A few weeks ago, I just finished my study at Bangkit Academy as Machine Learning Student. Held by Google x Ministry of Education and Culture Indonesia and supported by Tokopedia, Gojek, and Traveloka. This is an implementation of Merdeka Belajar, the Ministry of Education and Culture program to encourage students to learn something more outside of college.
What is Merdeka Belajar Program?
Simply, the Ministry of Education and Culture wants to encourage students to get their maximum potential. The program supports students to take any chances outside of college e.g Bootcamp (like Bangkit did), Community Dedication, Internship, etc. Every chance that we took, we convert with maximum of 20 credits (SKS). For example, I took Bangkit program, which is I can convert Bangkit 2021 Script into (max) 20 credits. Unlucky, my department only can convert 11 credits (hikss).
So, what I did at Bangkit Academy?
Bangkit Academy was held for about 4 months, since February until the end of June. It’s an amazing experience to be here since Machine Learning was something new for me. I’ll explain what I did at Bangkit and I divided it into 2 topics:
- Theoretical
- Practical
Theoretical
I studied Machine Learning from February until early April. It’s not only a hard skill but I’ve got soft skill subjects from mentors. For the Machine Learning student itself, we’re self-paced on Coursera. And for soft-skill that I learned was from mentors and we used Google Meet for classes. So I’ll explain more detail about the subjects that I learned at Bangkit Academy.
Hard skills:
- IT Python Certification
- Mathematics for Machine Learning
- Problem Framing
- DeepLearning AI TensorFlow
- Data Preparation
- Structuring Machine Learning
- TensorFlow Data and Deployment
- Studium General (Mentoring Session)
Soft Skills:
- Digital Branding & Interview Communication
- Time Management
- Professional Communication
- Adaptability
- Persuasive Leader
- Critical Thinking
- Idea Generation and MVP Planning
- Business Finance
- Startup Valuation
A roller-coaster experience for me because programming (especially machine learning) is a new thing for me this year. I really really a newbie in this field, luckily, every person around me, support me to pass this through. Why I jumped into this topic is beyond the scope of this post. In this program, I’ve met with an “outlier” person that I have no idea to explain that haha. Maybe, they have been in this field for a long time, or talent from born. Whatever it is, I’m inspired by them.
One thing that is certain as long as I am progressing at Bangkit is that my English skills are very honed because this program uses full English which encourages me to continue learning and practicing with English until I get used to it even though I am still struggling. This program also provided us to learn English with Cakap English Class.
Practical
After we finished all subjects, we need to implementation of our skills in this project. We called it Capstone Project. So, the capstone project stands by 6 peoples, 2 person each learning path (Machine Learning, Mobile Dev, and Cloud Computing). As a team, we need to solve real problems. Bangkit was announcing the theme of the capstone project and we need to take one from those. Here the themes:
- Competitive Human Resources
- Economic Resilience
- Healthcare
- Infrastructure Development
- Mobility & Smart City
- National Identity & Character Building
- Political Stability, Rule of Law, National Security & Public Services Transformation
- Women Empowerment and Child Protection
- Environmental Conservation, Disaster Resilience, and Climate Change
- Regional Development
- Education & Research
- Food Security
About 400 teams participated in this project and held about 2 months. Every team has 1 mentor, and each mentor sometimes has a different background, it suits the needs of your team. I will explain more detail about this project soon! I will explain how #JagawanaTeam (my team) could be one of the best teams in this project! Anything that you need to know about what I did at that project and what my team built, everything, I’ll explain soon! Just wait!
