Career – Audere Est Facere

Aplikasi Visa Student UK Tier 4 Ternyata Mudah

Grup pre-departure UK mendadak ramai sekitar bulan Mei – Juli, sekitar 3 bulan menjelang Fall semester intake dari hampir semua universitas di UK. Aplikasi visa student UK seolah momok yang lebih menakutkan dibandingkan ~~seleksi wawancara LPDP~~. Beberapa calon pelajar bisa tenang dan bersantai karena menggunakan jasa pengurusan aplikasi visa yang ditawarkan agen pendidikan terkenal seperti SUN, IBEC, atau IDP. Namun bagi yang mengurus sendiri dan first timer aplikasi visa UK, rasa takut gagal pasti ada mengingat biaya aplikasi yang relatif mahal dibanding visa ke negara lain. Saya ingin berbagi pengalaman saya mengajukan aplikasi visa PBS Tier 4 Student tanpa menggunakan kartu kredit untuk pembayaran online namun menggunakan kartu debit.

Perkenalan singkat, saya Ronald Sukianto merupakan salah satu awardee Beasiswa Pendidikan Indonesia LPDP PK-66 Laskar Dewantara yang akan melanjutkan studi tingkat magister di Sustainable Energy Futures, Imperial College London. Share mengenai aplikasi postgraduate di ICL dapat dilihat di Aplikasi Taught MSc in Sustainable Energy Futures, Imperial College London.

Dokumen yang dapat dipersiapkan

Dokumen terpenting yang perlu didapatkan adalah CAS (Confirmation of Acceptance Study). ICL hanya akan menerbitkan CAS paling cepat 3 bulan sebelum official course starting date dari program studi kita. Misalkan saya di SEF, dimulai tanggal 1 Oktober 2016 maka CAS diterbitkan tanggal 5 Juli 2016. Sambil menunggu CAS, dokumen yang dapat dipersiapkan:

Sertifikat bebas TBC dari RS Premier (Jakarta, Surabaya, atau Bali) yang berlaku 6 bulan dari tanggal tes. Tata cara Tes Bebas TBC di RS Premier Jatinegara.
Terjemahan KK dan akta lahir yang dikeluarkan oleh Sworn Translator yang diakui oleh British Embassy. Daftarnya dapat dilihat di fadfafa . Saya pribadi menggunakan jasa penerjemah Tjan Sie Tek, hasilnya memuaskan.
Paspor yang masih berlaku.
Ijazah dan transkrip akademik pendidikan sebelumnya dalam bahasa Inggris (tidak perlu diterjemahkan oleh sworn translator).

Dokumen yang tidak wajib tapi boleh disiapkan:

Pas foto berlatar belakang putih, mulai 2016 foto dilakukan saat sesi pengambilan BRP sehingga tidak perlu membawa pas foto lagi.
Sertifikat IELTS, karena biasanya pihak kampus memberi keterangan dalam CAS bahwa kemampuan bahasa Inggris kita sudah di assess sesuai kriteria mereka. IELTS tidak wajib namun boleh saja dibawa saat appointment visa.
ATAS bagi yang wajib melampirkan, kebetulan jurusan saya tidak membutuhkan ATAS.
KTP tidak perlu dibuat terjemahan.
Kartu kredit untuk membayar aplikasi visa dan asuransi kesehatan. Saya bukan pengguna kartu kredit, saya tetap bisa membayar menggunakan kartu debit.
Booking flight ticket . Saya tidak menyiapkan ini, nyatanya aplikasi visa tetap sukses.

Bagi awardee beasiswa dokumen yang perlu dipersiapkan adalah Letter of Guarantee (LoG)atau Letter of Scholarship (LoS) yang memeberikan jaminan sponsor pembiayaan perkuliahan kita selama di UK. Awardee LPDP dapat menggunakan LoG maupun LoS, namun saya pribadi menggunakan LoG.

