MEXT Scholarship Journey [part.2]

The first 3 months of my employment days were hellish. Being introduced to the undocumented company's framework. (C'mon, dude!) But in the end, the director called me and he told me to do research about image filtering and classification. Using this opportunity to deepen my knowledge about deep learning which I never had a chance to, I applied simple ConvNet to do image classification for SmartCity photo reports. In October 2016 my project is ready to be implemented and I want to touch another plaything, RNN. But I remembered my mission. The scholarship. I decided to focus on MEXT.

Document Preparation and Failed Attempts

I went to the Japanese Embassy several times months before the next online registration. Thanks to their information. I asked them not about how to win, but rather why so many failed in the document screening step. I will write about this later. This thing might be the difference for those asking the consulate generals and straight to the embassy itself. The information they gave is superb. Because they are the center of primary screening process who handles your documents from the entire country.

My aunt still told me to come to German, but coming there is not free and I don't want to be indebted to anyone. So I refused the offer kindly but keep it in my head as the last resort if I don't pass this MEXT scholarship. I started to dig out recent papers and recent research about deep learning in Japan. No good result. I was too focused on prosthetic and deep learning but I can't go there because it requires nerve surgery and the sample will be hard to find.

Brain-Computer Interface is also not easy to develop. I found one in German, but the course is not in English, so yeah, bye... Then my research partner came and told me that she would go for speech-text transcription or some sort... There I thought once again if I could get a scholarship with my own topic.

In my first attempt, I contacted a professor in KyoDai but he didn't reply. I contacted a professor in KyuTech in January 2017 and he replied. In his email, he mentioned the total number of applicants of the program while offering a PGP scholarship. Little that I knew that it was prioritized for collaborating universities. I applied it and failed. I had no idea why that time. I have nowhere to go if  I stayed with my research topic, so I changed mine to speech-related one. The next one I tried to contact another professor in KyoDai, he replied but he mentioned that if I want to join his lab, pass the scholarship and the university entrance exam. Lastly, I contacted a professor in NAIST and he replied plus asked me to send my CV and academic transcript via email. Whoa!

Alright, so what's with the italic words? Those are samples of Japanese kind of refusal. If they mentioned something like the number of applicants, lab capacity, or have to pass something which we know that it is within impossible time and require too much effort or too costly, it means that they are softly refused us already.

March 2017. Letter of Recommendation Request, Research Proposal and Study Plan Writing 

As April comes near, I hurried back to my campus to meet my previous thesis and research supervisor. Meeting him was not an easy task. Barely meet him in the lab. He had been so busy with teaching and seminars. So I asked his assistant who was the hero during my research. He used his budget for us to go to a conference in Japan. May God bless you far more than my gratitude, sir. He told me to put the request with a memo on his desk, and several days later my supervisor told me that the letter was ready to be taken. The recommendation letter is easy, no need to use university header or some sort. Just have your supervisor answer the questions and sign at the bottom. Last but not least, have it stamped by the university. The same goes for my employer, but this one is easier to meet and he was so supportive. No hassle.

So, recommendation letters are done. Now about the Research Proposal and Study Plan. I used several sources from those who passed the same scholarship and got big help from my cousin who currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Hiroshima Univ. in checking my proposal, email to profs, and study plan. I am bad at words honestly. For the research proposal, my previous supervisor assistant helped me with the content writing, the flow and how to make it concise. Thanks to him I could write my proposal better. Really, when he said to make the purpose clearer, my head spun and I had a slight fever for several hours.

For the study plan, I wrote my entire study plan including a timetable, in the end, to make it colorful and easy to comprehend. Everyone likes pictures, no? It looks somewhat like this:

Study Plan Timeline Example

There are some explanations before the timeline, but at least the reader will find it easier rather than reading the texts, right?

April 2017. Online Registration for MEXT Scholarship 

Even I have prepared the documents needed, the application form wasn't available until the online registration opened. Just fill it and don't miss any column. The important point here is your photo should be glued to the application form. Don't print it together with the form. Use photo paper if you are going to print it yourself and make sure it's size is as requested. Put your name and nationality on the back of the photo. The registration opened and the deadline was in 2 weeks. The hardest part of this scholarship is the document screening which you will have to go through twice!

