacher's radar.

I achieved most of my goals. However, my ultimate goal, which is to be a world-class computer engineer and make works that impact globally, is still far from my reach. I can't self-train for this ; one needs world -class mentor and resources to be a world-class in something. Thus, my plan after high school graduation is to go to university with world-class faculty, resources, and adequate research opportunities for undergraduates, which currently doesn't exist in Indonesia. I have to go abroad.

Usually, such plan is only possible for rich kids living in big cities and going to expensive international schools. They have money, access, and guide to reach it, while regular students (including I) usually have none, despite that many of them actually possess exceptional skills and intelligence. But if I succeed in pursuing this plan, everyone in my community will at least have a guide to pursue the same.

Undergraduate / A Jealousy - Harvard commonapp writing supplement (free topic) [5]

You may wish to include an additional essay if you feel that the college application forms do not provide sufficient opportunity to convey important information about yourself or your accomplishments. You may write on a topic of your choice, or you may choose from one of the following topics:

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Few days ago, the result of the National Science Olympiad was published. Stacia, a friend I met in the provincial olympiad of informatics, won gold medal in Informatics and would likely be presented for the International Olympiad of Informatics (IOI). I was happy for her, but I couldn't deny my own feeling that I was jealous.

My chance to present my country in the IOI was vanished by two cups of coffee that I drank before the provincial selection. The coffee made my heart beated too fast, thus I couldn't concentrate on the problem sets. I couldn't even solve a Riemann's sum, which was usually my specialty. All my effort, my sleep hours that I dedicated for solving problems in online judges, classes that I skipped for training, became useless. The coffee also wept away the hope of the whole civitas academica of my school to see me getting a medal in the national olympiad.

For Stacia, minor physical disturbance as I endured won't be a problem, she'd been too experienced. She went to Petra, an expensive private school in the capital city of our province, which had a very good olympiad preparation program. She had won a prestigious national programming contest in 9th grade; she'd probably learned programming in elementary school and had robotic courses since kindergarten.

But I wasn't as lucky as Stacia. I live in a small city with not many opportunities to develop myself. I'd never touched a computer until 5th grade. I learned programming just three months prior to the selection, thus I needed total focus to solve problems that are pieces of cake for her.

I'm not saying that Stacia didn't deserve it, she truly deserve the medal. She prepared herself much better than I; she had been trained for years, while I only had less than three months. I just want to have a chance to prepare myself better, so I can achieve higher.

It was painful to realize that my chance of presenting my country in the IOI gone forever. There's nothing I can do for it, nothing I can do to relieve the pain and jealousy I felt. I have to let it go. But I'm not going to let go my passion in computer and my chance to be a world-class computer engineer in the future.

I won't say I'm excellent in computer science. I can make some simple computer programs and imagine the algorithm for many computer processes, but I can't make complicated programs yet. But my addiction to solving programming problems make me sure to be engaged in this field in my entire life; I would love to spend the next six years drowning in codes and algorithms. I may not be good now, but I will be a world class computer engineer in the future.

As for now, I study my friend's computer science college lecture from Nanyang Technological University and enroll myself in HarvardX online course, while watching Stacia's progress towards the IOI.

Undergraduate / I sent a disinfectant package to fight bullying - Questbridge Nat'l College Match 2014 [7]

8th grade. The last day before first semester break. 06.10 a.m.

I stared to a wrapped box in front of me, sticked with a paper written "To Jane".
Should I send it? Should I take the risk of more humiliation, more ostracism, and discipline sanctions from school?

The previous day.
My class was free of lesson. Some classmates were playing dakon, an Indonesian traditional board game. I asked them to join, and they said, "Ask Jane". The dakon was hers.

I asked, and she yelled, "I withdraw! I'm not playing!!!"

Of course.

Jane, and most of my classmates, ostracized me for my sinusitis in 7th grade, which made me snot regularly. They seemed to believe that my hands still contained dangerous bacteria or something, regardless of the fact that my sinusitis was cured in the beginning of 8th grade.

But unlike the others, Jane blatanly showed her consideration of me by the way she treated me in daily life. She would throw her new notebook to trash bin because I touched it, while the others would only secretly rub it with tissue papers (but I knew).

