Let's talk about my undergrad era, one of the best time in my life

I once gave a presentation in the middle of a forest. Another time, I hiked up a volcano with a powerpoint file on my phone, hoping the signal wouldn’t fail. I’ve done assignments at the beach, squeezed in travel between deadlines, and ended a day of fieldwork by lying under the starsand watching the milkyway. As I am looking back now, I feel like those years were intense, sometimes overwhelming, sometimes just plain strange, but they were also some of the best times of my life.

I began my bachelor’s years with one clear intention, which is to connect. I said yes to almost everything. I talked to people from all sorts of departments at ITS, made friends from other universities, and ended up in places I never would’ve imagined, just because I stayed open. One of the first trips I joined was a biodiversity sampling in the highlands of Pasuruan. It was a quiet, green area managed by locals. The air smelled of wet soil and moss. We spent the day walking slowly, stopping often to observe small signs of life, birds with bright plumage darting between branches, butterflies resting on damp leaves, beetles crawling across green foliage. Every few steps, I would kneel down to capture something with my sony camera, like I was collecting stories instead of data. We ate salak fresh from the tree, sweet, a lil bit sour, and crunchy. In the evening, we were also treated amazing home cooked meals, and allowed to spent the night in a guesthouse. That night, I took a photo of the milkyway galaxy. It was so peaceful it made me forget how tired I was. We had a conversation about maxent, coffee bean, birds and how people get research funding. It was super cold and we slept using sleeping bag to make it more comfy.

Another time, I joined an overnight camp at a mangrove site in Gresik. We walked through muddy paths, watched birds, and sat around chatting at night. We cooked together, slept in simple hut close to the ocean, and in the morning helped run a small event for local kindergarten kids. I still laugh when I remember losing my water bottle that time, I never told my foster mom because she would scold me lol.

There was also a project in Bangkalan, called Mangrove Sister School. We taught primary school kids about mangroves. That part was tough, why? Becasue breaking down science into something kids could understand wasn’t easy. But it was worth it. We planted trees, visited the beach, and ended the trip with a plate of bebek hitam Sinjay. Nothing beats bebek sinjay if we’re talking about food.

One of the wildest projects I joined was in Kediri. We were monitoring tree mortality in a forest and went back multiple times over several weeks. We’d start early in the morning, hiking through thick vegetation, and stay out until dusk. There were massive trees, rare terrestrial orchids, and cute fungi everywhere. Once we saw a snake. Another time, I had to give a class presentation from the forest floor with bugs flying around me and just enough signal to hold the connection.

Before any of this, though, there was kaderisasi. At ITS, that means more than orientation. It’s a whole program designed by seniors with input from faculty to prepare new students. We had to reflect on who we were, what values we had, what we expected, and how we could grow. They did surveys, discussions, and goal setting using gap analysisi methods. It was intense, but helpful. There was always someone checking in like SCs, mentors, and peers who helped us navigate everything. One part I’ll never forget was malam keakraban in 2019. Our whole class rented a villa in the highlands to bond. We played games, shared food, and had open discussions about our lives and hopes. That night helped build friendships that lasted for years.

Even our labs turned into adventures. Sometimes we had to bring in live samples such as ferns, guppy fish, bird, even monitor lizard. Once, we spent hours hiking near a waterfall two hours from Surabaya just to find the right specimens. We tried to catch guppies with, tried to catch a monitor lizard, althouh in the end we decied to just buy the monitor lizard.

The workload was no joke. Semester 5 hit the hardest. I took 24 SKS, around 32 ECTS, with five lab work. That meant five full reports every week, all handwritten including intro, methods, results, discussion, and APA style references. No copy paste. Just hours bent over paper, hoping your hand didn’t cramp too early hahaha

Most nights, we worked from one coffee shop to the next. Start at 7 PM, move again after midnight when shops closed, keep going until morning. You’d see students camped out around the library at 2 AM like it was nothing. And on top of that, we had to earn extracurricular credits too. ITS had two GPAs including academic and non-academic, and you had to meet both minimum GPA and credits. It was exhausting, but somehow we all kept going.

Meanwhile, I joined competitions. Scientific writing, business proposals, debating, or anything that looked interesting. I represented ITS in a national debating competition at POLINEMA during semester 2. Once, I submitted three proposals in one week. It felt normal after a while.

Courses also required us to present scientific papers. That meant reading complex articles, breaking them down, and explaining them clearly. I still remember the day I had to present three different papers for three classes. It was crazy, I barely remember what I learned, I just hope to survive that semester lol.

During breaks, or honestly even during semesters if I had time I traveled. I biked to places like Ijen Crater, Baluran National Park, Bromo, Mount Penanggungan. I went freediving at Ketapang Island and birdwatching at Mangrove Wonorejo. I joined beach cleanups, mangrove restoration, fund collection, and just kept being busy.

My exchange program in Thailand wasn’t calm either. While collecting bugs, I got chased by dogs and had to bike like crazy. I’m not used to seing dogs, so I panicked. Another time, I froze in place after nearly stepping on a cobra hiding in a bush, I LIKE SNAKES THO. That whole experience felt unreal, funny now, but pretty scary at the time. I never thought taking bug samples would mean running from dogs or freezing on the spot because of a cobra. But things like that happened, and they’re the parts I still remember clearly.

I can’t believe how much I did. I didn’t plan for it to be this FULL. It just happened, like one invitation after another, one “yes” at a time. There were weeks I barely slept. But also moments of quiet joy, shared laughter, and raw, messy growth. I didn’t just get a degree. I lived through something. I found stories, struggles, and parts of myself I didn’t know were there. And if I had the chance, perhaps I’d do it all over again.

Maybe “sorry” won’t ever be enough, but to all my friends, I truly wish you nothing but growth, happiness, and good health, always :)