Online Application VFS Global

Aplikasi visa UK bisa dilakukan di https://www.visa4uk.fco.gov.uk/account/register. Setelah mendaftar, segera isi form mengenai detail paspor dan data diri. Progress aplikasi dapat di save sehingga bisa dilanjutkan kapan pun kita mau. Poin-poin dalam pengisian yang perlu diperhatikan:

Nama lengkap dan nomor paspor harus sesuai dengan CAS.
Starting and end date course harus sesuai dengan CAS.
Tipe visa Tier 4 General (Sponsored) jika kita dibiayai oleh beasiswa, dalam kasus saya beasiswa LPDP. Namun pengalaman teman-teman penerima beasiswa LPDP yang memilih tipe visa Tier 4 General juga di-granted visa nya.
Masukan detail visa yang pernah didapat dan negara yang pernah dikunjungi. Paspor lama saya yang sudah dimusnahkan pihak imigrasi tetap saya tulis di aplikasi namun saya pilih “not in possession” sehingga saya tidak perlu membawa paspor lama, hanya paspor terbaru yang saya bawa.
Masukan lokasi pengambilan BRP setelah sampai di UK dengan benar karena BRP kita harus diambil dalam jangka waktu tertentu di tempat yang telah kita pilih. Saya memilih lokasi pengambilan BRP di Imperial College London sesuai petunjuk.
Tier 4 sponsor diisi dengan pihak kampus yang mengeluarkan CAS kita, dalam kasus saya Imperial College London.
Official financial sponsor diisi dengan lembaga yang membiayai studi kita, dalam kasus saya Indonesia Endowment Fund for Education.

Kartu debit – Virtual Credit Card

Saya menggunakan fitur Virtual Credit Card dari BNI, biasa disebut BNI Debit Online. Saya adalah pemegang kartu debit Mastercard dari BNI Taplus Muda. Kita dapat membuat kartu kredit virtual dengan memanfaatkan fitur sms banking. Prinsipnya VCC adalah kartu kredit virtual yang memiliki nomor unik yang dapat digunakan untuk melakukan pembayaran layaknya kartu kredit pada umumnya. Namun setelah pembayaran dilakukan, biaya akan langsung didebet dari rekening anda seperti layaknya transaksi menggunakan kartu debit. Setiap kita melakukan request pembuatan VCC, kita diminta memasukan nominal uang yang dijadikan limit transaksi kartu kredit virtual kita. VCC ini relatif lebih aman dibanding kartu kredit konvensional karena nomor kartu yang sekali pakai sehingga lebih aman dari ancaman carding.

Contoh jika menggunakan SMS banking BNI:

Ketik REQ(spasi)VCN(spasi)5000000 artinya kita meminta dibuatkan kartu kredit virtual dengan limit transaksi lima juta rupiah.

Berikut gambaran proses request VCN:

*Hati-hati dengan informasi nomor kartu (16 digit) dan verification code (3 digit) serta masa berlaku kartu. Dengan tiga informasi itu, siapapun dapat melakukan pembayaran online asalkan memasukkan data tersebut dengan tepat. Jaga agar informasi tidak diketahui orang lain.

Jika limit kartu debit hanya 10 juta rupiah, pembayaran IHS dan aplikasi visa tidak bisa dibayarkan langsung. Lakukan pembayaran IHS terlebih dahulu sekitar jam 11 menjelang tengah malam, kemudian setelah hari berganti baru lakukan pembayaran aplikasi visa. Jika limit kartu debit belum di-reset maka VCC tidak akan bisa digunakan. Pengalaman saya IHS membutuhkan biaya 342 USD (4.579.397 IDR) dan aplikasi visa 499 USD (6.681.635 IDR). Keduanya saya lakukan pada tanggal 5 Juli dan 6 Juli 2016. Kurs VCC sedikit diatas kurs jual bank BNI, mungkin selisih kurs tersebut yang menjadi keuntungan bank maka dari itu tidak ada biaya untuk penggunaan BNI debit online.

Lolos tanpa Wawancara bukan sekadar Mitos

Saya tidak mengikuti tahapan wawancara karena jam appointment saya jam setengah delapan pagi sehingga interviewer belum tersedia untuk wawancara. Petugas VFS membebaskan saya untuk melakukan wawancara yang bisa dilakukan mulai jam 12 siang, namun tidak diwajibkan. Saya memutuskan untuk tidak mengikuti wawancara karena menurut petugas, wawancara tidak menentukan lolos tidaknya aplikasi visa namun kelengkapan dokumenlah yang lebih penting. Nyatanya aplikasi visa saya sukses tanpa wawancara, ternyata perkataan mbak-mbak VFS benar loh! Total waktu proses visa saya adalah 11 hari kerja, dimulai tanggal 8 Juli 2016 dan selesai tanggal 25 Juli 2016.

