Writing Class Does Not Help Much For Your Test

Yesterday I met my fellow student of Annuqayah boarding school, in the room of another friend of mine, in Jemur Ngawinan Surabaya. Upon asking him, I knew that he only transited in Surabaya from Kampung Inggris Pare to Annuqayah Sumenep. He had joined English course in Pare for 3 months due to his plan to take real TOEFL test as a requirement of graduate degree program he would enrol.

Then I questioned him about the programs he took in Pare, and he told me that he joined speaking class at an institution over there. I guessed that the institution is small, so that the name was unfamiliar for me, as I had ever experienced studying English in Pare. I also said to him that the program was not in line with his aim of taking TOEFL test, because, as I knew, there were many programs managed for TOEFL test. So his speaking program would not help him much in getting his expected score in the real test later. In addition, in TOEFL test, speaking ability is not examined. They are only three skill examined in the test, listening, structure and written expression, and reading.

Enrolling speaking class aiming to get good TOEFL score is not a good choice. The best one is to join a program which exactly managed on gaining the TOEFL Score. In Pare, for example in ELFAST, there are programs focusing on translation, writing, TOEFL and IELTS. It is clear that in ELFAST one who wants to prepare himself to TOEFL test should not enroll grammar, translation or writing class, although the latter three are very useful in maximizing the TOEFL score. If one should do so, it would waste time. It is better to directly take preparation program for TOEFL. Although semantically it does not show word “writing, reading or grammar”, but it is all in one, completely dishing everything needed in TOEFL test as well as in IELTS program.

One might be think that the separated program would bring him to the maximal result of studying. He is true in context of studying writing and translation, but is not in studying TOEFL. He might be brilliant in writing some articles or papers, but not be sure to finish IELTS writing task within its limited time. He might be smart in reading any news papers or English-written book, but not be so in doing reading passage of TOEFL within a strict limited time, because the TOEFL questions, as well as those of IELTS, are very tricky so that one does not need only to answer the question but also to know how to finish them well. The questions would usually be very easy, but many people were failed in it. They were smart for sure, and finished the task, but they did not realize the tricky part, so what they assumed as easy thing really “killed” them.

If you have a lot of money and enough time, enrolling grammar, writing, or translation class is good to upgrade your qualification, and they may be useful if you want to take TOEFL or IELTS test one day. If you do not and soon expect to take real test of TOEFL or IELTS, you should only take the preparation program for the test. The program would be more effective and ready to bring you fast in getting the expected score.

So, I frankly said to my friend that he wasted his time much even he was heavily wrong by taking speaking class for his planned real TEOFL test.

Devoting Philology

When many practical sciences have a lot of devotees due to their promising prospective, and the opportunity to study them becomes very competitive, so that everyone centers his attention to get them in their dream of study, devoting philology, representing looking for ancient and vulnerable texts by which many students are actually confused where to go, is the bravest decision. Philology is a theoretical (not practical) science focusing on revealing the content of the ancient hand-writings to its context, and it might be boring for some people in this multi-practical era. The practical science is now mentioned as more modern and prestigious than theoretical science like philology.

I together with a few friends keeps devoting in it. They reason of it is not really clear, but we know that it is about passion in which everything should not be equipped by its reason. We study and enjoy it with passion. No offense we have. Everything is in order. When many other students come to public institution to do research or to have work experience in it, we the Philologists cheerfully visit to quiet museums and conservatoriums to see manuscripts around or go to some remote areas to hunt the ancient books which are spread out in hands of local society.

It may be useful to write my first meet with the philology science. It was in 2013, when I was in semester three in the undergraduate program of Islamic History and Civilization, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, State Islamic University Sunan Ampel Surabaya. There was one science named Philology, taught by an eccentric teacher who had capability on it. The matter was very interesting and seemed distinctive to other matters. First the students were introduced to vulnerable text with blurred writings full of dust. The students were guided on how to treat such manuscript, because studying manuscript is not only reading and understanding the text, but also about preserving it. Many people even learners, as the teacher told, treated the manuscript wrong. This was the first important emphasize of the matter, before going to approach it methodologically or philologically.