I just want to point out several things here:

1. Just follow the instruction given on the website. If you have any questions, ask the embassy. You may either come or call them.
2. The photos should be original for all the copies. Even it said 1 original form and 4 copies of the original, the photos glued on those 5 forms should be original. Don't stick it on the original form and then copy it 4 times. Don't even think to print it together with the application. Don't tell me I didn't warn you.
3. If you can type all the answers, type with Roman Capital letters. Use black color and follow the font.
4. Just write down any universities or labs you want to get in (no need to contact them yet at this point), you may change it later if you passed the interview. It would be nice if you have contacted them before the interview tho.
5. Use A4 sized papers. If you can't resize the copy of your transcript or diploma, please consult with the embassy. In some universities, their diploma is huge AF. Usually, the embassy staff will tell you to fold it to A4 size.
6. Put everything in order for each copy. The documents are 9-10 parts each with 4 copies, arrange them as instructed. Original[1-9/10], Copy[1-9/10] (1-4)
7. Don't staple the documents or put any hole.
8. Simply divide each copy with a clip. Original, Copy-1, Copy-2, Copy-3, copy-4

May 2017. Skype Interview and Application Submission

The next thing to do is continue finding your future professor if you haven't got any. In my case I only got one from NAIST. He was asking if I can do Skype interview. He asked me about my motivation and what I want to do about my research, the purpose, why choosing his lab, whether I understand what I wanna do, or just simply bluffing. You know what, I was sweating a lot from my neck to my lower back in 20C degree room. My shirt looked like someone who had run for half an hour. Luckily he didn't see that. LOL. That's all, he wished me good luck with the scholarship.

After those long and hard times, I planned to submit the application on the day before the deadline but it turned out that I'm late, so I submitted the documents on the D-Day. If you can give it directly to the embassy, great. Otherwise, you have to make sure the documents arrived at the embassy before the application submission closed.

My prayer this time: "If this is Your way, let it be. If it is not, let me fail on the first screening."

[Cont. to part.3]...

MEXT Scholarship Journey [part.1]

Ahh, Monbukagakusho scholarship, or MEXT in short is a scholarship given from Japanese Ministry of Culture, Education, and Sport for people who wants to continue their study in Japan. Yep. Only in Japan tho... My whole life changed since I failed the national entrance exam. I passed the second university but ended up not taking it due to my family's economy condition. So I took a private university which seem to be more expensive but offered tuition exemption for student mentors so it ended up cheaper.

(Not so) Brief introduction

It began when I was in the second semester of my undergraduate. The first long transition holiday from even to odd semester. Yay! 3 months holiday. No. I suddenly got bored after the first 1.5 months. During that time, I was browsing about scholarships and cool stories about those who studied abroad. But it seems like only a dream. A person like me, get a scholarship and graduate from overseas? Hahaha, who am I kidding. Despite all the thoughts, I kept reading those articles and found some full scholarships. One of them was MEXT. Honestly, I was thinking that this one must be hard to get since all who got the scholarship came from a prestigious national universities. The next problem is it seemed like the recipient should have enough Japanese language skill. I only watch animes. With english subs! Practically I listen to animes and watching the subs! Hahahahaha... Silly.

So what's so cool about Japan? The education of the graduate level. Although it is not comparable to those in the US yet. Their robotics is still good (Well, I actually know some good stuffs there like self-parking chair and recently they applied it to Ryokan as you can see from the video above), and of course, full scholarship! Hahahahaha... Well, my aunt in Bonn, invited me if I ever want to continue my study in Germany. Cool! But I have no money to go anywhere. I knew about DAAD, but I have no courage to go that far yet. Maybe in the future, but not too soon. I was not that serious during that time. But my mom told me that it would be such a blessing if I could ever go overseas to study since her friends children are doing so even since high school.

What happened then?

"Time flies" they said. I was in the 5th semester when I met this lecturer in Computer Vision class. He was an Erasmus Mundus scholarship recipient and actively doing research in his 'lab'. He told stories about his study and successfully poisoning my head with AI technologies. At the end of the semester, we have to choose either to take a year internship at a company or a year of research with classes and exams (ugh). But I didn't want to work first. My reason is simply because if I took the internship, I will have to live like an employee spending my precious youth from 8-5 with overtimes occasionally without being paid or paid with small amount of money. No. Hell no! This is exploitation.

Long story short, from February 2015, together with my research partner we decided to take a research theme under my Computer Vision and Expert System lecturer supervision in the following semester. In the same year, my campus held their first international conference and there we met a nice Japanese professor from Koganei University. He has similar research with us and using the same tools. It was nice talking to him and he invited us to his lab anytime we come to Japan. In the end of October our team won the second place of national IT contest in AI category. Our supervisor insisted us to write our research into a paper and published it. The paper finished and he gave us the journal to publish into. It failed. But he kept insisted, and in the following year, we successfully published a paper to an international conference in Japan. I think nature loves people with stubborn people.

There ends my college years. What about the scholarship? Yes, it was all in my head, but no time to do anything about it since I haven't gather much information about that. In April 2016 I started to work at a small company, it was a nice company. I told my employer about my plan to take a scholarship. He agreed with that and gave me his full support. Thanks sir! I know I was a crazy boy who ever worked in your company. Hope you never regret your decision.

[Cont. to part.2] ...

Sayonara 2017...

