5 Things You Would Change In Your University

A private university located in the hectic city of Jakarta, Indonesia is the kind of university that you would expect to be filled with depressed people walking around. And this is not a lie, being a student at this amazing university has its own pros and cons. Honestly, I love my university, why? Well, first of all, it is located in Jakarta! An amazing multicultural city, and also this university is honestly one of the best private universities in the country based on academic achievements. But on some occasions, I would think to myself ‘’why did I choose this University again?’’. Here are some reasons that made me have those doubts.

The challenge of studying in the big city

After class, you would want to breath clean fresh air to freshen up your brain that had to absorb all those notes you’ve taken during class. But where is the park? Nowhere to be found. There might be a few trees here and there, but comparing it with all the big buildings and traffic surrounding the university, all you get is polluted air going down to your lungs. Not only the air is polluted, the temperature is also very warm knowing it to be located in a tropical land.

Every student’s dream is to have a local park where they can sit down on the grass and see other students relax. Also, a study by Penn State University stated that by having a park, it could reduce stress and become more aware of their physical health (Eastern Kentucky University, sd). But because of the limited ground of the university, it is nearly impossible to have that kind of park.

Jakarta. What is this city most famous of? That’s right, traffic. And guess what, the area of this university is known to be one of the most horrible routes to drive through because of the narrow road and amount of people using this road. Cars, motorcycles, buses, and people crossing the streets carelessly are the main factors this road is always filled with traffic. There are a lot of students using cars to get to classes, and this is proven by the university itself, the building of the university has 8 floors, and how many floors does the parking lot have? 8 floors.

And all that space isn’t enough, about 300 meters from the university, an extra parking ground has recently been opened because the parking lot building couldn’t accommodate most of the student’s car. So imagine when most of the classes start at 07.20 AM, how would that narrow road look like? That’s right, crowded. And how I wish it could be toned down a bit. Like having its own bus that goes to the university from checkpoints around the city might be a solution.

Next, entering a university in Indonesia means freedom of expressing ourselves. Being forced to use uniforms all the way to high school might have made these students bored of wearing the same clothes over and over again. So once they entered the university, they started using clothes that really express themselves. But sometimes this comes with a bad after effect, especially in a private university like mine where most of the students attending are coming from middle-class families to upper-class families. The Indonesian young adults in these kinds of environment really pay a lot of attention towards their social standards.

The challenge of studying in The big city

And usually by only looking at what someone wears they conclude by themselves if they want to hang out with this certain person or not. The youth in this private university is no exception, when you walk through the hallways you could sometimes hear them whispering or see their glances judging the clothes that you wear. And this is something that made some students uncomfortable going to classes. This is not only a problem that my university faces, most of the universities out there have the same social problems which in any other way has to be stopped.

Now, there is another problem in this university, it might not be as big as the previous three I mentioned, but this problem is a matter of ‘so we do not have to walk all the way to the convenience store across the street’. Mineral water is something you really need, especially in a tropical weather. You can get your mineral water in a vending machine or a small store at the cafeteria. But when you want to buy this bottle of mineral water, you have to pay using a flash card, which is the student ID card that works like a debit card.

We can not pay with cash, so when you want to buy water on the fifth floor, you have to walk all the way to the first floor to top-up your flash card. And this problem has been the struggle of all the students attending this university. The closest place where we could buy water with cash is at a convenience store across the street, so you have to walk out of the university gates and cross that road filled with traffic.

Last but not least is more about the surrounding area of the university. It is the criminal activity that haunts most of the students that have classes until night. Theft and sexual harassment often happen in this area. Once a friend went out of the gates to buy a snack that they sell in one of the alleys around the university, once she returned, she returned without her phone and wallet which has been stolen from her. Catcalling also happens a lot in this area which makes the female students uncomfortable to walk alone without being accompanied. The perpetrators are usually not students but local residents. And what I want to change about that is the mindset of these people so the students and local residents can live well among each other.