Language: Bahasa Indonesia and English
Time
flies; I am a year older now since I blogged anything at all. This past year,
if I must say, has been a wild one. I tried and experienced so many new things this
past year alone, so much that I feel like an entirely new personality. I do
hope though that the change is good, and I would still hold dear my core traits
and values that define me as a human being, but regardless, I definitely had more
smiles than I did my freshman year at MIT (mungkin karena tahun pertama masih
cupu dan pemalu kali ya).
Anyway,
berhubung sudah mau mulai musim aplikasi MIT lagi, aku mau sharing sedikit tentang kehidupan ku di MIT setahun terakhir ini,
supaya untuk temen-temen yang pingin daftar bisa mendapat sedikit gambaran
hidup anak-anak MIT dan peluang-peluang, baik untuk hal akademis dan
non-akademis, yang begitu banyaknya di MIT; siapa tahu bisa menjadi motivasi
buat mendaftar ke depannya. Kalau pun temen-temen yang baca gak sedang mau
mendaftar ke MIT, setidaknya ini bisa menjadi hiburan tersendiri (loh?) dan
dorongan buat belajar ke luar negeri di jenjang S2 atau S3. And so, what’s the
old and new?
1.
Classes
Bagi
temen-temen yang tidak/belum mengenal diriku (yaelah) (you can read a little
bit here), I am a currently a rising Junior
(mau masuk semester ke-5 September ini) majoring in Biological Engineering
(BE). Hmmm, what’s biological engineering you ask? Ini jurusan perpaduan ilmu
biologi dan teknik (engineering). Secara singkat, di BE kita belajar biologi,
tapi kita juga belajar ilmu teknik layaknya seorang teknik mesin atau kimia;
hanya bagian ‘teknik’ kita fokusnya untuk mahluk hidup dan bukan untuk robot
ataupun zat kimiawi. Mudahnya begini, jika kita bicara tentang ‘kanker’,
seorang biologist bakal mempelajari bagaimana sih sebenarnya kanker itu?
Mengapa sel kanker itu bisa tumbuhny ga kira-kira atau bisa menyebar ke
jaringan lain? Beda dengan seorang biologist,
seorang bioengineer bakal ingin
mempelajari cara untuk mendeteksi
atau membunuh sel kanker. Bagi seorang bioengineer,
bagaimana cara obat kita itu bisa membunuh sel kanker tidaklah begitu
penting; bagi kita yang terpenting adalah obat itu manjur dan tidak menyebabkan
efek samping lainnya.
Nah
sekarang apa sih kelas-kelas bagi mahasiswa BE di MIT? Setahun terakhir ini,
aku mengambil kurang lebih 9 kelas; 6 diantaranya merupakan requirement bagi jurusan aku ini, yaitu
Kimia Organik (5.12), termodinamika (20.110), programming (6.00), Biokimia (7.05), Biologi Sel (7.06) dan sebuah lab class buat BE (20.109) (angka-angka
yang disebut diatas merupakan nama modul kelasnya, buat yang kepingin tahu
lebih lanjut kelasnya seperti apa sih bisa dicari di ocw.mit.edu).
Karena ga
mungkin aku sharing tentang semua
kelas ini, aku bakal fokus pada salah satu favorit aku, 20.109. So 20.109, or
Lab Fundamentals in Biological Engineering, is a Communication Intensive-Major
(CI-M) class, often taken during the Fall or Spring of Sophomore year, which
teaches the research and communication skills necessary for being a Bioengineer. For the class, you are
expected to write multiple research papers (layaknya sebuah jurnal beneran:
harus ada title, abstract, Method, Results, Discussion) based on the
experiments you conducted in class. What is unique about this class is that no
one, even the instructor, usually knows the outcome of the experiments (well, they ofc have some initial hypothesis on the matter) . The
course instructors always come up with a different theme every year, and the
experiments are always novel (ie. the data you get in the end is something that
has never been published before). Sadly, that also means that if the data you
get is not as expected, then no one also knows why it is so. But that’s what I
like most of the class, because it really models how science works in an actual
lab!
