Bangkit Has Helped Me to Cross-Path from a Physicist to a Business Intelligence


A Story of Nadhifa Aqilla Husna, Bangkit 2022 Graduate from Physics Engineering, Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember Surabaya

"The apple doesn't fall far from the tree" - a phrase often used to describe how children tend to inherit the characteristics or even career paths of their parents. At least this phrase doesn't apply in the case of Nadhifa Aqilla Husna (23).

Nadhifa was born into a family of healthcare workers. While her parents work as a nurse and a lecturer in the nursing faculty, her siblings major in medicine and nutrition studies. Unlike them, instead of choosing the linear healthcare-related pathway, Nadhifa decided to go in a different direction. Her passion for physics and mathematics is so deep that she dares to step up and start his career as a Business Intelligence, specifically at Shopee.

Before she decided about her life path, Nadhifa was once confused and doubted what she wanted to pursue. As a former Physics Engineering student at Institut Teknologi Sebelas Nopember, Nadhifa often brought up a big question for herself.
“What do I want in life? Why am I studying this?”
Until one day, she realized that she needed to explore it herself, simply by trying to get deeper into her field of interest. Bangkit is the answer to the question.

Physicist to a Business Intelligence and Her Journey at Bangkit

Dhifa's (Nadhifa's nickname) passion for Physics and Mathematics has grown since elementary school. Even though she grew up in a family that had a different career path than herself, she has the mindset that she holds,
“We can be anything as long as we are consistent and persistent. And just do it!”
Finally, she found her path. Dhifa decided to take a Physics Engineering major.

Doing what she likes doesn't mean everything goes smoothly. Some things are still left in the dark spot in her mind. She doesn't know what she will become, but she is confident that she must explore IT and join as Bangkit cohort in 2021.

Dhifa is interested in joining Bangkit because this program opens a machine-learning path. Furthermore, she feels the topics are versatile and applicable in various fields. By entering this program, she is confident that she can use machine learning in her final thesis. Then, in the long term, it can help develop her career. Furthermore, the opportunity to broaden her connections in this program pushed her spirit to register Bangkit.

She got a lot of knowledge of hard skills and soft skills. Also, she unveiled the uncharted territory into a clear new sky. That was what she had been looking for all along. Dhifa explained in detail the machine learning that she learned, ranging from the basics of python. Then, she also dug deeper into machine-learning mathematics and implemented machine-learning mathematics in python tools.

Her current position as Business Intelligence at her company uses python tools that support her work. It didn't stop there. Dhifa also realized another fundamental thing: that she could analyze a problem to the root cause, or simply, in other words, a problem-solving tool using python materials she picked up from Bangkit.

Looking back, even before joining Bangkit, Dhifa admitted having difficulty deciding her passion and career path. But after she became part of the program, it turned out that her decision was correct. Ultimately, she chose to cross-path from being a physicist to becoming Business Intelligence at a unicorn startup.

Nadhifa After Graduating from Bangkit

After participating in the Bangkit program, Dhifa received many opportunities, including participating in an online internship program at CMKL University. He collaborated on a project to classify used bottles in Thailand.
"After joining Bangkit, I got the opportunity to take part in an online internship program at CMKL University. In this program, I was invited to collaborate on a project to classify used bottles for the needs of a beverage company in Thailand. I learned many things from this program. For hard skills, I started learning new tools and programming languages, some of which I had learned in the previous Bangkit program. I contributed a lot in the field of automation and model modification. In this project, I am pleased to collaborate with a professor from CMU (Carnegie Mellon University), one of the world's top universities. Apart from getting good networking, in 2 months, I also learned about Thai culture, for example, how they communicate."
What did she get? She learns new tools and programming languages, networks with new people, and collaborates with professors from CMU (Carnegie Mellon University). In this project, she contributed to automation and also model modification.


Graduating from Bangkit also not making her forget about how the program significantly improved her career orientation. She later contributed to becoming a facilitator at Bangkit 2022 out of concern for the progress of IT education in Indonesia. She wants to motivate a new cohort, especially those from non-IT majors, to be brave and confident in starting and entering the world of IT.

A few months after Dhifa graduated from Bangkit 2021, she started her final project by applying what she had learned at Bangkit to conduct regression and classification in honey counterfeiting cases. Even though her major differed from the Bangkit program, what she got for six months can be implemented in her thesis.

Even at work, she feels Bangkit makes her plan to climb her career path easier. When she applied for one job for the first time, the soft skill subject she received at Bangkit helped her prepare for recruitment.
"By knowing things related to Bangkit's soft skills, I am more confident in communicating with other people, including with HR. Even in my current workplace, many things are beneficial from Bangkit, such as giving and receiving positive feedback. How to give feedback to someone without offending and learn how to take feedback for my self-improvement.”

Dhifa's achievement in obtaining the TensorFlow Developer certification after participating in the Bangkit program can be impactful for her, and this certification can add value. For example, she compares herself with other candidates when applying for a company. This certification can make her stand out from others indeed. "The company noticed me because I have achieved this certification," said Nadhifa

The Lowest Point of Her Life Can Motivate Her to Become a Reliable Digital Talent

Sometimes we get the highest achievement, but sometimes it's also the lowest point in life. While studying and pursuing a career, Dhifa feels insecure and inferior because she thinks she was left behind in IT. However, there is another side of her that says:
“I felt like I had to pursue this, and I decided to run consistently to catch up, and I realized that persistence is the most important thing in chasing my goals.”
Dhifa mentioned one book that inspired her, the GRIT book by Angela Duckworth. In the book, it says:
“(Talent x effort) x effort = achievement. Without effort, your skill is nothing more than what you could have done but didn't.”
Even though Dhifa's skills in IT could be lower than others, she continues to pursue them by training herself and putting more effort into achieving them. The learning journey continues.

To conclude the interview that day, Nadhifa has something to share with the new incoming 2023 cohort:

"Believe in yourself that we can achieve whatever we want, as long as we keep trying. No dream is too big to achieve, so dream as high as possible, and remember to keep trying to chase it! Good luck to all the Bangkit cohort 2023!"

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