Hi, first of all Happy New Year 2018. Hope this finds you in good health and well being. 2017 have passed, so many things happened back then. Most of them are emotional. Mistrust induced betrayal which leads to heartache. 
Last year was full of pain. Focusing my ambition, dream, time, money, and even my feelings for someone who just left you in a blink. Changed her mind and attitude in a split-second. I realized it was not totally her fault. My mistakes played a big part there, but, are you really that simple? Well, we have different values afterall, and she might have grown bored of me. So then I have to learn how to be independent. Alone again, to put it sadly. I should never ever trust in anyone.
Ironically, I was an ignorant person back then in the school days. I always thought I could do it better alone from the start or just plan ahead, make some core works, make sure it is perfect and easily understood, and let the rest of the team do the finishing. That's how I am, and I have no idea if that is good or bad. Although in the end I find some flaws. I become more and more dependent to another to do the finishing while spending so much time planning and construct a perfect core. If the project's deadline is tight, I am sure it will be one messy thing and I will hate the result for sure.
As I become more and more dependent to this one lady back then. Maybe she overwhelmed too and 'exploded', But she was the best work partner I ever had. I will make sure to hire her if I am building my own company. Right now, that lady has become someone else's girl. I can only wish for good things, so I'd rather not to think about it. 
October 2016-February 2017 were hellish. The worst thing ever happened in my relationship with someone I loved. I was so slow, and really, I have no plan towards any commitment or such. Slowly, while denying my true feelings, I became more and more attached to her. She is still my greatest one. Honestly, I can't bring myself to hate her, neither can I love her any longer for what happened during that period. The pain still stings. Also, this period is where I got turned down by 2 profs and was in doubt whether to continue my study or cancel it. [Hope karma treats you well]. 
March 2017 things calmed down, but she is still going first to Kyoto. Leaving me behind. Well, no problem, because I had known what is going to happen there sooner or later. Best thing that time was I got my research topic and prospective Profs.
April 2017 was hectic as I am preparing the documents and such because the registration will be open shortly. But it was not until the end of the month. I got so many helps from people nearby and from far away.
May 2017 was the deadline of the application. I ended up putting my last hope in this one. Promised my parents that this is for a better future, but the main reason is to be with her. Earlier this month, I did a Skype interview with one of my prospective professor and it ended up great. It was my first time interviewed via internet too! I was so nervous as it will decide my future, I sweat from my back to hips. Luckily the could not see it. Haha...
June 2017. The first screening result announced. "Let me fail here if this is not Thy will. Otherwise, lead me through all the way from now on."I asked God that time right before opening the attachment in the email from embassy. He answered quietly by showing me my registration number on the list of 168 people who passed the first document screening out of thousands of applicants.
July 2017. The result of language screening announced. Passed one more time. I believe this is not my might, this is the power of my parents prayers. In the end of this month, the interview result was announced. I don't know what to say, but I passed. Praise the Lord.
August 2017, I lost contact with one of my prospective professor leaving me with one and only choice. Around this time, she told me that she was head over heels towards this one guy. She told me the story, but I can feel her excitement and joy from her story. See, this is it then. Truthfully, I can't let this go easily. The pain I feel, my feelings I keep inside, all my effort and plans, I have none of it anymore.
September 2017. My LoA arrived. After submitted it to the embassy, I arrange my schedule to go home and resign from my previous job to prepare my language.
October 2017-December 2017. Intensively learn a new language makes my head spin. My back were hurt due to prolonged studying period with the same pose. Around this period, she has started going out with another guy. The university told me they got the letter from the sponsor asking for confirmation that they will accept me as their student. They told me that it was a good omen. Lastly, the final official result announced. I am one of 31 students from my country who are going to receive the scholarship.

It ended up well. With all the bitter-sweet, tears, and sweat. It all paid off. "In order to get something better we have to learn to let go some good things". Those words hanged in the toilet of my old workplace. Everyday for one and a half year I saw the same words over and over again. But it is true.

I am happy overall. I can spend my last days here with my beloved and most precious people. I met my high school friends. I drank Dom Benedictine and Bailey's, those two are the best! I want to try Kahlua, Bali liquid Brem, and many more next time.

Then again, Thank you 2017.
Let it be my year of sorrows, pains, depression, months of suicidal thoughts and useless feelings.
Special thanks to my parents for your prayers and support. Friends and relatives who had spent their time helping me. Thanks for my high school ex-gf who caught me first when I need someone to say sorry to. [I was so afraid that I'd cry while doing it, but I could still handle it]. At least the useless thoughts have been somehow relieved. Thanks for my language course friends and teacher for listening to my 'GalauFM' channel everyday. And for people who were there when I was about to kill myself and asking my purpose of living, may God gives you what you deserve the most. I can't pay it with anything in this world. You all saved me.

I will write some more next time. My depression and also my scholarship story. See you!