Academic Orientation is the Second Stage of FEP. Basically, the lecturers gave us introduction to the classes. The aim was to get students understands the foundation of the lesson.

The day started with a collaborative class, which meant that we are going have three different classes in one big room. All of the students present at that time were IT students. The lecturer’s name is Rulyna, she introduced us to algorithm and programming.

Moving on, the big class was separated to smaller ones. At that point, my friends were scrambled all around in different classes depending on their scores in TOEFL. My class is LC02, which is the Global Class. I thought the staff in the admission was making fun when she told me that there was less than 15 people. It turned out that she wasn’t joking, there are only 13 of us. In addition, not even a single girl, what a typical IT class.

Miss Rulyna also turned out to be our lecture. She taught us more on how to take notes effectively using mind maps, cornell system, and how to deliver a proper presentation. Continuing the class earlier, She told us more about algorithm, pseudocode, and how they corelated with each other. We take several exercise making algorithm using pseudocode. We also had the chance to use the computer lab and try our code by our own. It was really interesting. I realized that coding can be fun in some ways.

In the end of AO, we had to take an exam to test our knowledge which we had previously learnt. It consists of two question, 2 essays and 4 programming questions. They essays were general, most of us could do it easily. The problem came in programming section. Many of us struggled with number 3 and 4. Fortunately, I passed.

That was my experience in Academic Orientation.

Inauguration is included in General Orientation and held at the end of GO. It acts as a rite to welcome us, new Binusian to become a real Binusian. I honestly think that this is a good idea since we got to meet the boards of Binus University.

In addition, what happened down the road made me more thrilled. The Inauguration was held at Jakarta Convetion Center, far away from Binus Alam Sutera. So we have to go early to avoid traffic. Not to mention, there are also odd and even license plate regulations. Waiting for the six of us and finding a taxi with such plate took us 30 minutes. We left at 11 and the event started at 1, so we only had 2 hours. Luckily, our driver drove swiftly. But despite all efforts, we still found ourselves stuck in traffic. I thought of an idea of running through the sidewalk because we are nearly there. Suddenly rain came down heavily, washing away our hopes. Most of my classmates were already sitting inside JCC. They even had the chance to take a selfie!

Look at them…

Those are the grins you have when you know you’re going to be late

This made us who were still on the way a bit jealous, so we decided to ‘fight’ back. But we finally managed to arrive at the front gate and ran in the rain to the building. By the time we arrived in the auditorium hall, my phone showed 12:59. We are barely made it.

Moving on to the formal stuff, there were a lot of students in there. Most of them are from Alam Sutera, there are some from Kemanggisan and Binus International. The dean opened his speech with a skype confrence call with one of the notable Binus alumnus, Alamanda S.S, the current vice president of GO-JEK. For me, this inauguration seems to be like some kind of show performance. There was band, dance, even magic show. I remember a game where the cameraman would choose people from the crowd and the people whose face was on the screen had to dance. One of them just blushed with her face red, while some of them actually danced furiosly. It was a really fun program.

*For a list of organizations, you can see it here

Bunga Rampai, or BURAM for short is one of the classes we attended at GO. Communities, Student Activity Unit, and our Major Communities presented themselves one by one, explaining what they mainly do and their benefits for joining them.

In Binus, we have many organizations, from student activity organization to majors community. Majors community are an organization where its people are from the same major. For example, I am an IT student so I belong to HIMTI. The design has their own and so the other majors.

Meanwhile, student activity organization and communities are organizations based on interest. People from different majors can join. Some of them charge a price, but usually won’t cost much and you just have to pay once.

So why so many organization? Is it just for fun? No. In fact, it is necessary for us after we graduate. Nowadays, if you have good hardskill(academic and practical) you can get an interview at a company. But its your softskill that will get you the job and help you keep it. This is the reason why Binus university urged all its student to be active and involved in various organization. That is shown by the SAT system. It stands for Student Activity Transcript and is represented by points. If you join and actively involved in an organization, you will get points. The same goes for winning competition, participating in a seminar, being a committee for an event, or being an excecutive board of an organization. The more points, the better, since students need a minimum of 120 points of SAT to take thesis trial (By completely finishing FEP, you already get 100 points). So you can not graduate without networking with other people. But, I can attend seminar to get points right? Yes, that is true, but it will take you 10 seminars to get 20 points. Joining organizations is preferred because it also helps you learn the 6 key softskill.

What is 6 key softskills? They are the softskills you will need if you aim to work in a multinational company or start yours as an entrepreneur. They are : Self management, team work, communication, Initiative & enterprise, problem solving and decision making, planning and organizing. Having these skills might mean easier path to success.

So, we should join as many organizations as possible? That may not be the case. Some of the organization requires us to put a lot of time to its activity, meanwhile others held an event at certain times only. We have to shoose wisely, because taking on too many commitments may lead to us forsaking our study. But, if you ever wanted to join another, you van always do it every year.

Almost every university in the world have something called orientation. It has became an unwritten tradition to have a period of time when freshmen will be taken around the campus in order to get them accustomed to college. Here, in Binus university, we also have that kind of program.

Freshmen Enrichment Program

It is called Freshmen Enrichment Program or FEP in short. Our FEP consists of three stages, General Orientation (GO), Academic Orientation (AO), and finally Campus Life Organization (CLO).

General Orientation

I was assigned in class DAS04. A lot of my highshcool friends from Pahoa are in batch 1 or 2, so when I entered the class, I literally knew nobody. I thought of this as a good opportunity to make a lot of new friends. I took the front seat and started to converse with the person beside me. Judging by the looks of my classmates, many of them are not from the surrounding cities. This piqued my curiosity, so I began to approached them. It turned out I was right, many of them are from mid and east java. That makes us a class of diversity! (Ha, nice!).

Here is a photo of us with our buddy coordinator. Notice me in the leftmost side? Yes, that fat one.

In this GO, we also gained knowledge about the rules, how important our attendance is, and student centers around the campus. It it very clear where to go if you want to get further information about something specific. Want to get training to hone your softskills? Easy, go to the SADC(Student Activity and Development Center). Want to protest because you are counted as absent meanwhile you are not? Go to the SSC(Student Services Center). Want to know whether your lecturer is available? Ask the LSC(Lecturer Services Center).

Binus pretty much got everything covered even the information system for students. Maybe that one thing which separates binus from other university in Indonesia is Binusmaya. In GO, we are taught to use our Binusmaya to seek our schedule, grades and points, or friends in the same class. You can even protest online if you think your grades are wrong. In addition, Binus also cooperate with Microsoft, so you can get many programs or operating systems for free. I must admit, it is quite convenient.

In the end of General Orientation, we held a gathering and expo. All of the class show off their solidarity by dancing. They are very good and funny at the same time. It also surprised us when our buddy coordinator danced in front of us. Some of us really have the moves.

As for the Expo, we get to see every student activity organization and majors community. You can see the list of organizations here