I’m not
sure whether I’m an ethical or moral person. Moral and ethic are quite abstract
concepts, while the reasons why I truly hate things like corruption or … (in this story) nepotism is practical
and experience based. It’s unfair, and in my case it has stolen something from
someone I really care about.
Medicine… well
that subject of study is the Holy Grail in my high school. Every smart kid wants
to study medicine in university. But being a doctor is not a cheap life goal.
Private University tuition fee for medicine is super expensive and my high
school was a government’s school, so you know… we’re used to good quality for LOW…
nope I should say AFFORDABLE (that’s more
appropriate…) price.
So most (if not all) of smart kids/doctors
wannabe was eyeing top public universities like UI, UGM (my alma yay!), UNPAD, etc where learning
in the Faculty of Medicine will not put a huge blow in your parents retirement
savings. Although it means you have to compete for a seat with literally tens
or hundreds thousand students with the same obsession plan in national
scale exams and tests. No biggie, we’ve sit in classroom for 12 years
definitely for that ultimate purpose.
This is the
personal part of my story, one of my best friends is one of the most diligent and
intelligent students I’ve ever known. We’ve been competing for top class rank
since elementary school (yeah... that’s a
little hint I got a bit of brain too). So while I (as a result of high school physics and chemistry went badly) steered
towards journalism (also Law and English…
or anything without physics and chem.) as my chosen subject in University,
she consistently aced in science subjects and was in the right passage of the Holy
Grail.
But that
passage then spoiled by the nasty nepotism. That year, one of the top public Universities
I mention above (the third one, not clear
enough? Ok, yes the UNPAD one) was opening some new program. Students of
top rank schools in each district could join some kind of alternative admission
called Matriculation. Matriculation doesn’t involve taking the tests with the
tens or hundreds thousand other students. It’s based on your average sums of
GPA during your 3 senior years in high school.
So based on
that term and condition, we can conclude that my best friend should have a
chance to enlist in the Matriculation right? Of course yes since she had all
the requirements. But what happened is…. NO she didn’t enlist or being enlisted by the
school authorities. She or I or pretty much all the students didn’t even know
about that Matriculation program.
So did my
school discard the Matriculation (which
basically the golden ticket of Willy Wonka)?
Of course
it didn’t.
My school
very much acknowledged and valued the Matriculation. That’s why they didn’t
announce it publicly. Why should they announce the golden ticket to all
prospective and eligible students (such a
hassle right?). Why should they make some kind of tests or openly rank the
sums of GPA from the bright students like my best friend when there’re already
students who related to school officials and their close friends who are
willing to take it.
And in the
chosen ones went to the Matriculation (no
one knew or realized it, just like a Jedi mind trick)
Did the nepotistic
way successfully choose the right students for Matriculation?
Remember
when I told you I’m not too bad at grades? That means I was quite often in the
top ranks during the 3 years and knew the histories and circles of brainy kids
in my school. And I can judge account
objectively that not all of the students who finally went deserve this. Oh some
of them are not even in the top 10 of their class. Let alone compared to the
champions of our school.
I feel bad
for UNPAD for not getting the best students
I feel angry
for witnessing sneaky theft impacting someone’s future
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