ITB Mapres 2022, Failure is Not the End of Everything

BANDUNG, kemahasiswaan.itb.ac.id – Failure is not something that should be used as an excuse to give up. However, it is what has been believed by the winner of the 2022 ITB Achievement Student Selection (Pilmapres) event, Muhammad Ibnu Fadlin Syah. As a representative of Outstanding Students (Mapres) from the ITB School of Architecture, Planning and Policy Development (SAPPK), the man who is familiarly called Ibnu admitted that he almost gave up because he had failed several times.

"I am also like TPB students in general. Ever cried because of practicum, felt pessimistic during calculus, physics, and chemistry exams, failed in various competitions, and had time to wave because of tiring assignments. Even in the majors, during the third semester, I stumbled upon an academic case that caused me to have to repeat one compulsory course and fail in dozens of other competitions, "said Ibnu.

However, the failure did not seem to make Ibn discouraged. On the contrary, Ibnu kept trying and convincing himself not just to give up. He continued to make changes, and finally, in semester five, he won a series of achievements. He started by winning the national English debate competition, TOP 30 APBN Debates, participating in the United Nations Model, and Favorite Banner in the UNESCO Water Resilience Challenge to become the EFL Champion in the World Doxbridge Debating on an international scale.

"In my opinion, the award is just a bonus and an appreciation to myself for not giving up easily in the face of various failures. In addition, the most important lesson lies in the process and not just winning. I believe that "failures are a blessing" means that failure is a blessing that provides an opportunity so that we can evaluate and identify ourselves to be a better person in the future," explained the student who also likes to paint.

Ibnu, the third child of four siblings, also views achievement as a process of finding one's own goals, strengths, and weaknesses. Achieving is also believed to be a process of achieving a dream. According to him, achievement cannot be viewed from one side, for example, academic or non-academic. He gave an example if someone judged a fish by its ability to climb a tree, he would live his life believing that he was stupid. Based on that, each person's ability is unique as well as the achievements they have. Each of these achievements results from hard work and is very personal, where each individual has different achievement preferences and uniqueness.

"Achieving for myself is a process of finding goals and recognizing our strengths and weaknesses. Then, proceed in achieving the dream we want. For example, I dream of creating a sustainable and inclusive urban and rural environment in terms of being friendly to marginalized groups, especially people with disabilities. Today, there are many polemics in the implementation of social services, infrastructure, and accessibility for persons with disabilities," said Ibnu.

In his presentation at the ITB 2022 Pilmapres some time ago, he presented a program called Padek, which stands for Recovery of Colorful Village Destinations and Economic Activities. Padek is a community-based organization-based capacity building that organizes education, training, and local community programs at the Colorful Village tourist location in Lubuklinggau City. The approach in this program is community asset mapping to find out the potential and resources in a community. It helps maximize the available resources in solving various existing problems by utilizing the participation and capacity of local communities. In addition, padek comes from the Lubuklinggau language, which means cool/extraordinary, with the hope that the program can have an "extraordinary" impact on restoring tourism and local community economic activities.