Aini’s Struggle to Earn Her Doctoral Degree of IPB in Young Age
Dr. Nur Aini Iswati Hasanah, ST, M.Si, officially completed her doctoral degree program on 30 August 2017. Aini merited two degrees at the same time only in a period of four years namely the Master degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering and Doctoral degree of Agricultural Engineering through the fast track program of Pendidikan Magister Menuju Doktor untuk Sarjana Unggul (PMDSU Master's Degree Towards Doctorate for Excellence).
Her passion for education is embedded in a principle that science has never exhausted the rational, and science has directly interacted with other disciplines. The world of research has been very familiar for Dr. Aini, no wonder her works have been published, both national and international scale.
"Alhamdulillah I can complete my study on time with two publications which were published in accredited national journals and two publications in Scopus-indexed international journals, and part of my dissertation was also selected to be included 107 Indonesian Innovations," said Dr. Aini, one of the initiators of an automatic portable rice field for Indonesian agriculture.
Doing a PhD is one of the toughest tests anyone can face in academic life, how she had been able to cope with some of those challenges. Starting from completing research project for her Dissertation as well as the courses she undertook while she had been in her doctoral degree program and challenges of the professor. It was probably the toughest test she faced in her academic life "My professor always challenged me, starting from a joint in Indonesian innovation, pursuing higher degree program in the most competitive university in the United States and the best universities in Japan, or writing an English dissertation, and the final challenge was English presentation in the the closed session in her Doctoral Exam," explained her doctoral supervisor Prof. Budi Indra Setiawan.
As the youngest student in the class, Dr. Aini was very grateful as her classmates were generally open with younger people like Dr. Aini. She admitted that despite her age, her colleagues remain attentive and always encouraged her.
Her interest in the world of science and technology led Dr. Aini tends to increasingly sacrifice sleep time for studying in the later years of her education. "I sleep irregularly because it often stay up. Usually I can stay up to two days and then take rest for one full day, "said Dr. Aini. Dr. Aini spent her time staying up to learn on engineering using full English books. For her, English books are easy for her to understand as well as for language learning.
No wonder in the first year, Dr. Aini successfully completed her master thesis while she had been undertaking her doctoral degree program. In fact, Dr. Aini was elected to be the Best Graduate in July last year with a 4.00 GPA with a study period of 23 months. Right at the age of 26 years, she earned her doctoral degree uccessfully. (Wied)