Although we were in the program which focused firmly in Islamic history, but the philology is an important minor concentration in line of Islamic history in a whole. Hand writing text would be the main source of historical research which provided many useful things. The text revealed information not only about the content of the text, but more than that, also presenting many other sides behind the text, such as history of the text, manuscript trade, social life of the text writer of copyist, even the genealogy of knowledge in society in which the text was found. To dig such information was not easy part for sure. There were some so-called philological methodologies which must be applied.

From time to time we ‘the Philologist’ enjoy the matter and finished all of assignment on it well, then intentionally or not we fell in love to philology. Not to felt inferior, we got sexy with the philology, because it was currently rare that one devoted on it while it was one of the most important part of studying history and literature. For your information, the only professor of Islamic Philology in Indonesia had been Oman Fathurahman from State Islamic University Syarif Hidayatullah, Jakarta. Then yes, we were going to be the next professor. Amen.

Nowadays, if you ask many other students about their reason why they have competed in practical sciences, they would say that they want to be cool and unique person in this modern era with their capabilities. One studying communication, for instance, wants to be a good broadcaster, and another one devoting architecture is eager to be architect, and so on. Unfortunately, the fact that most of them “avoid” theoretical science like philology does mean that philologists will not be cool and unique, but that exactly opens widely the road of philologist to be cool and unique and prestigious. Frankly speaking, something cool or prestigious is not on how modern subject you study of how many students studying the subject, but is about something you have which others do not, and keep contributing is of course the only thing our effort fights for.

Such an Expensive Dream!

I do remember, when I was child, that my parents, other families, teacher in school, asked me about my dream, exactly my brilliant and beautiful dream. I easily mentioned that a doctor was what I wanted to be. My friends did the same, and many others wanted to be a pilot, a president, and a banker. There were a few friends who had no dream, but soon their parent and teacher urged them to think about even built a dream. These all convinced me that dreaming was very important thing in life, although I thought that the dream I mentioned was only for pleasure and I did not think how to make it happened.

Upon enrolling junior senior high school, I began to rationally make my exact dream relied on my passion. I began to believe that dreaming would help me to go reaching my bright future. Dreaming would stimulate me to study hard, qualify myself, and not to give up. Dream would actually guide me to be one I wanted and give me good chances to be able to contribute widely to my society. Yes, I also believed that a success of someone was measured by his contribution.

Since then I had been attended many forums of motivation training dealing with the way to be good and brilliant young people who would catch many dream steps in their life. Most of trained motivate us the participants to build a dream and then make it happened. They said that “dream is free”, or “have a dream”. It was right once they said that dream was free. Everyone did not need much money to dream. It was really free so that no reason could be told to ignore dreaming.

Being a university student in a big city like Surabaya, where everything was measured by amount of money, I then realized that dreaming was not as free as catching it. I was busy to work and collect a lot of money to survive in the city. I could not rely on my parents who had told me that they had no money to fulfill my need. In this condition, I hardly thought about my dream which I built carefully before. My problem of leaving cost pulled me to focus on how to survive more than beautifying dream. The wise word “dream is free” did not influence me at that time.

Graduated from the university last two years, I wished that the difficult condition would be gone. But, the fact showed an opposition. The life went harder and harder. I had to fight for take my dream soon while I was fighting for surviving. The certificate of my bachelor degree did not help much. As I want to be a lecturer of a university, I intended to continue my study to master degree, knowing that an admitted lecturer was who had finished his master degree. Nothing could be changed in that. I was still optimistic, that I would pursue graduate study of mine while applying scholarship. Then a new challenge came to me, when I realized that many scholarships were competitive enough and asked for not easy requirements. I then began to say this in my heart: 

be careful to dream, because it is very expensive, once problem has come to you, the dream goes surely leaving you!

There was my friend who looked difficult to get any scholarship he had applied for. He wanted to study abroad, notably in English-speaking country, but his English skill was very poor as he told me. He should give “big sacrifices” to his dream, such as money, time, mind, and energy. One thing very hard was that he joined real test of English proficiency until four times to get sufficient score. For each test he should pay IDR 2,7000,000,00. What a price! I believed tan I was able to give most of my time, mind and energy to my dream, but a money?

