Redefined learning paradigm

As the title of this blog is "Study and Beyond", i expect to write anything about my experience during my time studying abroad including all aspects of it on this blog. Therefore, i found that so far, i never write anything about the "real" study thing. If i would give the analogy of writing about food, so far, what i wrote, has just been the "sauces" of my study. Hence, i never write about the "meat" of my study yet.

At first, i thought, studying abroad at the university level is just another university study but in a totally different circumstances of environment and so on. Well, it is totally true. As i already wrote many times in this blog, it dealing with many differences of the environment. Starting with the most obvious thing like the weather climate, to more subtle issue like values differences. These things, of course, would make your study experience more challenging. That's if we would like to talk about the "sauce" of my study here.

Moreover, if we would like to talk about the "meat" of my study, i also found many substantial differences. The most obvious difference between my academic setting here and the setting at my home country is the academic term. i used to study under semester-long term, which gives me 14 weeks to cover all materials of a specific course. In contrast, here, i have to suit my self to study under the quarter term system which only gives me 7 weeks to cover all of the materials of the course. To be real, it is totally fast. You really need to keep the pace. Otherwise, i think, you gonna easily flunk. The consequences of this rapid and steady system is that everything gonna be shorter and faster.

I gonna elaborate more about what does it really means by "shorter and faster". First, you can't expect that much from your lecturer. You really need to cover most of the materials by yourself. Make sure you already read the material beforehand (before the class) because the lecturer would not cover those things in depth. They gonna only explaining the outlines and the only way to go deep is by raising question. The the thing is, how could you raise a question without knowing what you wanna ask. Second, you gonna need to spend more time reading the book by yourself. In case of me, i used to "eat" a textbook within 14 weeks. But now, i have to "eat" it within only 7 weeks. No mid-term exam, nothing. 7 weeks, then final exam. that's it. There are also several minor challenges, but i think those two are the most important.

Above, i explained more about the practical thing. Well, i think the more fundamental difference that i experience is the difference in the nature of the university study itself. what i mean by this is that in Indonesia, somehow, i experienced that they still teach you many practical things in the university. In case of my field of business, they will still teach you practical things about business like how to write a business plan and so on. I think it is more American approach of business education being implemented in Indonesia, especially on my previous school of Fakultas Ekonomi Universitas Indonesia. I'm not saying that they are not teach you practical stuff in the curriculum, but in contrast, instead of teaching you how to write a business plan, they prefer to teach me how to write a research proposal. I think this is typical European approach of business education as a science in university level. Otherwise you enrolled in MBA program, i believe they will teach you more academic and theoretical stuff than practical things in BSc or MSc programs. In short, get yourself used to academic journals instead of business magazines, and academic papers instead of company management's reports.

To be honest, it is a totally new settings for me. I'm not used to it. Therefore, i take it as new challenge. I felt, somehow, it is really intellectually challenging. Back there, they use to teach me to be a businessman or a manager. Now, the teach me to become a researcher in the field of business. They want me to become a social scientist. ;D *lol*. Maybe this is how the university study should be like. In fact, university should be dealing with the issue of knowledge creation instead of simply use and apply it. Then now, i gonna discuss how those differences also require different approaches.

Before i departed, i already know that during my study here, i should give more efforts than what i used to gave back there. For a student with a lack of study time like me, the overall GPA 3.18 over 4 was a not-bad achievement. I used to only study during the exam period, but of course i did my assignments. Although i already knew it that i have to change my habit, i still didn't change it after like five months studying here. The result is even to pass the course is quite hard. I passed the courses i took, but it was just passing. I can't excel with that same-old same-old approach of study.

I know that i need to improve my learning abilities and efforts in order to achieve my academic goal. Fortunately i also still have several other interest other than just business and economics, i also interest in the field of education. several weeks ago, i found a paper from Carlos M. Rodriguez that discussing about the importance of academic self-concept and the outcome expectation in regard to academic performance of university students. I found it very interesting. I also attended the seminar about study skills provided by the university few weeks ago, i know the concept, but i still not applying 100%. And today, i feel like i have dig more about improving my study skills.

I need to, again, learn how to learn.

I believe that there's no such term as "late" to learn. That's why today i look up at the psychology of learning section of the library and found out a book titled "How to Study in College" by Walter Pauk. The book was published in 1974, but i found that the content is still totally relevant today. Now i totally realized that to keep up in the university, it is not enough to just study like the way i did it since elementary school until the first two years of my university study. improvement on my study skills is unavoidable.

I have to redefining my learning paradigm, sharping my academic settings, and tuning my study skills. It is not enough to just be able to read and write. it is more about how you read and how you write. well, i agree that it's not always necessarily to study hard. therefore, i believe that we all have to study effectively and efficiently. I should be an independent learner, more self-regulated student, and a life-long learning person. Moreover, in order to perform academically, i am not only need the skills, but also the more important thing is the motivation; which insyaallah i already have enough. The issue of learning is a whole complete system that includes psychological, sociological, practical and even spiritual aspects.

In conclusion, i have to redefine my learning paradigm. There are still a lot of things that i would like to share about this particular subject. I promise to write more about it in the future. But for now, since my clock already shows 00.30 a.m GMT +1, i really need to sleep. It suppose to be a part of time-management, which is also very important in study. hehe ;D

Never stop learning and improving our learning capacity as well as capability. As Walter Pauk said, "Only you can educate yourself."