Semoga cerita saya bermanfaat untuk teman-teman yang ingin mengajukan visa Tier 4 UK. Semua bisa dilakukan sendiri tanpa bantuan biro jasa atau lembaga pendidikan. Lumayan kan biaya biro jasa yang ratusan ribu rupiah. Nyatanya saya tidak dipersulit kok selama dokumen kita lengkap dan mengikuti aturan yang benar. Good luck!

Jakarta, 26 Juli 2016

Application for Imperial College London – MSc in Sustainable Energy Futures 2016

Hi there, I want to share about my application process for Postgraduate program at Imperial College London. Hope this post enlighten your mind about applying for Imperial MSc program. I will tell the story in chronological order.

8 February – 1 March 2016

I started studying about Imperial College since 2015 and applying for the program on 8 February 2016. You can scrutinize the program description in the website. They made the program handbook, course description, program specification, and the FAQ available for download. SEF also has released a blog at http://energyfutureslab.wordpress.com where students and lab members write their opinion and story. You can also request a prospectus to Imperial Graduate Admissions to learn more about the postgraduate program. All aplication for Imperial College London made via the online admission system.

The MSc in Sustainable Energy Futures program itself had opened the application since late 2015. However the deadline for application is 31 March 2016. The deadline means you have to complete the application documents not late than the specified date. The application documents include two letter of recommendations, only if both LoR are submitted and accepted then the application status would change into completed. Please mind the uncertainty for letter of recommendation submission from your reference so your application would complete in time. Mind that this program is quite competitive, every year around 50 students accepted amongst around 350 applicants from all over the world. Timing is vital, the early you applied, the success chance is higher than later application. I completed my application on 1 March 2016 because my second recommendation came at 1 March, even all application form had been filled and first recommendation already given. I waited almost one month just for recommendation. Luckily I still have time before the deadline application day.

When you apply using the online application, you should get a CID (College Identification) Number as log in ID in Imperial College Student e-services website. Activate your account and make a password. You can save your progress while filling the forms and continue whenever you want. You cannot continue further if the required box still not filled. If you have completed the application, you can monitor the progress using student e-services web. However if the decision has been made, you should get a notification in your email. I got an email on 11 April 2016 (about 5 weeks from the completion of application) for the decision notification. Later I found out I was conditionally accepted for the MSc program. You should respond to the offer whether to accept or defer it.

11 April 2016 – Decision on the application

How to change the conditional offer to unconditional?

In the student e-services site, there should be a list of outstanding* items need to be submitted to ICL. In normal case, they might ask for proof of bachelor completion alongside the academic transcript. They also might require a deposit to be made, however this can be substituted by letter of guarantee or letter of scholarship. In my case as Indonesia Endowment Fund for Education, I submitted a LOS and it worked as a magic. I need only to submit the bachelor certificate and academic trancript by air mail. I was using Indonesia mail service, EMS POS Indonesia to transfer the documents. The damage cost was only around 300 thousand IDR. Just for information, using DHL services might costed around 600 thousand IDR.

For LPDP awardee or any of you intending to attend ICL as LPDP awardee, I suggest to apply for ICL after you got the LOS from LPDP. In some case, ICL is strict about deposit payment. It would be better if you already have the LOS to guarantee your payment, so deposit does not need to be made. I apply for LPDP in January 2016 and accepted in March 2016. The timing was just perfect for me.

*They require me to send the original documents, however after consult with my fellow friend I decided to send the copy documents with legalized stamp. The registry did not complaint and 1 day after the arrival of documents, my status altered to unconditionally accepted.

What to do after I unconditionally accepted?

You might prepare the documents needed for visa application. It depends on your country, should you see the visa and immigrations of UK website about that. I got a long period of waiting my CAS* number to be generated by ICL because regarding to the course starting date at 1 October 2016, CAS will not be generated early than 1 July 2016. In a period of time between late April 2016 until July 2016, I could only prepare for documents for visa application waiting on the CAS to come. If you need a Letter of Acceptance, just contact the registry for your study program and soon it will be sent to you. However you should on unconditional offer to have that.

*CAS is Confirmation of Acceptance of Studies, required to make UK Visa Tier 4 type. It accounts for 30 points in your total visa points of 40. The other 10 accounts for maintenance fee during your study in UK.

For any of you applying for the ICL postgrad program, I wish you good luck!

