ITS Profile

Name: WTA

Nationality: Indonesian

ITS Programme: MSc (Eng) Transport Planning and Engineering

Funding/Scholarship: Scholarship from Ministry of Education and Ministry of Transportation Republic of Indonesia

Undergraduate/Bachelors degree & University: Civil Engineering, Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB)

ITS dissertation topic: Transport in developing countries: Willingness to pay estimates for travel & transport facilities

What is it about transport that interests and motivates you to study it?

Transport is something we find in our daily life and closely related to the economic performance, society and welfare. It is an interesting area because we can manage to provide an efficient use of transport system, which will reduce transport cost for both passenger and goods, so that people can use their money to other purposes such as health, education and entertainment, in other words, it improves their quality of life.

Why did you decide to study at ITS?  [rather than somewhere else]

ITS from University of Leeds is one of the best university in the world for transport studies. Many transport experts and teacher from my former University studied in ITS, in addition to numbers of great transport experts and well known writers from all over the world. I like to follow the paths of those great people and also intended to feel the experience of British educational system, that’s why I chose ITS.

How would you describe the experience of being an ITS Masters student? 

The experience of being ITS master student can be just described as amazing. The lecturers were great, the materials were up to date and the facilities complemented it into an amazing experience. I found the libraries provide a huge collection of books, videos, recordings and other collections. Moreover, the electronic resources were remarkable, where we can find papers, journals and other transport resources related to the study easily by using unlimited access from the university login.

What have you enjoyed most about the first semester and what are you looking forward to in the next semester?

I enjoyed the experience of being a policy maker, we set several objectives to be implemented through many policies and then we got the specific results on several indicators. It gave me the understanding and feeling of being a policy maker where the objectives usually constrained by resources and need to be managed into the effective and efficient way.

I’m looking forward to improve my knowledge about transport infrastructure and modelling technique. I’m also struggling with the time management strategy, to manage my time through dissertation, modules assignment and all other social activities.  

What have the lecture and seminars been like? And the teaching staff?

The lectures and modules have been great; along with the seminars it gave us recent issues of transport applications, how to solve the problems, and how to improve the result after the evaluation. The lectures usually begin with some general understanding to come into small details and examples.

The teaching staffs were the experts of each program. We have a discussion board to get our questions regarding the coursework answered. At the beginning of each module the teaching staffs give their email to contact if we have other inquiries. Sometimes the lecturers deliver the material in a compact way, so that we need to do a lot of self study to understand all the materials.

How have you found living in Leeds and being part of the University?

Leeds is a small city, which is suitable for studying. Living in Leeds has been wonderful, the people were friendly, and many of them were students from all over the world. We have a lot of cultural differences, but people give their respect each other in term of this. Sometimes to see people got drunk made me feel inconvenient, because I’m a Moslem. However, I can easily found halal food in the city center as well as around the university. The university also provide green room for student doing daily praying in the university. It makes me feels comfortable ever since the beginning when I step foot in the University.

What do you aim to do once you’ve completed your Masters? [next steps, career plans etc]
My scholarship is from Ministry of Transportation and Ministry of Education with the requirement to work there after the study, therefore I will try to do my best to implement as much as possible everything that I’ve got from my study. I hope the knowledge will be useful to make a better transport system in order to make better life for people in my country.

Do you have any advice for anyone thinking about studying for a Masters in transport at ITS?

Anyone willing to study in ITS should try harder to get into the university. Prepare for all the new experience, self-discipline and self-study. Get ready for the English accent, which is slightly different to American English. Be prepared for the weather as well, although eventually we don’t mind it.