[Perjalanan Menuju FKUI] Sarah Kamiela Juffry

My name is Sarah Kamiela Juffry, I am the eldest out of 4 siblings, I was born on December 27, 1997, in Jakarta, Indonesia. I came from a national plus school called Cita Buana. I used to be active in MUN, debate, and student council when I was in high school. I also joined aquatic sports competitions such as swimming and water polo when I was there.

All my life I have dreamt of becoming a doctor, since preschool I would always answer “a doctor” when someone asks me what I want to be in the future. During my preteen years, I always heard people saying that University of Indonesia is one of the best and most prestigious university in Indonesia. After that, I started to wonder how honoured I would feel if I get accepted to said university. Months later, I placed getting accepted in UI as number one in my goals list. To achieve that goal of mine, I worked harder at school, tried hard to improve my grade every semester, and applied for extra classes and courses outside of school. For addition, I cut off my hangouts with my friends and started shifting it to study groups. Everything I did were calculated moves in order to get an invitation to join talent scouting UI. When the time finally came and the school announced that I was eligible to join the talent scouting, I was ecstatic.

I applied for medical science and waited for the call to attend the interview. During the waiting period, I felt anxious and insecure, it was quite easy to lose hope and be a pessimist, but my parents and friends were always there to motivate me and pray for me. One day in the afternoon, I got a call from UI, a woman started speaking, she mentioned something along “attending an interview” and I was so surprised that all I did was stuttering in disbelief. After the woman hung up, I ran to my parents’ room, I hugged them tightly and told them the good news with joyous tears running down my face. However, the jolliness soon transformed into nervousness. Started then, I prepared myself for the interview, starting from frequently asked questions in interviews and how to act when being interviewed. When the day finally came, I went to the Rumpun Ilmu Kesehatan building in University of Indonesia Depok and did my interview there. The interview itself took exactly 64 minutes with eight stations in total. It was filled with study cases, role play, and “real-life problems” based-questions. I was glad when it was over, but I kept thinking about my performance. The question “Was I good enough?” ran around in my head for weeks.

I could still remember everything that went down on the announcement day vividly. I was at school with my friends refreshing the website from each of our mobile phones and laptops. My friend successfully got a hold of the website and I logged in through her phone. Right after reading the word “Congratulations” I looked at my friends and bursted into tears. They scurried up to me and hugged me tightly, “Guys I freaking got in!” was out of my mouth before I realised it and all of them congratulated and cried with me. The euphoria did not die down by even an inch when I was on the phone with my mom. The news then travelled to the ears of teachers, some of my closest teachers went down to the lobby and hugged me. It felt like I was on cloud nine. Straight away after that, my best friends and I went to have a celebratory lunch together.

I hope that I will be able to continue to grow as a person, step out of my comfort zone, and face new challenges with confidence. I cannot express my gratitude enough towards my parents for the endless support and trust, I hope that one day in the future I will be someone who is worthy of their efforts. Lastly, I hope that FKUI will teach me not only academical knowledge but how to think and act like a real and respected doctor as well. I cannot wait to officially be a part of the FKUI family and strive to receive the title “doctor” to uphold.

I have got a motto that I live by the minute I read it when I was scrolling through tumblr back in middle school, “In the end, we only regret the chances we didn’t take”. Ultimately, in life, we must act bravely, take impactful actions, face challenges head on, do the things that bring joy to ourselves, and not be afraid to make mistakes, because without it we can’t ever grow.