Hi everyone, this is Prima. It’s been a while since I wrote something on my page. On this occasion, I would like to write about my journey to get my current position as a SOC Analyst at one of the biggest banks in Indonesia. But before that, lemme reminisce about the past hehehe.
In my final year of college, like other students, I also faced some difficulties deciding what path I should choose after finishing my bachelor’s degree. At that time, I could probably say that my potential was 50:50 between working in the industry or pursuing further graduate study. I worked as a Data Science Intern at PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia Tbk while doing a lot of research with my professor on Machine Learning algorithms. I was very interested in these topics at that time.
My decision finally boiled down to continuing my graduate study because I got a chance to do some research at the National University of Singapore to increase my knowledge about academic writing and deep learning research. In the end, this opportunity also gave me the golden ticket to continue my graduate study at NUS as a Master’s student, especially in Computer Science, which made me really excited to start this journey.
However, the problems started here. I was lulled by my previous success. I was not prepared enough to start my graduate study there. I did not study ENOUGH so that I could seamlessly adapt when the semester started. I thought the burden would not be that heavy. I thought my experience in academic writing and some research could help me a lot there, and I was wrong.
I started to fall behind because I needed to learn a lot of things simultaneously: adapting to the culture (both campus and country), improving my English, learning academic writing, and not forgetting the technical things I needed to learn in class or research. All of these things made me feel burned out, and I could not think clearly.
The final trigger was the final test of the semester, which made me conclude that my capabilities and mental strength were not strong enough to handle this academic burden. So I quit (administratively legal, of course).
It was fully my mistake, and I am 100 percent aware of it. Sometimes, even at this moment while writing this article, I regret that I was not serious or did not try hard enough back then. If I had the chance, I would like to say these words to myself again:
Read your f-ing study material, relearn all the technical skills, get your better IELTS score, learn more about academic writing, and read a lot of papers.
These tips would have helped me A LOT back then.
I think that is enough of the reminiscing and storytelling. At the end of the day, I’m in a much better condition mentally right now. In the next chapter, I will share more about this journey: why I became interested in cybersecurity and how I discovered it.
Thanks for reading. Cheers