On Thursday (8/24), Taiwan Education Center (TEC) Indonesia – Yogyakarta Regional Office invited two awardees of Taiwan Experience Education Program (TEEP) to hold a webinar entitled “Taiwan Alumni Talks #2: Internship in Taiwan (TEEP)”. The awardees who became the speakers are Patricia Lovina and Christian Reivan Banjarnahor. Taiwan Experience Education Program or TEEP is an internship program provided by the Ministry of Education (MOE) Taiwan to encourage more international students to participate in short-term professional internship projects organized by Taiwanese universities and colleges. TEEP also allows international students to gain an in-depth educational experience in Taiwan, while also preparing themselves for their professional working field.
Patricia Lovina, a 4th year Pharmacy Undergraduate of i3L, became the first speaker and shared her experience of becoming a TEEP intern at the Department of Chemistry in National Chung Hsing University (NCHU) with all the participants. As one of the recipients of this internship program, Patricia explained that from the first time she applied for the program until preparing for her departure to Taiwan, everything was done well without any significant problem. During her internship, she said that she was not only learning with the professor at the laboratory, but she was also given the opportunity to conduct some research at a cosmetic company there. She also had many cultural experiences, and she got the benefit of learning Mandarin and having new friends from various communities.
After the first speaker, Christian Reivan Banjarnahor who is now finishing his final year of pursuing bachelor’s degree at the Department of Engineering in Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB), shared his experience as the awardee of TEEP to National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (NTUST). He explained that studying and living in Taiwan was not as difficult as what people out there think. Even though, as an Indonesian, we do not learn Mandarin in our everyday life, everything is still manageable if we want to learn and adapt to the new environment. As an intern at the department of engineering in NTUST, Reivan told the participants that what he has learned in his research was very worthy of his time and adding a greater learning and working experience to him since he was given the opportunity to meet many interns from various countries and had the chance to study and discuss with great professors in his department.
Moreover, Patricia and Reivan shared and explained beneficial information and their personal experiences during their stay in Taiwan throughout the agenda and discussed many things with the participants afterwards. The webinar was open to the public, and the participants varied from students to lecturers from various cities in Indonesia who have interests for TEEP. This agenda was full of excitement and the participants were very active in the discussion of TEEP by throwing a lot of questions to the speaker.