We
had 3 different modules for the class this year; discovery of novel ligand
binders to the immunophilin FKBP12, assessing synthetic lethality in Brca
deficient tumor cells and also assembly of phage-derived batteries. I
personally am fond of the last one, because it really embodies what BE is,
using 'life' and purposing it into a tool for everyday use. In that last module, we created Li-ion
batteries with cathodes derived from M13 bacteriophage, decorated with
amorphous iron and crystalline gold particles (if you’re interested with the
science, you can read it here). And I must say it was freakin' hard task to do so, but hey at least we managed to make a working one! (Photos courtesy of Prof. Angela Belcher, the head instructor for this module).
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| Don't let the smile fool you; I was actually very close to the point of desperation; rolling out the M13-derived cathodes. But hey, fake it 'till you make it, right? |
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| It's LIT! |
In addition,
as part of the communication requirement of the class, we’re also tasked to
propose a novel research idea in the class; and I must say I was impressed with
everyone’s idea. Since every idea has to be fresh and new, it really amazes me
how the entire class can each come up with so many unique, yet reasonable
ideas, many of which can be easily implemented and worked on in a lab right
away. Inspired by the polluted Kapuas River, I and my lab partner, Alexander Roman '19, pitched the idea
of creating a virus-based water filtration system to purify the water of the
heavy metals. During the presentation, we proposed the many features and cost
estimate of such filter, as well as the experimental steps to produce it. Overall it was a fun process, and we had a lot of creative space to develop our ideas so it was all worth it!
Anyway,
if you’re interested more about this class, you can visit our class blog detailing
the class’ struggle journey throughout each module (note that there’s a
lot of memes in the blogpost, so be prepared to be entertained!).
2. Lab/Research
At
MIT, undergrads (atau murid jenjang S1) can participate in ongoing world class
researches on campus through the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program, or
UROP for short. UROP offers students the opportunity to start conducting researches
as early as freshman year, with the option of funding (diambil sebagai
part-time job, dibayar $11 per jam) or credit (diambil sebagai kelas, bisa
mendapatkan nilai yang dihitung ke GPA). The cool thing is, UROP is not offered
in every American institution; only select few have it and this is probably one
reason why I chose MIT in the first place.
I
started my UROP Freshman IAP (Jan 2016) in the Lodish Lab (Whitehead Institute),
and I have stayed working there ever since. Hmmmm….Siapakah Lodish itu? Jika
kalian pernah berkutat di dunia olimpiade biologi, mungkin nama Lodish sudah
tidak terasa asing lagi. Ya, Harvey Lodish adalah si penulis buku Cell Biology
itu, buku yang pasti pernah kalian pegang selama persiapan buat OSN atau
pelatnas. So Harvey adalah salah satu ‘tetua’ di departemen biologi MIT; lab
Lodish bahkan sudah akan memasuki tahun ke-50 tahun depan! Prestasi Harvey
sebagai researcher dan mentor juga tidak bisa diragukan lagi: di masa mudanya, Lab
Lodish merupakan grup pertama yang berhasil meng-klon GLUT dan Epo transporter,
dan berhasil membimbing 2 murid yang kelak menjadi peraih Nobel. Sekarang, Lodish
merupakan pakar sel darah merah dan adiposit serta peran lncRNA dalam
perkembangan kedua jenis sel tersebut.
 |
| Lodish Lab Summer Hike 2016 Courtesy of Sean McFarland |
Cukup
membahas Lodish, so what is my research? Hehe aku tidak bisa bebicara banyak (bukan
tidak mau, tapi lebih tepatnya tidak diperbolehkan?) mengenai hal tersebut,
tapi secara umum ini aku ingin mencari aplikasi lain dari riset ini, dimana
sel darah merah kita modifikasi secara genetik atau kimiawi untuk mengobati
berbagai jenis penyakit autoimun seperti diabetes tipe I dan multiple sclerosis. What I can tell you though is my responsibility. Yang pasti aku bukan 'asisten lab' ya yang kerjaanya menyiapkan alat dan bahan untuk praktikum (somehow that is how my parents thought of me working the past two years). Instead, what I did mungkin adalah aku diberikan tugas oleh advisorku, "eh, ini tikus-tikus nya tolong digenotype dong, trus set up the appropriate breeding cage," or '"eh ini tolong diamplify dong gene A supaya bisa diinsert ke sel darah merah," or "eh ini tolong ini dicek darah tikusny and see if the treatment works. Send me the analyzed data ya." Something along those lines. So bisa dibilang bahwa selama di lab, aku punya tugas-tugas tertentu yang diberikan advisor ku, but in completing those tasks, I was given some freedom to develop (as well as troubleshoot) my own experimental protocol, such that I can produce a reliable data set as efficiently (time and cost-wise) as possible. Hopefully in the near future though, I've matured enough to come up with my own series of 'tasks' and eventually have something published by the end of MIT *fingerscrossed*.