Becoming an Awardee of BPI LPDP PK-66

10th March 2016

It was a nerve wrecking moment for me. Right after my plane had landed on CGK airport around 9 PM, an email arrived from LPDP. LINE group suddenly full of both joy and sorrow, many of them were accepted and many were not. The flight attendants of CITILINK QG-833 had commenced all passengers to get off the airplane. I still remember the feeling of joy when I read my scholarship application was successful. The best feeling when you just arrived from your duty and got a jubilant news.

First of all, I like to tell about what is the scholarship about. The BPI (Beasiswa Pendidikan Indonesia) or the Indonesia Education Scholarship is a higher education scholarship program organized professionally by LPDP (Lembaga Pengelola Dana Pendidikan) or the Indonesia Endowment Fund for Education. The scholarship aims for prospective future leader of Indonesia in several strategic fields such as Energy, Science, Food, Maritime, Law, Economics, Creative Industries, Medical and Health to pursue their Master or Doctorate education in top universities in Indonesia and overseas. The program is very popular, attracts thousands of applicant each batch. I enrolled for 1st batch of 2016, more than 1000 students were accepted for both overseas and domestic universities.

The idea of this kind of scholarship may be heard in some countries a long time ago, but first time in Indonesia. Demographics on 2045 tends to advantageous for Indonesia, but in the term of number. Making sure the bonus turn into advantages for Indonesia, this program intends to prepare future leader in several sectors through higher education funding. Strategic research also fostered by generous funding to prepare the economic boom in the next twenty years. I am feeling optimistic for this thought, Indonesia may be top country in economics in 2045.

PK (Persiapan Keberangkatan)

PK is more like Program Kepemimpinan (Leadership Program) for me. All of BPI awardee should attend this program to receive scholarship contract that funds their study. PK also one of the important thing that make LPDP distinct from other scholarship program. I found myself lucky to attend this program. Yet the program was very tiring but it was very worth valued. I got batch sixty six or the PK-66. We call ourself as the Laskar Dewantara. Inspired by the spirit of fostering Indonesian education inherited from National Heroes, Suwardi Suryaningrat or famously known as Ki Hadjar Dewantara. He was the founder of Taman Siswa, school for indigenous people in the era of Dutch colonialism. His famous proverbs could be seen in Indonesia Ministry of Education motto, Tut Wuri Handayani.

Laskar Dewantara consisted of best people from their fields all over Indonesia, Elementary school teacher, general practiticioner, university lecturer, foreign ministry staff, national development staff, private sector professional, humanity volunteer, social media consultant, NGO, veterinarian, spatial designer, researcher, lawyer, entrepreneur, dentist, to civil servants. This is the perfect networking program for future Indonesia professionals, entrepreneurs, and officials.

We can meet famous, cool-people-you-can-not-meet-unless-in-pk like Marty Natalegawa, Roby Muhammad, Butet Manurung, and many others. Marty Natalegawa was a foreign minister of Indonesia on SBY era, known as his eloquent and stylish manners. Roby Muhammad as I first knew his name and his face was actually very inspiring talker. I like his idea about passion is actually bullshit, nobody has only one passion in his life. Pursue what you’re interested in with your best effort and success might come. Well he proved that in his life journey, from physics graduate student to social network analyst. Butet Manurung, known for his activity in teaching indigenous people in the jungle with SOKOLA RIMBA.

My batch, PK-66 got the chance to do rafting as the outbond activity. Aside from inspirational and motivational from famous speakers, we also had outdoor activity for team building. Lucky for us, we got rafting at Paralayang River in Pangalengan, West Java. It was the best day of PK, having fun all day. In short, PK is one of the offering point of LPDP scholarship you should get.

Selection Process

Well, about the selection process I could not say much. The selection process was normal: Administration – Interview – FGD and essay writing. Notes for you that will undergo the process:

Preparation is the king, Never attend the selection without proper preparation about knowing yourself and your study plan. The scholarship wants people who will come back to Indonesia with their knowledge, to build Indonesia. Make sure your plan in the future fits with this.
Believe in yourself. You will meet highly competitive people in the selection with high achievement. No need to compare yourself to others, the only man you need to beat is your ego.
LGD and Essay. I did not finish my essay back there. In LGD, I am one of the most ordinary contributor in the group. Do not concentrate too much in this section because it seems that they are giving less contribution than the interview.

