Narasi Perjuangan - Maritza Adristi Carladewi

Hello everyone, my name is Maritza Adristi Carladewi, but most people know me as Adis. I recently graduated from my high school, SMAIT Nurul Fikri Depok and, Alhamdulillah, I am now enrolled in the International Class Program (KKI) of the Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Indonesia (FMUI) after passing the Talent Scouting selection.

Growing up in Depok, I’ve always been aware of UI and how great an education one can get there. I’ve only heard good things about studying in UI. It truly is a source of pride for the people here. UI feels like the “default” dream university for schoolchildren here, and rightfully so, because of the proximity, yes, but also because it is famously the best university in the country, with its numerous achievements, successful and influential graduates, state of the art facilities, and a substantial role in Indonesia’s education history. One faculty perhaps more interconnected to said history than others is its Faculty of Medicine. Other than being renowned as the best in Indonesia, it boasts the history of being derived from STOVIA, the first medical school for indigenous Indonesians, and a big contributor historically in Indonesia’s early education. As for the modern times, the Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Indonesia has produced so many influential doctors whose contributions to healthcare in a nationwide scale can be seen quite often in mainstream medias. Numerous surveys have also proven time and time again that the Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Indonesia offers the best medicinal education one can find in the country.

I don’t remember ever having strong aspirations nor dreams of being someone other than a doctor. The earliest memory I can think of to prove this is of my child self, in kindergarten at the time, playing on the swings at the playground being asked by a teacher, “Adis, do you know what you want to be when you grow up?”. My answer came quickly, “A doctor.” But I have recently found something further away from memory serves; some pictures of myself, looking even younger than kindergarten age, playing with a plastic stethoscope and stuffed animals. For that reason, and the many ways it has already been mentioned in the earlier paragraphs that the University of Indonesia’s Faculty of Medicine, in particular, is the best choice among the other faculties of medicine, the possibility of chasing this university, I think, has always been there. But if I were to pinpoint a point at which it became clear to me where I wanted to go to pursue my education, it would be towards the end of middle school, after a motivational workshop which encouraged me to think about the future that, at the time, still felt distant. But I quickly realized that future wasn’t very distant, and once high school came around, it became clear how hard I was going to have to work to get a spot in my dream faculty.

But the journey filled with hard work starts earlier than high school. Maybe it’s been happening my entire life, even. In primary school, although I didn’t think much about the specifics of what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go, I’d like to think I was a good student even then. I quite enjoyed studying, especially the sciences, and paid rapt attention in class. I joined a science club as an extracurricular, and participated in the Olimpiade Sains Kuark almost annually. Although it didn’t yield much result in terms of medals, it helped me find my passions from an early age. When studying using the course comic books it provided, I found myself particularly liking the three first chaptered sections of each book; botany, zoology, and anatomy. I found that I enjoyed learning about living beings and how such complex functions and structures work together to support the life of one organism.

The journey continues in middle school, where I learnt that those three favored sections are together one subject called Biology, which of course became my favorite subject to learn. In the second year, I had the chance to join the Olympiad team for the school. We had afterschool extra classes for preparation, and we studied more than what was in the curriculum, dug deeper into the subjects, especially Biology, which only served to intrigue me to the subject even more. Over the course of the years, I found myself having a narrower interest in the parts of Biology that studied specifically the human body. This of course solidified my passions into a specific dream profession, that looking back, I think I’ve always had; a doctor. I realized then that if my interests stayed the same, which I was quite sure they would, I would be duking it out with thousands of other students for the chance to study medicine, let alone study it in the Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Indonesia, the best in the country. This made me step up my studying game, and being in the Olympiad team certainly helped, since it led me to studying materials that were not normally given to middle school students yet.

In high school, everything started out swimmingly. In the school’s orientation period, we were given a task to make a big nametag, and wrote down our names, groups, and our dream faculties and universities on it. At this point of time, I was particularly interested in forensic science, mainly due to the influence of crime procedural shows I liked to watch, but that too was a profession I could reach by getting a medical degree first, so on my nametag I wrote down “FKUI”.

During the orientation period there was also an extracurriculars demonstration program, in which what really caught my eye was the Youth Red Crescent (BSMR) extracurricular. They did a very convincing presentation and made it very interesting, too, with demonstrations of first aid for situations that can happen day-to-day in schools, such as fainting. The extracurricular’s main programs were mostly basic first aid, an introduction to different medicines, school health unit (UKS) watch turns, and community outreach programs. All of these felt very intriguing and relevant to the path I wanted to take, so I joined the extracurricular without hesitation.

The first program we did was of the community outreach type. All us new recruits were challenged to organize a charity in an orphanage of our choosing. I was coincidentally chosen to be the vice leader of the project. It was quite the challenge indeed; there were many steps to fulfill and many things to consider. We decided to give the charity event an educational purpose too. Because it was our first project to organize as a group, and because we were to present to children, we tried to find a simple but relevant topic. In the end, we decided on simple nutrition; having a balanced diet and avoiding junk foods; and hygiene; teeth-brushing and hand-washing.

It took hard work and the BSMR team’s combined effort, but the charity event went without any substantial problems. It was quite tiring for a first project, but I’d like to think that what we got out of it was this particular brand of satisfaction that only comes from helping other people in need. It was rewarding to do this charity event, and to do it well with all our might, and I think it was good for us to get to know that feeling early on.

