Why did I choose to study Informatics?

Have you ever questioned yourself why you chose to pursue your degree in your current major? I've done that several times. Thus, the answer is I don't know ^^ I think I just like it. How about you?

I remember when the first time I chose to study Informatics. I graduated from high school and I was in my room and tried to sleep. I could not sleep. I was bothered by the question asked to me ,"Which major do you like to pursue in ITB?". OK, maybe you will ask, why ITB? How could I've already decide which university I would take before deciding my major? The answer is simple. I am very influenced by my father. I look up to my father as my idol figure in life. He always tells me how he was in his childhood. He must do some hard household chores together with his 12 brothers/sisters. If he could not be the first in his class, my grandfather would punish him, e.g, retrieving water from a river 1 km from home. When he was a middle-schooler, since he stayed with his uncle, he ought to do some househould chores (mopping, for example), newspaper delivery and other part-time job. With such hard life, he managed to survive and become a success person. So, I want to at least stand in the equal ground with him. He used to tell me that he would be very proud if I could enter and graduate from ITB, his almamater. That's why, I chose ITB as my university, since I want him to be happy and proud of me.

OK, that's the reason why I chose ITB as university. Let's back to the question "Which major do you like to pursue in ITB?". I kept thinking and imagining, what I want to do. Then, I realize that I like to play with my computer, and I hope that one day I could learn something about it. So, is it possible? Well yes, I heard that there exist such major, which is Informatics. So, with entering Informatics ITB in my mind, I studied hard (yeah...studying is always a hard thing for me ^^).

And, I graduated from ITB and again I made my father proud of me again. I am really happy. Then, my father told me that he actually had dreams to pursue higher education degree when he was given chance to pursue magister and doctoral program. But, since he's already worked at Pertamina and Pertamina asked him to come back and work, so he should forget that dream. He told me that my grandfather advice him "The measurement whether you succeed to bring up your children is whether your children could surpass your own education". That's why he told me that he would be very glad if I agreed to pursue higher education, especially in foreign country. He told me that he would provide fund to support me to do that. That time, I said that I will consider that because it will decide my future plan. Then, as you've known, I agreed and now here I am....studying in RWTH Aachen. Once more, I study Informatics.

I've never regretted my decision to study informatics. May be I deviate a little bit from my dream. My dream was to study computer and in informatics I do not study computer but algorithm to work with computer. At least I work with my computer, so a lil bit of deviation is still acceptable, right ^^