Reflecting Educated on Life as A Student

Yogyakarta, January 21st 2021 – Public Policy Management Book Club collaborated with GAMAPI FISIPOL UGM held another ‘Book Corner of PPM’ on Thursday (21/1). This time, Book Corner of PPM discussed a book with the title Educated (2018) which was written by Tara Westover. The discussant was Indri Dwi Apriliyanti, MBA., Ph.D., a lecturer of the Department of Public Policy and Management and Annisa Rahmania Jernih, a student of Public Policy Management. The discussion was opened by the opening speech of a lecturer of PPM, Ario Wicaksono. In his speech, Ario hoped there will be another collaboration and discussion of interesting books like this in the future.The discussion about the contents of the book was started by Annisa who told about the background of the author and how she succeeded in getting an education. For Annisa, Westover is a unique figure because she experienced in getting education from the least conventional to the most elite education. In fact, in her book, Tara told the story that she got into college without receiving previous education. “Westover does not have a high school diploma but has two Ph.Ds from Cambridge University,” Anissa said.

Indri tried to tell the contents of the book from another point of view. Indri began with an explanation that Westover lived for almost two decades with a family who has an extremist-fundamental ideology. For Indri, it also influenced the family to understand the external reality. “In this case, the understanding of reality will be very much distorted from the doctrines and dogmas that were built by her dominant father,” she said.

Indri then contextualized the life of students who are far from their parents. According to her, in college, students learn to develop critical thinking, at the same time they also begin to hone a moral compass which is built with values that have been learned by themselves. Indri continued, the students shaped themselves as individuals who have ideologies as well as values that are believed to be the result of years of studying in college and living away from family. “These values and ideologies then shaped the students to navigate their point of view in society, free from the doctrines and dogmas of the family,” Indri said.

After the discussion by the discussants, the discussion was continued with a sharing session from the students who were also present. One of them is Stevan Advent Satria, a student of PPM from the class of 2020. He said that in the context of political views, he tends to be the same as his family. Another student who also shared his thoughts was Fery Dwi Setiawan, a student of PPM from 2019 class of 2019. Fery shared about the differences in knowledge, culture, and work in his area where he lives with an area that is not relatively far from his place.