Well, good luck for you all who intending to apply for LPDP scholarship!

Ronald Sukianto

PK-66 Laskar Dewantara

Internship Experience – Chevron Pacific Indonesia 2013

I am a participant of Chevron Pacific Indonesia University Partnership Program 2013. Chevron Pacific Indonesia or CPI are one of the biggest Oil Production Sharing Contract in Indonesia. They manage big oil and gas blocks in Indonesia, such as Riau and East Kalimantan. Chevron also manage geothermal plant in West Java, the Salak and Daradjat field. Chevron University Partnership Program is one of their CSR program to foster university student participation on internship program in oil and gas company. On 2013, it was exclusive only for ITB and UGM students. Hope the program continue to give equal opportunity for all university in Indonesia.

In short, I applied for Facility Engineer Intern and got accepted as one of participant. First is administration selection, followed by psychology and aptitude test. If you passed, you will invited to panel interview section. Medical check up invitation will arrive if you pass the interview section. Induction day was held for all participants before assigned to specified operations. As for me, I was assigned to Sumatera Operation where the Duri and Minas oil field are existed.

Power Generation and Transmission Department

As a Facility Engineer Intern in Power Generation and Transmission Department, I was supervised by a lead mechanical engineer and a reliability mechanical engineer. Bang Albert Marihot was a lead mechanical engineer at that time, he had more than ten years experience in facility engineering field as he worked in Freeport (copper and gold mining company) and Indonesia Power (power plant) before. Pak Hendra Oktawira was a new reliability engineer, had experienced many years as reliability engineer at a petrochemical company.

The responsibility of PGT department is to supply and sustain electricity power for all Sumatera operation. That is including drilling and residence facility. If the power goes out, that means a reduced PGT’s key performance index. The department mostly habitated by electricity power engineers, project engineers, and mechanical engineers. Mechanical engineers mainly acted as reliability engineer of all equipments involved in power generation, transimssion and distribution process. I was assigned on the implementaion of Risk Based Inspection method on the transmission and distribution equipment. The equipment is ~~steam turbine, gas turbine, heat exchanger~~ power pole.

Power Pole

Do not mind the electric things appear above, even at that time I did not really understand about the how electricity in power pole works. As a mechanical reliability engineer, our task is to maintain the mechanical integrity of the pole that sustain all electrical equipments. The pole sustain all mechanical loads from the weight of equipment and external load from wind forces. One pole falling down could cause disruption of the transmission of electric power for the operation, that means NPT that cause loss of money. ~~Loss of money = blamed employee~~.

The unusual things done here are the Risk Based Inspection applied for the power pole equipment. RBI is usually applied for pressurized oil and gas equipment with high risk consequences. However, we applied the RBI methodology to the maintenance process of power pole. As you know before that RBI is documented in American Petroleum Institute (API) 580 and 581. They are standard which widely used for oil and gas equipment throughtout the industry. In RBI, we assigned each equipment a risk value and then group them based on their risk level. Each risk level might need different mitigation and maintenance effort. Risk defined as probability of failure (PoF) times the consequence of failure (CoF). In a more simple way, we sometimes use risk matrix to define the risk value. There is 3×3 matrix, 4×4 matrix, or 5×5 matrix which more complex. There may be an equipment that has very low probability of failure but might cause disastrous consequence when failure happen. RBI tried to accomodate the effects of both probability and consequence to make a proper preventive maintenance process. As for example: power pole in several Chevron areas were more susceptible to corrosion due to high H2S gas in the enviroment will raise the PoF. If we compare the poles to other in lower corrosion level area, those poles should be assigned a higher risk level so the maintenance treatment will be different. They might need extra thermal, NDT, or thickness inpsection more frequently than the lower risk one. That sums up my works in the internship period. Mostly I learned how maintenance engineer works. I sometimes attended meeting with the inspection vendor, weekly meeting with director, presenting my assessment and giving recommendation. I also gain knowledge of electricity generation process with their transmission and generations equipments.

Such a wonderful experience for a summer internship as an Facility Engineer! *Of course the money was also very good for a college student.

