Commercialized CAE software for Indonesia - Chevening Scholarsip - Career Plan Essay

Hi everyone, this is my essay for chevening scholarship. Any correction and/or comment would be highly appreciated. Thanks.

Prompt: Chevening is looking for individuals who have a clear post-study career plan. Please outline your immediate plans upon returning home and your longer term career goals.

According to an article titled 'Which ASEAN country is the most competitive?' released by World Economic Forum in 2015, Indonesia only ranked in fourth position on economic competitiveness and it has a correlation with R&D expenditure. My experience as CAE Pre-sales Engineer has brought me to a revelation that low R&D activities in Indonesia is caused by high expense of CAE software-caused it is actually imported product and the price depends on foreign currency-thus blocking their technological development. So, my goal is to make it affordable for them by developing Indonesian-made CAE software code.

Inspired by NASTRAN code which started from NASA, upon completing study on Computational Engineering in the UK, I will head back to Indonesia and join Indonesian National Department of Aeronautics and Space (known as LAPAN) as a researcher. I will focus on doing numerical simulation of engineering problem and learning to develop my own solver in the meantime. With the knowledge I acquired from master course, I will propose a research project about developing finite element code to solve LAPAN's engineering challenges.

I know it is a long journey to build a commercialized CAE software. It requires not only technical skills, but also marketing, management, and networking skills. But I am sure with adequate knowledge and determination, I can make this come true. I am sure with affordable CAE software, it could rise Indonesian technological development, especially in automotive, aerospace, shipbuilding, and manufacturing industries. This could leads to healthy investment climate thus emphasize Indonesia international trade, including between United Kingdom. According to 'Doing business in Indonesia: Indonesia trade and export guide' released by British Government in April 2015, advanced engineering including automotive, aerospace, maritime, and manufacture of machinery industries is one of UK business opportunities in Indonesia. I believe that if this condition can happen, fortune will be brought for both parties.

Rubani, your plan is quite admirable. It is clear and shows a definite career path that includes any potential research and contributions that you can make towards the betterment of the space program of your country. However, all space programs and ambitious projects require a specific time frame for its completion otherwise, the project will be in planning hell for a very long time. Could you please include your estimated time frame for all of these plans of yours? A career plan normally includes a run down of the months or years that you feel it shall take for the completion of your project. Without it your plans are just wishful dreams. Specially when it comes to space programs. The plans are equivalent to a number of years, which translates into the cost of the research project upon completion. These are specific types of information that should help your career plan become a more solid, yet ambitious idea on your part and should be capable of at least holding the reviewer in awe as he reads your proposal for the next phase of your career.

@Holt
Thank you very much for your comment. Yes I do agree a time frame will put my career plan into more clarity. But the thing is I am not really sure what would be like to be a space program researcher due to lack of experience. But I will try to figure it out. Thanks!

Hi Rubani. Thanks for considering my comments. If you need some help with getting the research done in the area of space research, you can try to research the time frame needed for the most basic outer space experiment. For example, the most recent experiment was geared towards learning about how man would react to living in space for one year, based on the possible Mars landing information requirements. That experiment lasted 1 year. So that can be the cornerstone or foundation for your time frame. The shortest, man-involved experiment is one year and the non-human related experiment is still ongoing at the international space station. Since the normal career plan takes a short term of 5 years, you can try to find something that you can research within that time frame I guess. Good luck !