English Writing Community of ESA UPI: A Special Meeting with Scholarship Essay Theme

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During this pandemic situation, there are so many obstacles and hardships that almost everyone experienced. One of the examples of the hardships that we have seen or heard or even been experiencing is the financial crisis. We all know a lot of people have lost their source of income. The sad part is this impedes some people from continuing their education. Fortunately, the government and some private sectors offer a lot of help to solve this problem. One of the help is offering scholarships to students. As we can see, there are so many scholarship offers that have been spread on the internet, and one of the requirements to apply for it is to submit an essay. This requirement is important, yet some people are still confused about how to write a good scholarship essay. Gladly, one of the divisions from the English Students Association (ESA) of Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia (UPI), English Writing Communication (EWC), held an event that discussed writing a scholarship essay, so it gives UPI’s English students knowledge about how to write a good scholarship essay. This event was held on September 9, 2021.

The English Writing Community of ESA UPI is an English community that focuses on writing. It is also a community that gives students the opportunity to improve their writing skills through their weekly meetings on Zoom and Instagram. In this period, they had held a special weekly meeting that chose writing a scholarship essay as the topic. The leader of EWC and also the organizer of EWC’s Special Weekly Meeting, Nadia Nuriyah Berliana, said the reason why they chose a scholarship essay as the topic was because there were many chances for college students to apply for a scholarship during this pandemic. So, with this opportunity, EWC wanted to make a special weekly meeting with "Scholarship Essay" as the topic and invite the lecturer as the speaker. This was the first time EWC invited a lecturer as the speaker to their special weekly meeting. Previously, they invited a senior in English Department UPI as the speaker. The lecturer who got invited was Miss Annisa Rahmadani, M.A., she is a lecturer of English Education Study Program at UPI who had graduated from the University of Newcastle, Australia. Actually, there are many lecturers in English Department UPI who graduated from overseas, but Miss Annisa’s experiences are more related to the current generation. That is why they chose Miss Annisa over many lecturers.

Their decision to make Miss Annisa as the speaker was undoubtedly a good one because she is a friendly lecturer and eloquent. She brought a bright and warm atmosphere, and she explained well her tips and tricks on how to write a good essay. She also shared do’s and don’ts when we write an essay, so our essay can be more interesting and real. The participants were excited to gain new knowledge from her. Moreover, the participants came from various classes, and even there were also freshers who joined the meeting. This shows that people in English Department UPI have been waiting for EWC’s special weekly meeting. Miss Annisa also made the participants active to write a line of the example of how to show our achievement in the essay. One of the active participants was Hasna Nurul from the 2020 class. She joined the event because for her it was awesome, beneficial, and insightful. Besides that, Hasna also said the speaker was nice and she liked Miss Annisa a lot. She said, “I got many inspirations and insights I have never heard before. I got to know how important the scholarship essay is, and know more the things I should prepare regarding the scholarship essay”.

The documentation of EWC’s Special Weekly Meeting on September 9, 2021 on Zoom meeting.

Of course, behind this amazing event there were also amazing people who organized it and had to go through a few obstacles before the event started. One of the obstacles was when they invited the lecturer. Nadia said, “There were some lecturer candidates for the speaker. Many lecturers were busy and had another event. I had to contact them around two weeks before the event. Gladly, Miss Annisa was willing to be the speaker and she was very cooperative. She prepared her presentation well.”, it shows that even though they faced an obstacle, they could handle it well and feel satisfied at the end of the event. Nadia also mentioned that the event was well done because of EWC’s members cooperation. “My members that were in charge for this weekly meeting had done their job well. I am very thankful for them”.

The successful event makes people think EWC should hold this kind of event again. Furthermore, the leader of EWC, Nadia, also suggested EWC to hold another event with a similar concept. “Special weekly meeting is very insightful, and I hope in the next period, EWC will make a better special weekly meeting with a more interesting topic. If possible, EWC has to hold a special weekly meeting more than once,” she said. This can be a great opportunity for EWC to get many students’ attention with the scholarship because who would not want to know more about the scholarships? Moreover, if the speaker is a lecturer, students will not doubt to join it.