A Scholarship, A Responsibility: My Way of Giving Back
It has been 2.5 years since I graduated from Gadjah Mada University with a scholarship from Pemerintah Daerah DIY. As a form of personal responsibility and gratitude, I would like to share what I have accomplished during the past 2.5 years, particularly the activities and contributions I have made beyond my daily responsibilities as a teacher.
During my studies, I was fortunate to publish three papers at international conferences. All of them were published by IEEE. I was the first author on two papers and the second author on one paper. Special thanks to AIG Research Team —Hary Fadli Yusuf and Shofiyyah Zahrah—
If you would like to read my publications, here is the list:
“Automatic Item Generation with Reading Passages: A Systematic Literature Review”
“Automatic Distractor Generation with Paradigmatic Relation for English Vocabulary Tests”
I officially returned to work at the school on December 1, 2023, based on Governor’s Decree Number 355/Pem.D/UP/D.4. However, my status was still “Calon Guru”. I had to wait one year before being appointed to “fungsional” position of “Guru Teknik Komputer dan Jaringan Ahli Pertama”. Why am I telling you this? One of the consequences of being a “Calon Guru” was that I was not eligible to receive “fungsional” allowance :)
Being A Professional Teacher?
Another consequence of pursuing a master’s degree through “Tugas Belajar” program was that I was not eligible to participate in PPG (Program Profesi Guru) program. So, I had to wait more than six years after becoming a teacher before I could enroll.
Alhamdulillah, around September 2025, I was officially accepted as a PPG student at Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia (UPI). I completed the program in November 2025 and officially became a “professional teacher”. So, I am eligible to receive “Tunjangan Profesi Guru”.
Sometimes, I joke with my friends that teachers who are not yet eligible to receive “Tunjangan Profesi Guru” are still in “guru prasejahtera” phase.
Keeping The Network On
In mid-2024, I was appointed as a School Network Administrator. My responsibilities include planning, managing, and maintaining the school’s network infrastructure and internet connectivity. To give a brief overview, my school has more than 1,500 students and over 140 teachers and staff members who rely on the network every day. Ideally, there would be a dedicated team or at least a full-time specialist to handle an environment of this scale.
However, as we know, there is no additional budget available for the school to hire a dedicated network professional. So, the responsibility is assigned to young teacher (like me) who have the relevant technical skills. In practice, they are expected to handle the entire network infrastructure alongside their regular teaching duties.
Since 2017, these responsibilities had been handled by Pak Mujana. He was going to retire in 2025, I was appointed in mid-2024 to replace him. This gave us enough time to make the transition and for me to learn everything I needed before he retired.
Currently, I manage one MikroTik CCR2004 as the main router, a MikroTik CCR1016 and CCR1009 as distribution routers, two MikroTik CSS326 switches, more than 35 Access Points, and several FTTH devices, including a C-Data OLT and more than ten ONTs. In addition, there are many other devices to maintain, such as more than 10 media converters/HTBs, over six computer laboratories, more than 5 server with proxmox virtualization .
In general, I have implemented several network improvements. The most significant was migrating the network to an OLT-based infrastructure, which significantly increased the available bandwidth. Before the migration, the network traffic peaked at around 300 Mbps; after the migration, it was able to reach nearly 600 Mbps.
I also deployed several tools, such as Grafana for network traffic monitoring, Uptime Kuma for device up/down alerts, and OpenVPN for secure access to the internal network, and many more. I will share more details in another post, including the technical aspects. Please stay tuned!
Participating in National Competitions
In fact, my school is not considered a top-tier vocational school in Yogyakarta, so participating in national competitions is relatively challenging. I was very fortunate, after returning from the study, I met several outstanding students whom I could mentor, encourage, and prepare for competition.
Our first competition was Olimpiade Jaringan MikroTik 2024, organized by Citraweb Yogyakarta. This is one of the most prestigious competitions for vocational high school students in Computer and Network Engineering major. More than 400 schools took part in the competition, making it a highly competitive event.
Alea Farrel and Andika Maulana successfully achieved a place in the top 10, which qualified them for the final stage of the competition. I believe this was a truly outstanding achievement, especially considering the number of participating schools and the level of competition.
The latest achievement came from Ernesto Favian Cesario Yoofi Wahyudianto, who won Cloud Computing category at Lomba Keterampilan Siswa (LKS) competition in the Special Region of Yogyakarta. As the provincial winner, he earned the opportunity to represent Yogyakarta at the national competition that will be held in July 2026.
This achievement is particularly special because, for the past four years, the competition had been dominated by SMKN 2 Yogyakarta. Breaking that streak and bringing the title to our school was a significant milestone for both Ernesto and our school.
Once again, i would like to thank to Pemda DIY for giving me the opportunity and scholarship to pursue a master’s degree at Gadjah Mada University. Hopefully, I can continue sharing stories and updates like this.