It has been approximately a year after I left what used to be my comfort zone. I'm currently studying in NUS, but before this, I was already enrolled in HKUST for a year. It can be a long story to tell why I moved, but the main reason is because I prayed for the scholarship offer if it is really the way for me to move, and I got it.
Truth to be told, moving to NUS, although it is a well-known university, is not the easiest decision I've ever made. First of all, the bond between Indonesian students in HKUST is strong and I already have some friends who really know how to have fun, but at the same time they won't hesitate to help in times of difficulty. I used to rely on others to the extent I fell asleep everyday, almost in every class and at night, I would ask my friends or seniors to teach me. I could also nominate HKUST as the university with the most beautiful scenery. It is located on the hills and near the beach, so you could imagine how beautiful it is. I really loved the scenery on the sunny Sunday, with the sailboats calmly moving through the ocean and the birds flying. The view really made almost everyday feel like a holiday. Besides that, at that time, I already fell in love with Hong Kong, the city that never sleeps, where you can find gigantic portion of tasty food everywhere and buy cheap stuffs in the markets. Some people can't enjoy how Hong Kong is so cramped with people (really, you don't even need to bring an umbrella if it rains because you can just sneak in under others' umbrellas), but even that is the part of Hong Kong that I love. When I was still in HKUST, I always pondered whether in NUS will be even more difficult, because I already struggled a lot in HKUST. If it is really more difficult, will there be someone who is willing to teach me, because I heard that the students in Singapore are very competitive (you call it kiasu). These things maybe a bit trivial, but they made it hard for me to move to another university.
At the beginning of my journey in NUS, I had this expectation that my first year would be smooth, since I could survive HKUST with the grades that, at least, met my standard. However, it was not that smooth. Although I have taken academic English modules in HKUST, I couldn't pass the Qualifying English Test in NUS and I had to retake the zero credit academic English module, but the workload is as if it was a four credit module. I took a programming with Matlab module and my quizzes results went down gradually. NUS used the bell curve grading system (grading based on class average), and my second quiz barely scraped the average score. The final exam was even worse since I didn't even manage to finish the problem with the largest point. What put me even more in despair was I could not find a friend that was as willing to teach me as my friends back in HKUST. In my first semester, I could not be grateful, although I got the scholarship, something that many people want. I had this love-hate relationship with God. I prayed before making the decision, and I followed the answer of the prayer, Â but why did I struggle just to get the scores above the average? There was also this fear that my scholarship would be terminated, because there is a minimum requirement of GPA (IP in Indonesia) in order to maintain it. Still, I try to believe that if He leads me to a battlefield, He will lead me through it.
At the end of this academic year, despite of all those things that I had gone through, things turned out pretty well. My result is quite satisfying, and I managed to maintain the scholarship.
Through thick and thin, when I looked back, I realized that I change more, in a positive way, in this whole new realm. In the end of my second semester, I found my stress management has improved. I act out this "do the best and let God do the rest" better and stop feeling insecure after submitting the exam papers. I spend time to pray without rushing, even during the busy days. I found some good friends with whom I can hangout, study, and share stuffs together. Still, I realize that studying is my responsibility and I have to stop counting on others to teach me all the time. So, I sleep early and I finally don't fall asleep in the class anymore. I do the tutorial questions, the thing that I never did in HKUST. I explore more by joining many co-curricular activities. The one that is new to me is volunteering in a children clinic, and from here I learned how to relate with small children. I exercise more, and this is also the thing that I barely did in Hong Kong. Last but not least, I find that it is really important to have fun and take some time for "self-indulgence". I still have a few years to go in the university life, so not being a hyprocrite, I still try to work on these and hopefully, though the courses will become more advance, I can still do all these stuffs.
So, the point of  this article is just to encourage others to not be afraid of stepping out of the comfort zone. It will be tough, indeed, but that's the place where you grow the most.