(Nurma Fitriani/08004406/VI)
The students of University are the persons who have already attended the school for about 12 years. From Elementary to High School, they have learned about something which didn’t have any big difference to each other. For example, the material they got in Senior High School is an elaboration of the material they got in Junior High School. Essentially, High School expects the students to concern about their academic more than the others. Then, the similarity between High School and University is about the extracurricular activity outside the class. What makes the difference is that, in my opinion, the students of University are not expected to concern about their academic much more than the activity which the University expects the students to follow. Same matter as the students of English Education Study Program (PBI) in Ahmad Dahlan University (UAD). The University has already motivated the students to join in organizations or extracurricular activities. But it is not completely successful because the University, especially the PBI staff, found difficulties and problems in running the efforts.
The majority of the Ahmad Dahlan University students are coming from Teacher Training and Education Faculty or known as FKIP. PBI is one of seven Study Programs that included in this faculty. The number of PBI students is more than the number of other Study Program students. This number of the students is sometime become the reason why it’s hard to direct the students to improve their skill maximally instead of studying crazily. Here, we can conclude that PBI has already been led in the quantity. But, should we, as the PBI students, just proud of the leading in this major number of quantity? What about the quality?
According to the existence, the students of UAD, including the students of PBI itself, are divided in two majors. The first is the students who don’t care about everything happened around them in the university. They are usually just able to look for the weakness of PBI and also judge if PBI doing some mistakes. These students are kind of spoiled students because actually they just want to be served well by PBI staff without giving any feedback. For example, when PBI was given ‘C’ for its accreditation, these students only judged without giving any solution. In fact, one of the reasons for the accreditation is that considering whether the students active in organization and any activities or not. They are obviously hard to find in organization or activity in campus because they might be not interested in it. In fact, the university has been providing many activities for the students to join through UKM, IMM, EDSA, and so on.
Actually, through UKM (Unit Kegiatan Mahasiswa), the students of PBI who have skill in non-academic ability can join in this activity. UKM in UAD itself consists of some different activities divided in sport, culture, journalism, broadcasting, and music. From these activities, only very several students are interested and joined. On the other hand, several students have joined in Muhammadiyah Students Association (IMM), which is an autonomy organization concerning in the students movements. Both of UKM and IMM didn’t give any selection for the student who wants to join in, except for several UKM activities. Unfortunately, even without any selection, the students are still minded just to join in these activities.
In this case, the students can’t blame PBI staff entirely, because actually the students have been being given a chance to let them choose what activity appropriated to them. The staff also suggests them to sign or attend in EDSA’s programs. Well, EDSA or English Department Student Program is a Study Program organization which is organized by the students of PBI who have been passed the selection test. This organization can be a mediator between the PBI staff and the students of PBI. By cooperating with this mediator, the PBI staff will know what exactly needed and wanted by the students in this university.
The second major of PBI students is coming from the students who are usually active in the organization or activities in campus outside the class. They commonly spend their time in campus most because they have responsibility to manage or organize the activity they join in. This kind of students tends to serve the university sincerely and feel fun for it. They’d also like to be active following competition around them. Here, the most important thing to do is they are must be appreciated and facilitated first. Who is supposed to appreciate them? I believe that all of the elements in this university should give appreciation for the students who have done a good achievement which can make the University better and better.
Simple appreciation or regard is really meaningful for the students. They will feel that they have done something good in their life and it make them feel that they are not useless for having studying in this university. The people around the students can simply started by saying “congratulation”, “good job”, or saying it in Bahasa of course. The people also can ask them how they made it well. By getting such kind of appreciation, the students will have more confidence to do better and also have motivation to make new achievement in their life.
To make PBI leading in quality is quite simple. The students just need to practice all they got in the class and bring it up to outside the class or campus. It means that it is meaningless if the students just practice their skill in the class to get good score for the lessons, because the other students will not know about their ability well. The students should compete and show their ability to other students in the different faculty, different university, and it can be in the different country.
In my opinion, the most English skills being competed are about speaking and writing. In speaking, the students can join in English debate or speech competition. They also can show their ability in writing through paper or essay competition. By having such kind of competition, means that the students have already practiced all they got in the class clearly and found the purpose of their English learning in the real world around them. But, beside because of the minimum students interested to compete, the matter is also coming from the lecture. Here, the lecture also has the important role in motivating students, because honestly, the student is the person who’s definitely always needs to be motivated.
In my opinion, this is not the time to concern about how many students who expected to join in the activities or becomes active in an organization anymore, but it is the time to enrich the student who’d like to change better and wants to improve their skill more and more. It’s just like an Islamic concept which believe that it’s not about how many Muslim spreading in this world anymore, but it’s about they can make Muslim becomes Mukmin (a Muslim who has strong religious side), which can make Islam becomes a strong faith. With the number of PBI students, it’s impossible to make all of them having awareness to be active in the organization or campus activity, but the PBI staff can concern to the second major one, which is the students who has strong-willingness to create achievements more and more, because actually this kind of students can be a landmark for PBI. In short, we have already known that everything that becomes landmark in this world, always becomes the centre of human thought, same matter as this kind of PBI students who can influence the students from other Study Programs in FKIP, even in Ahmad Dahlan University.