UPP 2013 Alumni – Facility Engineer Intern – SMO Area

BP Challenger Program 2014 Selection Process

BP or commonly mistaken as British Petroleum (they changed the name several years ago) is one of the oil company that has operation facility in Indonesia. They are commonly known for their gas facility in Tangguh, West Papua. From the information I got at the recruitment day at Institute of Technology Bandung back in March 2014, they were looking for many new graduate engineer to compensate their plan of Tangguh train expansion near in the future. Challenger Program for what they named it, is a more like management trainee program where fresh graduate engineer will have exposure of on the job working and numerous training to make them a globally competitive engineer in the future. On 2014 they opened almost for all position in engineering including drilling, completion, mechanical, electrical, process, petrophysic, and petroleum. On this post I will give a glimpse of BP’s selection process for Mechanical Engineer Challenger.

I attended BP’s campus recruitment day around March in 2014. Interested student could apply by drop their CV and the interview with HR will conducted directly afterwards in the afternoon. The campus recruitment day was very advantageous aside from the conventional process from BP’s brassring website.

Conventional:

Online apply – online aptitude test (Saville) – HR Interview – User Interview – Assessment Day

Campus day:

CV – HR Interview – online aptitude test – user interview- assessment day

Well, there is no difference on the process but the swapped online test – HR interview. But that was really matter. FYI, BP hired Saville Consulting for the aptitude test. But the Saville aptitude test was hard and very competitive. The time available was very-very lacking. Sure they want to get the engineer who can think fast under pressure using this test. Shortly, it was very hard to be outstanding in the online test. But if you attend the campus day, you will be getting a HR interview first. If you had a good interview session, you will considered even you just got average mark in the aptitude test. True story. Been there before, and I got lucky to passed the aptitude even with my moderate mark. Be sure to participate in the campus recruitment day!

The process

HR Interview

On this interview I faced two assessor, one HR team and one Mechanical Engineer which just graduated from the Challenger program. Interview. We talked about my activities and achievements in college and none of technical related question.

Saville Online Test

There were three assessment; diagrammatic, verbal reasoning, and numerical. Time was very restricted so fast and steady internet connection really needed. Google saville online test about the image of question will be asked.

User Interview

Because I applied for Mechanical Static Engineer, the question asked are none other about heat exchanger. They do need a lot of heat exchanger on gas facility. My tips, study about Air Cooled Heat Exchanger because we will talked about that specifically in the interview. You can easily study it in Hewitt’s book about Process Heat Transfer. Air cooled heat exchanger are used for cooling the gas after compression, or so said as intercooler. When I missed with some answer I did not know, Mr. Wisnu (the user) gave a little lecture about heat exchanger. How to accommodate the tube expansion, increasing heat transfer coefficient without cost, and many practical information about engineering works in the real world. I got so much new knowledge and just knew about the spiral heat exchanger type used in LNG industry. What a great interview!

Assessment Day

In the evening after user interview I got a call from HR that I passed to the assessment day section. User interview on Wednesday and assessment day held on next Friday. Such a fast recruitment process due to urgent needs for new engineer for upcoming expansion project. On Thursday evening we met with other assessment day participates and given accommodation by BP. Lodging place provided in Mercure Hotel, TB Simatupang, Jakarta. We also given information about what will we faced on the assessment day and how to prepare it. There was also a presentation for user about the benefits and what will you get when work at BP. There were total of 9 persons competing in assessment day, 3 mechanical, 3 electrical, and 3 chemical engineer for process. That was for Global Project Operation and still a lot from other division (Global Operation and others).

What is assessment day?

It was my first time attend an assessment day for job recruitment purpose. Assessment day is a day or more day where employee candidate will be assessed thoroughly about their likeability to perform well on work. Many test provided on the assessment day(s) ranging from interpersonal skills, communication skills, arguing a opinion, critical thinking under pressure and many others. (Source: googling). But for BP’s I got only 3 activities: FGD, Case Interview, and Personality Interview.

1. FGD

Topics discussed on the FGD was technology to be used on offshore drilling facility. We are given many alternatives within in the case paper and some times to read and think. Then we have to discuss within our group which one will we choose. At the end of the discussion, one voice is expected from the result of team’s discussion. Clue: you have to choose between flare or gas pipeline, conventional drilling or hi-tech drilling, water injection or treatment facility, and others I do not remember. You are in the point of oil company and you have to choose the alternatives which most probably benefitting for the operation. There were no right or wrong answer, as long you have reasonable reason with your choice. At the end of the discussion, we were expected to present our conclusion to assessors.

