IO, Surabaya – Most undergraduate students only research their final project to meet graduation requirements, but that is not the case with Bobby Ardiansyah Miraja. The graduate from the Department of Business Management, Faculty of Creative Design and Digital Business, Sepuluh November Institute of Technology (ITS), Surabaya, successfully passed five scientific papers in international journals indexed by Scopus, a citation data center or scientific literature owned by Elsevier, the world’s leading publisher.
Remarkably, the five scientific journals passed all the work in the past year. Three have been published, two others are still awaiting publication this year. There are still two more international scientific journals where Bobby successfully published, but Scopus has not yet indexed them.
Although preoccupied with his activities in writing the journal, Bobby, who is a recipient of a Bidikmisi scholarship, was still able to complete his undergraduate education in only seven semesters or 3.5 years. All of his work began at the invitation of ITS Business Management lecturer, Satria Fadil Persada SKom MBA Ph.D., to be guided in researching and publishing scientific journals. Bobby, who at the time felt that he did not understand the Research Methods course in his department, felt that this offer could be a solution to his difficulties.
“I started in September 2018 with a few friends; later I was the only one interested and survived,” he said in a release received by the Independent Observer, Friday (3/13/2020).
At that time, the 2016 class students revealed that they had no experience in writing scientific articles, even though they admitted that they had long been interested in scientific matters. Bobby then became a lecturer in the Young Scientist community in the Business Management Department set up by the lecturer in 2019. The community aims to guide other students in conducting research.
“Mr. Satria hoped the theses of ITS students can later become a journal publication and this community can become a role model for ITS in the future,” he said.
To date, five of Bobby’s scientific journals have been cited 17 times. Bobby admitted that he was very happy when he learned that his journal was cited for the first time in a doctoral dissertation at a university in the United States.
In addition to scientific journals, the teenager from Surabaya is also active in business competitions and student organizations. His social entrepreneurship idea to educate high school children in choosing tertiary institutions succeeded in getting double funding from the Indonesian Student Business Competition (KBMI) and ITS Youth Technopreneurship (IYT) program in 2019. “Socially, we help Bidikmisi students (scholarship recipients) with financial problems by becoming an online consultant,” he said.
In departmental student organizations, Bobby holds the position of Deputy Chair of the Business Management Student Association (BMSA) since 2019. He carried out research, business competition, and organization at the same time. According to him, mental health is the key to productivity. “We must be happy all the time because if we are happy, work can be finished,” he said.
Nevertheless, Bobby’s life was not without difficulties. Bobby relates how his parents are not from educated circles. This is certainly interesting, especially when Bobby relates how his parents do not understand what he is doing. “When my journal was published, they were confused with what I wrote even though I explained it many times,” he said.
Talking about his parents, Bobby admitted that at this time his father only worked as a masseur and his mother helped by selling food. According to Bobby, since childhood, he was taught about how money is not everything, so he claimed not to feel inferior about the condition of his family.
In finding his love for the scientific world, Bobby claimed not to get the slightest demand from his parents. This free condition led him to find an online medium called 9gag on the internet. He discovered a lot of scientific things in the sharing of media memes. In middle school, Bobby realized his fondness for learning. “Finally I feel like learning not because of pressure from anyone,” he said.
Bobby revealed his love of learning and scholarship was able to help ease the burdens on his parents. “When things are difficult, it happens that my research incentive funds are coming so that they can help my parents,” he said with a proud smile.
Bobby advises fellow students to always maintain mental health. According to him, this is often forgotten by most people. According to him, besides working, entertainment also needs to be planned. “Search and plan an entertainment that you like, for example by playing games or watching TV shows,” he said. (*/est)