My friend’s experience described how catching dream was very difficult and expensive. Because he had obeyed the rule and paid the price, he got his dream and he is now studying in New York, United States of America. Meanwhile, I am now giving my time, mind and energy to my dream more than money, hoping that they will be my big sacrifice instead of the money.

And you, what do you do to make your dream happened? One thing you must know: if you are not totally fighting for your dream, then it will kill you!

A Story about A Good University Student

Let me tell you about Hikam, a twenty years old boy, coming from Pamekasan Madura, and the most outstanding student in his university, State Islamic University Sunan Ampel, Surabaya, as he was awarded in graduation day in last March. Frankly, he is physically good looking, socially contributing and spiritually balanced. One thing by which everyone can easily remember him is his custom to bring a book everywhere.

Hikam enrolled Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the university in 2010, majoring in Islamic History and Cultures. One reason why he chose this major was to deepen his knowledge on world’s Islamic history in general and Indonesian Islamic history in particular. Additionally, this choice could not be separated from his experience in studying Islamic matters in his boarding school. He had learned Arabic, Hadith and Qur’an sciences in the boarding school for 6 years.

Generally speaking, once he joined his classes in the first semester, he showed a good potential relating to the major. He had rich perspectives about Islamic history and seemingly had read many references dealing with it. His style of speaking was also brilliant enough. His speaking, idea and rationalization are very clear. It was no doubt when he finished his first semester with gaining Grade Point Average (GPA) 3.81.

Starting the second semester, Hikam had read books more than before. He began to read the “heavier books”. If in the first semester he had read many book subtitled “Introduction” such as Introduction of Qur’anic Studies, Introduction of Hadith Studies, Introduction of Philosophy,Introduction of Anthropology and others, then in the second semester he read general books of Islamic history recommended by his lecturers, such as History of The Arabs, History of Islamic Societies, Sejarah Islam Indonesia I-II, Historiografi Islam Indonesia, Nusa Jawa Silang Budaya, Jaringan Ulama Timur Tengah dan Kepulauan Nusantara, and many others. This condition continued until he ended his fourth semester with sweet GPA 3.9. Such a great achievement!

Hikam projected to explore more about theories of history in fifth semester. He realized that everything he had read so far should be strengthened with the teak foundation of theories; the narrative readings he found could not show significantly their importance without knowing their background of theories from which the authors had elaborated their ideas. Therefore, in this semester (to seventh semester) he paid attention more to studying theories. He did not again read narrative history per se, but began to elaborate the theory of sociology, anthropology, and philosophy, as far as they related to deepen his historical theories, such as total history of Annales School, cycle theory of Ibn Khaldun, historical materialism of Hegel, philosophy of history elabrated by Toynbee, and many others. In this semester, he also found a specification of study he wanted to devote and research academically as thesis. It was Sejarah Islam Indonesia.

One important thing that made Hikam very special was the fact that he was not only a diligent university student but also energetic university student activist. For your information, Hikam also joined a university student organization since the first semester of his study, and he involved totally in the organization named Islamic Association of University Students, chapter Faculty of Arts and Humanities, State Islamic University Sunan Ampel. His total involvement could be seen by the fact that he was elected as a chairman of the organization when he was in the fifth semester, then he got prestigious position as Head of Human Development Board of the organization branch Surabaya. By all of this, he was actually great in both academic and organization activities while many other students failed to balance the two.

While Hikam believed that a good academic record was pivotal to reach his dream, he also knew hat focusing only on beautifying academic record was not good for university student, who was allegedly as agent of change and agent of social control. Being such agent differentiated university student to senior high school student. University student, according to Hikam, could not only study and read many books, but also had to contribute to the society; university student had not to think about himself.

To make a massive and systematic contribution, he for sure felt difficult to be just alone. He thought that he had to collaborate with other energetic young people, broaden networking, and keep experiencing in community service, all of which could be only found from joining university student organization. The strong ties between good academic record and many organizational experiences, as Hikam believed, would determine so-called strong personality.

Hikam graduated from the university and locked his GPA at 3.9. Now he is preparing for pursuing his master degree. As one who wants to be “academic worker” (lecturer), He will broaden his research of study in the major of history. His motto is “work hard, be disciplined, and pray”.