Teaching: A Life’s Calling

A Story About Ibu Cindy Himawan: Bangkit 2021 Contributor

The story of Cindy Himawan (35) from ITHB tells us about the true calling of being a teacher. When Ibu Cindy was 26 years old, she decided to leave the peak of her career as SAP SD Consultant, an international company based in Singapore. At that time, she had a good job and traveled worldwide to maintain her ongoing project. But her desire to contribute to Indonesia’s education development is unstoppable, so she decided to return to Indonesia.

For Ibu Cindy Himawan, living her dream as an educator is a meaningful journey. Let’s get to know this inspiring lecturer better.

Live the Dream with Her Life Partner

Ibu Cindy is a person who is passionate about education. Not only lecturing at several universities, one of which is ITHB, she also plays her role as a mother of three. With the hope of providing her children with the best education at home, Ibu Cindy manages to homeschool her children with herself as the teacher. “Education should start from home,” assured her. Also, in her opinion, if she’s capable of teaching her students, then what should prevent her from teaching her children.

While giving her best as an educator on campus and at home, Ibu Cindy also works as an ERP Consultant. She’s certified in SAP and gained much experience as SAP Consultant in Singapore. But as mentioned above, to live a life she’s always dreaming about, Ibu Cindy decided to return to Indonesia. She could still do the consulting job while answering her life's calling at the same time.

Apart from that, with her husband, she also built an ed-tech consulting company named Aplysit in Bandung. As a Managing Director, she shares the same vision with her husband: to educate young people with a great desire to learn and allow them to rise and shine.

“Sometimes I see a phenomenon, that only graduates from well-known universities find it easy to get a job. Therefore, my husband and I want to provide equal opportunities for graduates to study and work regardless of their background.”

Ibu Cindy and her husband are happy to polish the skills of graduates they work with. They encourage them to learn and enrich themselves with project experiences. Its mission is to bridge the gap between the graduates and the skills needed in the industry. But, she will give her employees options to stay and learn more or to leave and “spread their wings.”

Differentiate Profession and Life’s Calling

Ibu Cindy emphasized that profession and life’s calling are two different things. For her, a job is something that, one day, can stop, while life’s calling is something that can be eternal. When we are old, we may cease our profession, but we still can answer our life’s calling.

Therefore, to keep her life’s calling alive, Ibu Cindy also performs her role well as an SAP consultant. She can pass her professional experience and knowledge to her students by participating in various projects. Amid her passion for educating as many people as possible, Ibu Cindy found Bangkit. How’s her take on the program? Let’s figure it out.

Bangkit for Ibu Cindy: Educational Revolution

What Bangkit means to her is an “educational revolution that many students haven’t realized.” Many people, particularly in Indonesia, think that education should take place in a building, the same building where the students and teachers are. While in fact, the learning process can occur anytime and anywhere.

According to Ibu Cindy, the pandemic has deconstructed the old education paradigm. Now is the moment where the students need to realize that they can learn anywhere, even outside of their comfort zone. Meanwhile, educators need to recognize that they don’t have to be on campus to share the experience. Ibu Cindy said that everyone can be an educator who teaches many students while working professionally in this educational revolution.

Seeing that Bangkit shared the same vision as Ibu Cindy, she decided to widen the scope of her dedication. Besides ITHB being a partner university for Bangkit and Ibu, Cindy is one of the lecturers; she was willing to contribute to Bangkit because it is a program of Kampus Merdeka that best accommodates various students' needs.

Ibu Cindy saw that in Kampus Merdeka, it is only Bangkit, the program that delivers a structured curriculum and equips students with a complete skill set―technology, soft skills, and English for professionals. According to her, the other programs focused only on technical skills and didn’t pay much attention to soft skills.

The result? Having dedicated her 114 teaching hours to delivering soft skills learning materials, Ibu Cindy gained many insights about new theories she’d never known. Bangkit was an opportunity for Ibu Cindy to take as much as possible before giving it back to her students.

“The university-industry synergy in Bangkit occurs between educators like Google and me as the program lead,” exclaimed her. Educators helped Google by sharing the experience with Bangkit cohorts, while Google gave back by supplying instructors with many well-structured soft skills theories. Life Path, Time Management, and Communication were some subjects she taught during Bangkit in semester 2021. “Among my main goals is to help the cohort communicate themselves, their personal branding, very well,” she said.

She believes that soft skills are a must-have complementary to technical skills. By mastering such interpersonal skills, students will be more ready to embrace challenges in future careers. “The melange between tech, soft skills, and English is a unique feature that differentiates Bangkit from other programs. The result is that students are competent in various aspects, including communication,” assured her.

Fly Away and Never Forget the Way Home

Ibu Cindy has been compiling her dreams since she was in college. She dreamed that once she graduated from college, she wanted to “fly away” and enhance her skill by working overseas. After graduating, Ibu Cindy made her dream come true. She flew away to launch her career and took as much experience and knowledge as possible. Her experience then became the gift she shared in Bangkit.

For Ibu Cindy, teaching in Bangkit felt different from the duty she carried out on campus. She had more opportunities to share her personal experience and instill the values she holds in her students. The hardship that Ibu Cindy dealt with when adjusting to a different environment overseas inspired her students to keep doing their best in Bangkit.

The openness Ibu Cindy showed encouraged her students to form a close relationship with her. Even one of Ibu Cindy's most critical missions was accomplished. She wanted to “pass her baton” to her students in teaching, and some of her students were interested. Her students want to be an educator like her one day.

“I encouraged my students to study hard, graduate as soon as possible, fly away as far as possible and gain much experience by working overseas. One day, when they have become an expert, I ask them to never forget their way home. They have to come back and give back to Indonesia by teaching and improving the education system.”

Ibu Cindy encourages her students to become an expert who is willing to give back by teaching someday to upgrade the quality of Indonesian education. If young people and experts don't desire to get involved in teaching, then Indonesian education won’t be making any progress.

When “Thank you” is Worth Trillions

Nothing is more valuable and makes Ibu Cindy proud than being involved in the educational revolution in Indonesia through Bangkit. Especially when Ibu Cindy saw her students become part of the 3 (three) best capstone projects. Ibu Cindy’s students created “Bacara” with their team, a sign language translator app.

Ibu Cindy has high hopes for Bangkit, one of which is hoping the students and university will be more open to this educational revolution. Because, in reality, there are not many campuses that support the student's learning process in Bangkit. Some students also think Bangkit is an extra off-campus program they don't need to follow.

For Ibu Cindy personally, Bangkit is very meaningful because of its ability to fill the gap in her life. It made Ibu Cindy feel the concept of “Ikigai,” a Japanese term that refers to something that gives a person a sense of purpose and a reason for living. Bangkit is more than just an educational platform; it helps Ibu Cindy answer her life’s calling and live her dream.

“For me, the four-figured number I earned before means less than a ‘thank you from my students. You know what? When my students said, ‘Thank you for teaching me, Ma’am,’ the ‘T’ of ‘Thank you’ became worth ‘Trillions’ for me.”

Therefore Ibu Cindy wants experts from various fields to devote themselves to the world of education. It aims to change the future of Indonesia. As we know, education has always been the solid foundation of a country’s development.

Does teaching also become your life’s calling? Answer it and live your dream by contributing to Bangkit 2022!

Check how Contributors play a role in Bangkit here.