2. Case Interview

In this interview you had to choose between to alternatives. There were two choices of prospective well location, one is a conflict area in Africa and the other is a relatively safe location somewhere in East Europe. Each of them had their own pros and cons. There were should not be a absolute true answer on this. I chose the conflict area back then whereas other participates had the safe location as their answer. Just ready to prepare your argument on defending whatever your choice of alternative.

3. Personality Interview

This sounded like a normal HR interview but more meticulous. Some questions like how to solve a problem, facing conflict, communication style were asked.

Even I did not pass the assessment day, I still got much valuable experience from it. The assessment day gave a brief description about the working atmosphere of real world. For those who has not heard about assessment day before, I expect this post kind of helpful to you.

Good luck.

Internship at Graduate Institute of Ferrous Technology, POSTECH

Even this is late post, I hope you can benefitted from this post whether you are interested to join the internship or the graduate program at Graduate Institute of Ferrous Technology at Postech.

I finished my internship exactly one year ago, at the early day of February 2014. I departed to Korea at several days after New Year, the internship itself took almost two months. Two months felt very short, time flew so fast back there. Common relativity law applies here, time felt so fast when you enjoy something and vice versa. In short, I really enjoyed my internship in GIFT matter two months just passed without notice.

How to apply?

GIFT opens internship program semi annually every summer and winter. You can access their page viahttp://gift.postech.ac.kr to find out actual information about the program. Documents required are english proficient certificate (TOEIC, IELTS, or TOEFL IBT), academic transcripts, letter of motivation and research plan, and internship form. I used TOEFL ITP year ago but later I found out that ITP TOEFL is not recognized anymore. GIFT only accept documents sent via air mail, online document submission will not be processed. The announcement of successful applicant will appeared at website and successful candidate received personal email.

In the internship form and research plan, you must submit which laboratory you would attend during the internship. You can choose 3 alternatives of laboratory with your respective priority. I entered Surface Engineering Laboratory, Material Mechanic Laboratory, and Material Reliability Laboratory as my priority subsequently. Later I was accepted at MML because SEL was no longer available for new student. People said the lab would be shut down soon. MML’s activities were the most mutual to my field, Mechanical Engineering. They did research upon mechanical properties of material during stamping and forming process. Some PhD students even studied microstructure effects to material properties via Finite Element Method. The head professor on MML is a famous person in his field. I did not that he was famous but later I founded out he was celebrity in his field. Unfortunately I only met him for 1 days because one day after my arrival, he went to Switzerland for his sabbatical period.

Learning opportunities

Pohang University of Science and Technology is one of leading research institute in South Korea. In engineering field, they main rival is KAIST. They provide advance technology for research activity besides good benefit to students. Master students on GIFT will received 1 million KRW per month for monthly stipend. It was more than enough to life in Korea with student lifestyle. The motive of their generosity is no other than pushing their research activities to produce more published paper and patent. As you can see in THE, POSTECH has good industry outcome and citation score which make them as rank 66 in the world. For you who seek for good academic and research experience, POSTECH is excellent for you.

My research

It was not a true research anyway, I just helped my senior there for little regression work. I did a comparative study on predicting high temperature flow stress in 22MnB5 alloy steel using Johnson-Cook and Arrhenius constitutive equation models. The 22MnB5 material commonly used as body pillar material of automobile. Its characteristic of strong yet low in weight made this material used. Because the manufacturing conducted at high temperature to form the material easily and quench is applied (cooling of high temperature material with fast cooling rate) we need to know its behaviour for accurate forming process. I also witnessed and participated while obtained the data through experiment. We were using Gleeble quenching machine, and it was my first time experiencing research works. Kinda frustrating when your speciment fail due to small mistake.

Live in Pohang

Pohang is number 9th most populated city in South Korea. Albeit it does not have high modernity compared to Seoul, it was really a nice city to live. Postech located on sub-urban area apart from downtown and crowded city part. Still the downtown and famous city part are easy to reach via bus transportation. Postech has complete facilites for student including football field, gymnasium, swimming pool, library (really cool library though), and student cafetaria. You can buy your daily needs at convenience store inside campus area but big convenience store like HomePlus is also easy to reach, only one bus ride to reach. Final say, location of POSTECH is convenient for students.

The internship offers valuable experience on steel related research which you can really benefit of, specially for you who intend to apply for GIFT graduate program. Internship alumni has better chance of acceptance for the graduate program.