3. Extracurricular Activity
MIT
houses tons of weird and unique clubs on campus; we even have a freakin’
quidditch club! Therefore, coming in to
MIT with the assumption that many of my peers were actively involved in many
clubs in their high school and aimed to do the same in college, I felt the immense
pressure to join in as many club activities as I could, and so I kinda did
freshman fall. Di semester pertamaku, aku mencoba mengikuti 4 klub ekstrakurikuler
yang berbeda: klub basket intramural, MIT-IV (Christian fellowship dimana setiap minggu ada bible study dan renungan),
College Against Cancer (sebuah klub yang bekerja sama dengan American
Cancer Society untuk fundraise dana
untuk riset and pengobatan kanker) dan Southeast Asian Leadership, Network and
Service (SEALNet, sebuah grup leadership
dan service yang anggotanya merupakan
murid-murid yang berasal atau memiliki ketertarikan terhadap Asia Tenggara). It
was fun for a while, but one thing led to another, and I kinda got disconnected
with most of them.
So
in search of new activities this year, I opened myself to a bunch of new ones
which I’ve honestly quite enjoyed and will continue to pursue on next semester.
Gak gimana kece sih, tapi semester terakhir ini aku mulai rajin nge-gym dan
nari K-pop sebagai anggota MIT’s Asian Dance Team. Wait, seriously? I know what
you are thinking. If we were close back in high school, you would know these
are two things that I had or could’ve never possibly be enjoying in. You are
RIGHT! I myself could’ve not believe it at first, but then this is college, and
this is the time for me to have my last bit of fun before heading to (the possibly
stressful and busy) adulthood. So, YOLO! Anyway, what I’m trying to say here is
there is a wide variety of stuff that you can do and explore here at MIT, and I
believe this applies to any situation that you’ll never know until you try it,
so do step out of your comfort zone and just try to have fun!
4.
Overseas
Program
Another
cool program that MIT has that not many other US colleges offer is MISTI, or
MIT International Science and Technology Initiative. Melalui MISTI, murid-murid
MIT bisa mendapatkan berbagai kesempatan magang/riset di lebih dari 25 negara
di Asia, Afrika, Amerika Latin, Eropa hingga Australia. Bulan Januari lalu, aku
menggunakan kesempatan ini untuk mengunjungi dan mengajar anak-anak SMA di
Regensburg, Jerman selama 3 minggu dalam program MISTI Global Teaching Lab
(GTL). MISTI GTL merupakan salah satu upaya outreach
MIT untuk memperkenalkan sistem edukasi MIT (dengan slogan Mens et Manus; Minds
and Hands) ke negara lain; suatu sistem pembelajaran yang interaktif dan hands-on. Selain itu, di MISTI GTL,
murid-murid yang dikirim juga diharapkan untuk dapat bertukar wawasan serta
budaya dengan host family (keluarga
asuh yang murid tsb ditempatkan) masing-masing. I had much fun in Germany; I
managed to interact and learn so much of German (more specifically Bavarian)
culture, improve my communication and teaching skills and experience Europe for
the first time! In my spare time, I was also able to visit many other German
cities as well as neighboring countries such as Czech Republic, Austria, Italy
and Switzerland (more on that on another post), so overall it was a winter
break well-spent.
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| Old Town Regensburg! Too bad it was too cold during our 3-week visit (roughly -15 degree Celcius every other day) to really enjoy the city. |
This
upcoming July, I will also be doing research for two months in London, UK on
another MIT overseas program. I’ll be
sure to write another blog on my experience there later in September
(hopefully) so stay updated and wish you all a happy summer break!
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