It was on the 8th of August 2016, when my so-called “Campus Life” began. I left my house to go to Binus Syahdan Campus early in the morning, although the orientation started at 9 o’clock. I had to wait for nearly 2 hours until the classroom door was opened and we were allowed to enter. Then after all of us were seated, I realized that almost everyone there was male. Well, out of roughly 70-ish people, only 14 (including myself) were women. There were 10 BCs (Buddy Coordinators) who guided us (Buddies) throughout GO. The topic of the day was just “briefing”, so we took the time to get to know each other and decided who was the class’ chief (Komti) and the vice (Wakomti). The first day of college was okay, it might be a little awkward, but I managed to make friends.

The day after, we all had to wear white shirts and black formal trousers. That was our uniform for the next several days until the GO ended. The whole experience was pretty nice. It was very informative and kept us aware of the important stuff like what to do if we lost our flazz cards (those are essential for attendance tapping), the requirements to take an exam, how to use Binus Maya-a website containing everything we need like class schedules, learning materials, our GPAs, etc. In order to graduate, the minimum GPA is 2.0 with 120 SAT points and 30 hours of community service. SAT (Student Activity Transcript) points are gained by doing stuff that hones our soft skills, such as attending seminars/orientations, being an activist, participating in competitions whereas community service hours are obtained by participating in Character Building (CB) sessions and other social/charity activities. We were promised to get 100 SAT points at the end of FEP if we participate in all of it’s sessions. But I heard rumors of seniors getting less than 100 points even if they follow all the sessions. I guess it all depends on how well we did the assignments that came with it, including this blog.

Furthermore, we also learned about Binusian Journey that was all about EES (Employability & Entrepreneurial Skills). It says that in order to be globally successful at being an entrepreneur, not only hard skills are needed, but also 6 key soft skills that includes:

• Self Management
• Team Work
• Communication
• Initiative & Enterprise
• Problem Solving & Decision Making
• Planning & Organizing

Other than that, there was Binus Way, where we learned about the history of Bina Nusantara University and the vision & mission of Binus. There was also a Religious session, where we were divided into different classes according to our religion and was given a session by our respective religious UKM.

One of the more exciting part of GO was the Bunga Rampai session. We were gathered in the auditorium to watch all the UKMs (Student Activity Units) and Student Communities perform and promote their organizations. There are different HMJs or Himpunan Mahasiswa Jurusan (Student Association) for each faculty, and the HMJ of Computer Science is called HIMTI (Himpunan Mahasiswa Teknik Informatika).

Binus has a lot of UKMs such as:

• BNEC (BINA NUSANTARA English Club)
• BNMC (BINA NUSANTARA Mandarin Club)
• NC (Nippon Club)
• BNCC (BINA NUSANTARA Computer Club)
• BSLC (Binus Student Learning Community)
• Badminton
• Table Tennis
• Volley
• Soccer
• BNAC (BINA NUSANTARA Automotive Club)
• BNSC (BINA NUSANTARA Softball-Baseball Club)
• BNTC (BINA NUSANTARA Tennis Club)
• BASIC (BINA NUSANTARA Swimming Club)
• Band
• B Voice Radio
• Binus TV
• B-preneur
• Paramabira (Paduan Suara Mahasiswa BINA NUSANTARA) [Choir]
• ST Manis (Seni Teater Mahasiswa BINA NUSANTARA) [Drama/Theatre Club]
• Stamanara (Seni Tari Mahasiswa BINA NUSANTARA) [Dance Club]
• Klifonara (Klub Pecinta Fotografi BINA NUSANTARA) [Photography Club]
• Swanarapala (Mahasiswa BINA NUSANTARA Pencinta Alam) [Student Association for Environmental and Adventure Activity]

On the last day of FEP, all of CBN were gathered in the parking lot of Syahdan Campus. We finally met everyone from other faculties, and we all showed off our class yel-yel. We also did the 2020 Buddy yel-yel which was the song “Shake It Off” by Taylor Swift that had some lyric changes and a funny choreography to go along with it. A bit cringey, but fun nonetheless. After that, we went to explore the Expo in little groups consisted of 6 people with 1 BC as our guide. Our “adventure” around the Expo had us witnessed the demonstration of each UKMs activities and gave us the chance to register to whichever UKM we were interested in. There is no limit in the number of UKMs a person could join. That being said, I joined 3 UKMs-BASIC, BNEC, BSLC.

The peak of GO was the inauguration ceremony which was held on the 30th of August 2016. All of Binusian 2020 were expected to attend this grand and formal reception ceremony. The event was conducted in JCC (Jakarta Convention Center) Building which is located in Gelora Bung Karno Sports Complex, Central Jakarta. The entire event was recorded by Binus TV and there were several performances from Binusian 2020 as well as some UKMs. After the representatives of each majors were symbolically inducted by the rector of Bina Nusantara University, we were allowed to put on our Alma mater jacket as we became an official Binusian.