Rachel Larasati: Compete Like There Is No Tomorrow
This article is written for SICOMAS publication. SICOMAS stands for SISTEM Competition Material Supplies where you can find competition proposals and materials from those who are already experienced in the corresponding fields. Rachel shared some of her business plan competition proposals, which you can find here: https://s.id/SICOMAS. For access, please fill in the form here: https://s.id/AksesSICOMAS .
Rachel Larasati is a last year Information System student at the University of Indonesia (UI). Since she is in her final year, she is mainly working on her internships. Rachel has accomplished and won various competitions relating to Business. In this session, we’re going to talk about her experiences in joining various competitions and learn some new tips and tricks to compete in Business Plan Competitions.
Participating in many Competitions
Back then, she used to participate in many competitions. She learned about business administration in the previous term, so she thought that it’s a good idea to participate in competitions so as to gain more insights and experiences prior to actually working. According to Rachel, the things she got from every competition she has participated in are useful, even for her internship programs.
She usually participated in IT related competitions since she’s of an IT background. Even if sometimes the competition is not IT related, she usually came up with an IT related final product to be presented.
During her first time participating in a business plan competition, she convinced herself that she had to participate in the competition first before thinking of losing. Her confidence is far bigger than her fear of losing.
Rachel had participated in so many competitions, including Gemastik. As she went through all of that, she had also experienced some losses. Being demotivated is very common after losing in a competition, but being demotivated for too long is not the answer. But instead, she turned it into a motivation to participate in other competitions.
Rachel is now busy with her internships, and she stated that there are many experiences that she gained from participating in competitions. When she applied for her internships, she felt like her experiences helped her a lot.
Picking teammates, ideas and encountering problems
For Rachel, she preferred working with people that she had already known well before rather than working with some random strangers. She thought that people who are close to us know us more and vice versa. With that, we can pick some people who have the required skills we are looking for.
After getting your teammates, it’s better to start by benchmarking and seeking for ideas from your past experiences. This implies that we should prepare for the competition by first looking for possible topics and practicing with those. You can also look for mentors or people who have experiences in competing for giving the evaluation.
When participating in the competition, what should you do to find ideas? For Rachel, she would look for ideas from her past experiences and encounters. She would also look for some ideas to benchmark and improvise them too.
When encountering problems, it’s better for us to always be prepared. For example, when Rachel’s about to deliver her presentation, she and her teammates would always check and look for all possible questions that might be asked and prepare all of the answers to those questions.
Closing Remarks
Rachel’s way of studying can be used as a role model for all of us. For her it’s a good idea to find competitions to participate in as a way to actually practice what we’ve studied in CSUI. She also stated that it’s going to help us to be more aware of the problems that would happen around us and how to solve them by implementing our skills.
So, what are you waiting for? Don’t be scared of competing! If you’re scared even before you start, then you’ve already lost the fight. Conquer your fear, be brave and believe in yourself. Remember that your experiences matter the most. Good luck!
