Almeira Hadi, known as Mella, was a student at IUP Psychology from batch 2018 who is currently pursuing her masters degree in School Psychology at Leiden University, Netherlands.
When asked on why she decided to pursue School Psychology, a rather rare choice for Psychology undergraduates, Mella revealed that she had always been passionate in teaching since high school. During her time as an undergraduate in IUP Psychology, she had the chance to become a lecturer’s assistant for 4 times, and she enjoyed giving feedback on students’ assignments as well as the dynamics of teachings. Following her graduation as an undergraduate, Mella had the experience as an intern for 6 months at Sekolah Cikal, where she then continued to be a teacher there.
After this experience, Mella realized that she wanted to learn more about teaching, specifically on all the things that a student needs to enhance the education quality. Thus, after numerous credits conversions and cultural learning adaptation, Mella is now enjoying her time in Leiden University as a Masters student. In fact, Mella is now working on a project with her friend Alysa on gifted children.
Before meeting Alysa in Leiden University, the two were introduced by a mutual acquaintance at Sekolah Cikal as Alysa was a student there. Derived from her experience as a student at Cikal, Alysa decided to pursue School Psychology as she wondered if other schools in Indonesia can be as inclusive as her school. Bound by the same passion, Mella and Alysa became fast friends and decided to conduct this project on gifted children together. According to them, some teachers in Indonesia are already aware of the giftedness in Indonesian students. However, the main obstacle of this awareness is the inability to implement it in reality. With this, Mella and Alysa aim to increase educational professionals’ understanding about giftedness like how to identify students with giftedness, how to accommodate them, and how to battle misconceptions about giftedness. So far, they are in the process of interviewing teachers and education professionals in Indonesia, tackling issues on Indonesia’s current education progress, as well as the challenges that are being faced. The final output that they plan to produce from this project are an Instagram page and handbook, and also seminars where professionals interested in giftedness are invited.
When asked for a closing statement to inspire their juniors, Alysa said, “We really hope that through this project as school psychologists, translating science to practice, translating information to help teachers with the obstacle. How to close the gap from science to practice.”. In addition to it, Mella gave a warm reminder to us all and said, “When you choose psychology as a major, you’re committing yourself to studying about humans and all aspects of humanity. So wherever your career takes you, whether it’s as an HR or a teacher, you will always collaborate with people, and you’re never alone.”
If you are interested in looking more into their ongoing project, feel free to check out their Instagram page on @thegiftednessproject.id.