My experience as Ph.D. student
(Dea Aulia Kartini_alumni of Faculty of Engineering and Science, UNAS)
Continuing my study abroad was always a dream of mine. Right after I graduated from the university, I applied for SUT-Ph.D. Scholarship for ASEAN and I was accepted as Ph.D. student in the School of Physics at Suranaree University of Technology (SUT) in Thailand. Unlike ordinary universities in Indonesia, SUT offers a Ph.D. program for undergraduate or Bachelor graduates without taking a Master degree, but you must study Ph.D. for 5 years instead of 3 years. As someone who has just graduated from undergraduate, the graduate school was tough and I felt so much pressure on my shoulder. Despite all hardship I have during my study, I gained more knowledge and experiences. I was lucky to be taught by professional lecturers and guided by experienced advisors. I also got many friends from different countries and therefore I learned a lot about the culture of different countries.
In the 3rd year of my study, my advisor sent me to the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research (GSI) which is a research center in Germany, to study and carry out my Ph.D. experiments. It was my first time traveling to Europe and I felt so nervous, but excited at the same time. At GSI, I met many experienced researchers and I learned a lot of things from them such as performing a cell culture in the laboratory and image reconstruction using programming language Python. From 2018 until 2021, I was required to travel back and forth between Thailand and Germany because it took some time to finish my Ph.D. research. Thanks to that, I could travel to several countries in Europe during my day-off. Finally, after so many up and down, I was able to finish my Ph.D. study. I had my final Ph.D. thesis defense last year and it just felt like a dream. I never thought that I could finish my Ph.D. study, but I did it! Right now, I am planning to work as a post-doctoral researcher in Center of Excellence in High Energy Physics and Astrophysics, School of Physics, Suranaree University of Technology.
