Between Study, Career and Life.

As a student and soon to be a graduate, career is one big question that need to be addressed very soon. Back to the time when I was in undergrad, the challenge was not as big as nowadays. In 2001, I was graduated as an engineer and at the same time the telecomm meltdown period also happened. It was such an unpredictable situation as a student who in need to look for a job. However, I landed in one of the Indonesian holding company and not so long jumped again into a multinational company where I spent until 5.5 years there.

Now, in 2009 with a Master of Business Administration degree and financial crisis everywhere, surely "where am I heading to?" become a serious question. The choice of study in business school came to my thought in 2004 and it took me about 3 years to realize it and another 2 years to accomplish it. After having the MBA degree, there will be more opportunities and challenges come along the way. It is just a matter of fit and proper choice of career then, and the rest is just working for your life and career.
Life is very important to me. I only live once and how I live my life is something that I will remember for the rest of my life. Well, I should find a career track that support"work-life balance" then. What do you mean by "work-life"?Probably, some of you asked that? Well, it simply means that you can still fulfill your personal life with joy and at the same time earn a successful career. Nothing to be sacrificed upon getting the other's supremacy.

How about you? Do you want to have "work-life balance" in your career as well?
I bet you do. The difference is only from how you interpret the balance.
So, make your choices and fulfill them. Good luck!

Melbourne Business School

Melbourne Business School (MBS) is a subsidiary of the University of Melbourne. Part of the stake also owned by the school alumni and business community. Each year, international students registered to MBS and made up more than a half of the student body. The diversity really makes MBS as an internationally reputable business school.

By having more than half as international student, campus offered variety of activities and clubs that we can participate with. I am actively engage in some of the clubs and chosen as the secretary of Resource Interest Group (RIG) and member of Entrepreneur club. Other than that, I also join cultural clubs such as :

• ASEAN club, consist of mainly south-east Asian student with activities like Chinese New year celebration, International food festival, karaoke, learn mahjong etc..
  
• Indian Culture (InCult). Hmm, it was definitely Bollywood movies and spicy taste Indian cuisine.
  
• Latin Networking Group. With the purpose of learning Salsa lesson, I joined this group and the result is now I have confidence enough to dance salsa :)

These are culture groups for relax and networking purposes.

Before I started the academic term, I had three weeks of pre-term class consists of career workshop and world of management (WOM).

The career workshop provided tools to prepare the student in their future career such as find out our career desire, tailor the resume and cover letter, hone interview skill, and learn how to dress up professionally.

The WOM classes aimed to lay down the fundamental thought of leadership and management before we step further into core class. In WOM, we learnt personal management, managing diversity, working in groups and, the most interesting course, managing stress.

Study term was quite challenging. Having few years in career and leaving classroom, I should re-adjust with the fast academic pace. In classroom, students are in race to ask many questions to the lecturer and classroom atmosphere is really stimulating. Some professors put class interaction in class as subject grade, which impulse all students to contribute more in class. I have to study core courses that I have never learnt before such as accounting, finance, and marketing. For some students, these subjects could be dreadful because they have to cope up fast and get inline with the course requirement.

Student should engage with his syndicate group to discuss group assignments. Syndicate assignment is really challenging especially when concerns with different personal characteristic.
Each person in my syndicate has different background: IT, insurance, accountant, banking, consumer goods, army and none of us have the same nationality. We used to interact with different sets of situation during our career and thus may reflect to our personal characters. Sometimes we spent so many times to argue and debate until consolidate and reach conclusion. Syndicate group is a perfect learning experience and good tools to understand people behavior and working with that.

I like being a student because I can learn new things and apply them in particular case without distressing the result will be. Unlike in real business life when you have to face consequences of having improper decisions. This is something that I learn while time goes. I believe when I finish study in MBS, I will ready to apply my knowledge.

1.5 years in Melbourne

Time is running so fast til I realize that my study in MBS is almost complete within few months from now.

It has been 18 months since my first arrival in Melbourne. It was late winter in Melbourne, when I arrived in mid August 2007. Eleven degrees breeze and fog mist surrounded that morning and the new journey began.

My one-and-a-half years experiences in Melbourne filled with many things. Most are joyful, sometimes ups or downs, and definitely all of them unforgettable moments.

The most important thing that I have in Melbourne is friendship, everlasting one. My biggest thanks to Patricia,Vonny, Edison, Mbak Shinta, Mas Agus and Zaki and all my friends here for sharing so many things with me in Melbourne. Thanks for sharing nice moments in Melbourne!