Let’s meet Adhelia Intan Sabhira, undergraduate student in Faculty of Biology Universitas Gadjah Mada year 2020. In 2022, she had the opportunity to join Indonesian International Student Mobility Awards (IISMA) to Radboud University, the Netherlands. It’s a scholarship program by Indonesia government for college students to study abroad for a semester.
For Adhelia, being selected for the IISMA program still feels like a dream, up until now. She believes that IISMA is fantastic and life-changing as it allows them to not only experience college life and a brand new and international setting, but also does it expand their worldview and networking with people from different cultures. “IISMA program provides us with more than useful benefits to pave our future.”
Studying abroad means get out-of-comfort zone for Adhelia. She hopes that by studying abroad, she become more independent, as well as being able to obtain all the knowledge and experience she couldn’t get in Indonesia and explore deeper into where her true passion lies. Furthermore, she is looking forward to share her own insight on Indonesians culture as well as exchanging perspective on various prompts with people from diverse background.
Adhelia enjoys her time in Radboud University, where she has been able to meet and converse with distinguished experts from different fields. Radboud University has the learning environment that extremely significant in shaping the way of studying, where students being assertive and proactive in conveying their opinions, disagreements, and agreements regarding certain topics in academia which is a pivotal point to strengthen students’ understanding on lessons.
In class, she found new learning and teaching system which is very interactive and objected on the analytical and critical-thinking. Adhelia realized that studying in class is not about reading textbooks, listening to lectures, and doing presentations, but it is also about trying to solve different real-life cases and thinking beyond what the students already know. She is definitely honing skills of importance for her endeavors in Radboud University.
Why Radboud University?
It is a fun fact that Adhelia has spent her childhood in the Netherlands. She recalls the heartwarming memories until now. The sparked experiencing college life in the Netherlands as one of her dreams. Besides, she has the interest on biomedicine. Radboud University offered medical courses that support her interest in biomedicine among universities around the world. Currently, Adhelia is taking 3 courses: Global Health and Infectious Diseases, Globalising Worlds, and Intercultural Communication.
The reasons behind her selected courses are very inspiring. As a tropical country, Indonesia has high prevalence in infectious diseases hence Adhelia learn it from Global Health and Infectious Diseases which will help her with learning the sufficient knowledge on how to reduce the infectious disease cases. Globalising Worlds also closely associated with real-life situations in Indonesia as it studies issues related to urbanization, livelihood, climate change adaptation and mitigations, waste management, etc. in the Global South. Lastly, Intercultural Communications help her to obtain practical insights regarding how to communicate and connect with people from diverse cultural backgrounds in the proper way (AIS/AS).