For Jane's blatant humiliation, I usually yelled at her. But for the rest of the rejection I received, there was nothing I could do. The constant rejection made me feel unworthy, that I deserved the maltreatments. It swept every courage and dignity I used to have.

I became trapped in vicious circle of depression. When I felt rejected, I retracted myself from the society. The more I retracted myself, the more ostracized I became and the more I felt rejected.

The cycle repeated itself everyday until this day, when Jane yelled, "I want my dakon be washed with Dettol!!!" after I touched her dakon.

My mouth was silent, but my mind was seething with anger. For the first time, I felt numb instead of becoming more depressed to the mistreatments and rejections I received. In my mind, I said, "OK, fine!" Challenge accepted.

After school, I bought a bottle of Dettol and several other cleansing products. I packed them in a box, along with a note :
I'm sorry for contaminating your dakon with bacteria from my filthy hands. As my apology, please accept this gift from me to clean up your dakon. Melati.

The last day before semester break. 06.45 a.m.

I put the box in front of Jane's house.

First day after semester break.

I was summoned by the discipline office of my school. Jane reported me. Gossips spread.
But it worth. The action succeed. Jane, and also the others, treated me better since then.

Now.

I am first-ranker, debater, programmer, student government committee, tourism ambassador, and researcher. I am no longer the depressed kid in junior high school. I have many friends, no rejection.

Flashing back to that very moment, I realize that this event made me who I am today. The success of this event gave me the courage to try everything and take risk, to be bold and confident, and to demand what I deserve. The ending of the maltreatments I received returned my dignity and self-esteem. In the end, the dignity and courage I regained returned my confidence to reach my maximum potentials, to achieve far beyond my peers as I should normally do.

Undergraduate / Evaluate ethical dilemma you have faced & its impact to you - questbridge nat'l college match [7]

Indonesia is a multicultural country, consisting more than 400 ethnic tribes with their own different traditions and cultures. However, there are two characteristics that we have in common : religiousness and conservativeness. We are tolerant to different religious affiliations, but we are not tolerant to atheism; people must believe in God. We are tolerant to different cultures and traditions, but we are not tolerant to significant differences to the society such as unusual sexual preferences. Beliefs that are unconventional are generally considered immoral, no matter how logical they may be.

So, when I was in an open debate about LGBT marriage, which was a part of the selection test for student government membership, I wasn't surprised that there were only two people who supported LGBT marriage : Astri, my debate team member, and I.

Personally, I support the marriage of people with unusual sex preferences : lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT). People can be forced to do anything but to feel or think, because feeling and thought are something physically nonexistent. So, when two individuals with same gender love each other, what can people do? Can people force them to stay away from each other? Yes. But can people force them to stop loving? Of course not!

I believe in my religion, and my holy Qur'an states that engaging in same sex activities is sinful. But I also believe that people have the ultimate right to believe (or not to believe) in something. LGBT people have the right to believe if being LGBT is a sin or not. And even if they believe that being LGBT is a sin, they still have the right to choose to sin or not. Beliefs and choices, similar to feelings, are physically nonexistent thus cannot be forced.

In debate tournaments, I would be happy to express my opinion towards LGBT marriage. I had to support any statements assigned to me anyway. But supporting LGBT marriage in other situations (such as this open debate test), where I can choose not to support, is a different case. People might think I am kafir, extremist, and consider me unethical and immoral.

But I couldn't deny my own thoughts. I couldn't say that I believe in something while I actually don't. I also didn't want to spread more hatred towards LGBT people, which are marginalized already. So, with Astri, I supported LGBT marriage. Two against fifty.

The debate went as predicted. The rest of the participants refused LGBT marriage, still not convinced with our logical arguments that usually convinced the adjudicators in debate tournaments. There was no winner of the debate since the debate is aimed only to measure communication skills; we were supposed to forget anything that happened in the debate. Yet people mocked me after the debate, accusing me as lesbian (Astri was lucky to have a boyfriend at that time). But I didn't regret my decision. People would soon forget anyway.

However, I passed the test. At least my arguments convinced the selection committees.

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