Amini’s Perseverance Story: A Country Girl’s Dream of Becoming a Technologist

A Story of Amini Dwi Puspita Sari, Bangkit 2022 Graduate from Informatics Engineering, Institut Teknologi Perusahaan Listrik Negara

“There is no limit to what we, as women, can accomplish.”
Michelle Obama, Former First Lady of the United States

A limitation is merely an illusion for a determined young woman like Amini Dwi Puspita Sari (21), an Informatics Engineering student at Institut Teknologi Perusahaan Listrik Negara (ITPLN). Being born and growing up in a rural area in South Sumatra made Amini lack sufficient resources for those who live in big cities. Therefore, Amini must work twice as hard to get a decent higher education.

However, Amini believed in what Mrs. Obama said above, that there is no limit for women to accomplish anything they aim for. Her perseverance helped her make her dream come true.

When Education is Considered Not Significant for Women

Amini lives with her family in a village named Desa Sribunga, located in Ogan Komering Ulu (OKU) Timur Regency, South Sumatra. She is the second of three children, and both of her parents are working. Her father is a rubber tapper, and her mother is a non-permanent teacher in the village's kindergarten.

As a girl from a rural area 2-3 hours away from the city, Amini lives a modest life, and most villagers in her neighborhood do so. The most common profession in Amini's community is farming and rubber tapping. Unfortunately, education isn't really significant to most people, especially women.

When Amini was asked about women's education in her village, she said that most of her female friends only graduated from middle school. Only a few girls go to high school because many of them decide to get married at a young age. Amini is one of a few girls who chose to aim higher by aspiring to go to college.

Unfortunately, Amini's parents only wished for their first child to attend college. It was enough for Amini's parents to see their second and third born graduate only from high school and kick-start their careers soon. Therefore, Amini went to a vocational school, majoring in Accounting.

However, Amini couldn't help going to college after finishing vocational school because she had a higher dream to achieve. The first thing that she had to do was convince her parents.

From Accounting to Technology

Amini never planned to plunge into technology until she started watching numerous Japanese anime about tech. Then, she realized that her neighborhood had yet to become familiar with technology. The technology that was considered the most sophisticated was only Facebook. Villagers in Amini's area even preferred to use Facebook rather than Instagram.

While marketplaces started to gain enormous popularity, Amini's neighbors still stuck to using Facebook for online shopping. Then, as time went by, people in Amini's village began to be familiar with marketplaces, and it opened her eyes to the fact that tech greatly influences people's life. Therefore, she wanted to be part of this significant impact by studying information technology in college.

Seeing that the tech sector could give her a promising future career, Amini planned to be an Informatics Engineering student once she graduated from the vocational school. However, her parents didn't provide any support because Amini's neighborhood's lack of education technology made her parents think that Amini would be an electronic technician if she studied IT.

Amini decided not to give up. She convinced her parents that if allowed to go to college and study IT, she could create something as sophisticated as marketplaces that her parents were already familiar with. Finally, with her parents' blessing, Amini was successfully awarded a full scholarship from Yayasan Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN) to go to ITPLN as an Informatics Engineering student.

Joining Bangkit to Keep Up on Campus

As Amini flew from South Sumatra to Jakarta, her life as an IT student began. To survive in the capital city, Amini earned more money by becoming a freelance Accounting Tutor for diploma students, first-year students, and sophomore undergraduates. She saved a lot of money, which made her only able to return to her hometown once a year.

One day, Amini realized that her studying progress had lagged behind on campus. She thought she needed to catch up by joining a boot camp outside the university. Her determination to be a reliable tech talent led her to meet Dicoding. As it happened, Dicoding had a scholarship opportunity that Amini could snatch.

Amini's participation in one of the Dicoding scholarship programs acquainted her with Bangkit, which in 2021 was under the auspices of Kampus Merdeka for the first time. Seeing that this program was a promising training ground for her to thrive, Amini didn't think twice about signing up for it. Unfortunately, she wasn't in the 5th semester yet and was unqualified to be one of Bangkit 2021 Cohorts. Hence Amini just got an opportunity to join Bangkit the following year.

In Bangkit 2022, Amini was successfully accepted as a Machine Learning cohort. Her aspiration to be a future tech talent motivated her to give her best. However, most of her big family still thought Amini would be an Electronic Technician someday. Joining Bangkit gave Amini a memorable experience, despite encountering some difficulties in the long run.

When Amini's Efforts Paid Off

The prime difficulty that Amini encountered was Bangkit's English-speaking environment. As someone who previously had limited exposure to English, Amini struggled and needed more time to comprehend Machine Learning material, primarily delivered in English. She had to study twice as hard to grasp her learning.

Despite its challenges, Amini felt she had an excellent Bangkit learning experience. Her favorite part of studying in this program was the soft skills classes, particularly time management. That material helped her organize her heavy daily activities, where she had to balance studying on campus, learning in Bangkit, and being a freelance teacher.

Amini's endeavor to digest all the learning material and balance her schedule finally bore fruit when she graduated from Bangkit. Her achievement didn't stop there because she also passed the TensorFlow Developer (TFD) certification exam. It was living proof that the result never betrayed the effort.

After officially becoming one of Bangkit 2022 Graduates, Amini was more than ready to kick-start her career as an intern. Her stunning global certification and learning experience in Bangkit ushered her to be a Data Engineer at Vidio then.

"We can grow beyond our limit."

Amini's dream came true when she got an opportunity to intern at Vidio.com as a Data Engineer. In that company, she acquired many insights about working in a data field and became more drawn to mount the career ladder in this sector. As an intern whose one of her responsibilities was migrating data, she admitted that learning in Bangkit contributed to her deliverables at work, especially in cleansing the data.

Her outstanding performance while becoming an intern at Vidio.com eased her to launch her full-time career even before officially graduating from college. Amini was confident to apply for a full-time position at PT Indolima Perkasa, a below-the-line agency based in Jakarta. Who would have thought Amini's TFD certificate helped her occupy the company's Junior Data Analyst position?

Again, Amini felt that the data visualization module from Bangkit assisted her in doing her task. Her success in being awarded a full scholarship to attend university and kick-starting a full-time job made her want to encourage country girls like her to persevere as she has always been.

"Girls, being born and raised in a rural area or countryside will never hinder you from reaching your dreams as long as you keep faith in what you believe. No matter where you came from, you can grow beyond your limitations!"

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