Unfortunately, we never did end up learning about medicine, or practicing first aid skills, or even do another community outreach program, because not long after that first task, the COVID-19 pandemic caught on quickly, and before we had the chance to do more, BSMR was, like all other extracurriculars, forced into inactivity as our school, like all other schools, was forced to close. This was the start of what would become about two years worth of online schooling.

From here on, things changed. Before, I was well-adjusted and even enjoyed a rather nice rank amongst all the students in my high school. After, I honestly had a rather hard time adjusting academically to this new kind of studying system. My scores that so far had been good and were either stable or showed an upward trend, took a fall, which felt catastrophic for my chances of getting in FMUI through SNMPTN.

There were many ways to Rome, so, at the start of the 12th grade, I started signing up to two different study crash courses (bimbel) and one more private tutoring. I tried to put even more effort in studying, pay better attention in classes, and book more tutoring classes.

Then, my cousin shared a very, very valuable piece of information; there was another way, that played to my strengths; Talent Scouting. Being used to communicating in English, and writing for fun as a hobby, it really seemed like an amazing, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The more I learned about the International Class Program, the more it seemed like a better fit for me who have aspirations to contribute in healthcare in a more global scale. I quickly tried taking the TOEFL test which thankfully showed that I wouldn’t need to take it another time, since my score exceeded the minimum for entering Talent Scouting.

While preparing for and during the submission period of Talent Scouting, I of course didn’t stop the academic study crash courses and tutoring. I wrote the essay for Talent Scouting as best as I could and submitted the application.

The day UI’s contact person called me to inform that I had passed the first round of Talent Scouting will be embedded in my mind forever. I was doing a study session with a teacher when my phone rang. At first, I ignored it because it was from an unknown number, but I finally did pick it up at the 2nd attempt, and thank God I did, because the contact person urged me to fill in a form for the next step of Talent Scouting; the Minnesota Multiple Personality Inventory (MMPI). This being a personality test, I didn’t prepare much for it. I did however practice for the next step; the Multiple Mini Interview (MMI) by trying to find, watch. and practice with as much information as I could. My family also helped me plenty by playing the role of the interviewers and asking me the questions that could be asked later. The test itself left me feeling very pessimistic at that day, but now that it’s in the past, I could see that my answers definitely were not as terrible as it seemed, rather the opposite, actually, if we were to look at the result.

Now that I’m officially a student in FMUI and have met new friends both fellow med students and from other faculties, I could definitely see that I still have far to go and lots to improve. For that reason I am committed to improve myself on several things. The main one is soft skills. By this I mean in particular conversation skills and leadership. It is also a long, long journey I’ve been in for quite some time. I’ve always been a rather shy kid, and have been working to improve it since the end of middle school. While I can safely say that I’m much, much better than when I started, these few days have motivated me to develop my speaking skills even more so that I can not only present my ideas, but also be persuasive about it.

Other than that, I’m also committed to improve my time management skills and overall capability to at least match the pace of things here in FMUI. As I have quickly learned, we students will have to adjust our time management skills and work efficiency if we wish to survive in FMUI and, by proxy, in the healthcare world. It is of utmost importance that I nip any sign of procrastination in the bud and be more efficient in talking, doing, and working.

This is why it is important to have both hope and solid plans. Both serves as motivation in their own ways.

My hopes for myself first and foremost during my time here is that I can follow the rhythm of things quickly and without falling behind both academically and non-academically. Obviously, I wish to graduate on time, but I also don’t wish for my time here to be strictly about scores. I want to build meaningful relationship with my peers, seniors, and lecturers and grow together as a person. I think that is equally important as scores in determining the kind of doctor I’ll end up being.

And then, I hope that my batch, 2022, will support each other through the thick and thin of medical school and even after that, in our careers that follow. I hope we all succeed without leaving anyone behind and grow up to be good doctors. Lastly, I hope that any impression or legacy that my batch leaves in FMUI will only be good ones, and that we can improve FMUI with our contributions while we are here.

Moving on to plans, my short-term, pre-clinical plan is to graduate on time and, because we are in the international class, also start and finish my studies abroad and get the second degree together with the rest of my batch and not later. It is also within my plans to have and maintain a GPA of 3.5 or, preferably, even more. Non-academically, I plan to still find time to do organizational activities, such as participating in Stunica.

The longer-term, clinical plans entail, above all else, being a good doctor. That means competent, of course, but also means being on the patient’s side, and doing everything I can to help them in every aspect of healthcare. I also wish to be an educational force, be it to other doctors by perhaps participating often as speakers in conferences, and just as importantly, to the laypeople, so that they can take care of themselves the best they can.

My hope for the people outside of healthcare is for them to be informed enough on healthcare to take care of themselves and not cause them or the people around them any harm. It is an unfortunate fact that the average laypeople can easily fall victim to misinformation. It will be my mission to educate the people enough for them to at least be able to filter false information by knowing and understanding basic facts of the human body and health.

Lastly, to anyone with plans of threading this rocky but rewarding path, I hope they can find strength and fulfilment in every part of their journey; supportive friends, awe-inspiring lecturers, and seniors they can look up to. I hope those who choose to pursue medicine can persevere and achieve whatever it is they seek, and of course, be good doctors and help a lot of people. Everyone, good luck!