Tell me a little about yourself - where you’re from, your educational background

I’m originally from Jakarta, Indonesia and then I went to high school in Tacoma, at Annie Wright. Tacoma, Washington. I went to University of Washington in Seattle for my undergrad. My major was Media and Communications, so before coming here I was in the advertising field and I was a senior account strategist for Unilever in nutrition, and I handled their digital accounts, but then I ended up doing content for mothers, and then they were talking about child education, and that really sparked my interest in children education and how I can utilize my background in digital advertising to just reel adults into that field. So I originally wanted to go to UW again for my masters for Digital Media and Advertising, and then after I searched for Digital Media and Education Technology, I found out about our program DMDL, and that’s when I applied. And I got in, and then now I’m here, and at first, it was confusing. But now, I think I know where I belong in this.

Do you have a lot of work experience?

I don’t! I graduated from my undergrad in 2016, and then I worked for almost two years, and then I came here, so it’s only a brief work experience before coming here for masters.

When did you start the program? September 2018?

I started the program last year fall in DMDL, and just started my thesis.

Do you have the topic for your thesis?

Yeah, my topic will be in social and emotional development in early child education, developing at home technology for moms to teach that for their toddlers. I kind of want to combine physical toys with an app and maybe insert some AR to that because from my survey I found that the mothers-- I’m focusing my target audience on Jakarta mothers because this is gonna be like the blueprint for my business back home, and they’re concerned about technology as an educational tool because they feel like they don’t have a bonding time with their children when they’re on their tablets and watching educational files or doing anything on their tablets. And that got me thinking that I could create something that could involve mother and children in some kind of adventure game. So yeah, it’s gonna combine the physical and technology-like toy.

Cool! Why did you choose to pursue this degree?

It’s just that I have that interest in early childhood education because of my previous work, but it just-- don’t you think it’s more fulfilling to work in the education field? You feel like you’re creating something that is useful, that’s impactful. Because I was so stressed out in my old job when I was doing overtime, I was working until 4AM but I feel like I’m doing this thing for nothing, just like selling products for nothing.

In the past, in Unilever you were selling products?

Cause I was in advertising, all the contents and strategies that I developed are for selling products.

What are your long-term objectives? What do you have to do with this degree?

My long-term objective is to eventually launch my ed-tech business in Indonesia and that’s what I based my thesis on ‘cause, I’m focusing on early childhood education because I feel like that’s the foundation as a human, and education in Indonesia is still very instruction-ist and all the ed-tech in Indonesia is focusing on getting kids into top universities but there is not ed-tech that focuses on the child’s development or early childhood development milestones.

What is unique about the DMDL program?

It’s unique because I feel like I get everything from it, in terms of developing a product, I get to learn how to be a project manager and in this program I get to learn how to be the UX researcher, I get to learn to be the UX designer, I even got the chance to learn how to see this program through entrepreneur lens ‘cause I took ed-tech and that was an interesting class, so I feel like this program is unique because it’s all a mush about developing a program, you’re not just in UX in this program, you have to be everything in this program. And I feel like that kind of prepares me to be a product owner.

When I was starting my program, it was so hard for me to follow everything in the first semester because I didn’t know that it would be that much narrowed into education, and the first semester, we’re all learning about theories, learning theories, and me coming from anon-educational program, it was very very hard but then, after that one semester, I felt like, oh, you can actually do a lot of things with this major, and there’s a lot of opportunities in the educational sector, it’s not just for teachers, it’s people like me who come from an educational program who can also contribute and do something with this degree and in this field.

Have you encountered any challenges with the program? How did you overcome them?

For my first semester, it was hard, because there’s a lot of readings and we had to take all the-- I don’t know if we had to take all those required foundation classes in the semester, but I did take that, and one semester I took Learning Science and Cognitive Science and what else? UX Design, and I took a Web Design class in that semester so it was hard for me, but at the same time, I didn’t have a job so I think it’s much more easier for me to do time-management, because I can focus on school, and it just helps a lot to talk with your classmates because a lot of my classmates in my first semester, we had I think three PHD students, so I often talked to and shared my frustrations with them, and they would just tell me to skim, keep giving me tips into reading a research paper and just like, ‘oh, you only need to read the abstract and skim the middle part and read the conclusion’. And I think that’s helpful to just talk with your peers and that’s what I did. And maybe it’s my thesis too, like for thesis, like right now, I’m struggling with the thesis a lot, because we have to write the analysis part of our research paper. It’s just hard for me because I haven’t written that long of a paper in a long time, but Maaike is such a great help. I feel like if people have any trouble with their thesis, they should go and take it, just don’t think that you’re alone while doing this degree because everybody’s there to help you.

I heard that you’re taking an internship. Can you tell me about it? How did you find it? What is your role?

Yeah, so I’m doing an internship at the Education Development Center. To be specific, I’m interning on their Center for Children and Technology. It’s an NGO, they’re focusing on, what is it? I forgot, let me check. Yeah, they’re at NGO and they do a bunch of research of education and I worked on three projects that they have. One is to revise a computational thinking framework, and the other is to do a case study for PBS Kids Ready to Learn Initiative. It’s a five-year long research, and I’m involved in the case study to see the relationship within the partnership and the station, and the third one is Math for All, so it’s a more research environment. It wasn’t what I first originally was interested in. I was more interested in UX design and project manager but when Maaike told me about this opportunity, I just took it because my interest is in children education and technology, so I figured I just have to try it. And it’s surprising to me, I ended up really loving it and I’m actually considering to do this internship as a six-month-long semester internship. And what I did there is that I helped to do analysis reviews and to collect data from accent data, and what else do I do? Yeah, they are very open in giving you a real job, it’s not just like copying things, but you’re actually doing work so that’s good for me.

So in all this research, you’re working under someone?

Yeah, I’m working under four people, because I’m working on three projects. They shift me everyday. I’m working like two days a week and everyday is a different project, just depending on who needs me the most. But for the first week, I was focusing on the analysis review for CT framework, but right now I’m on RTL most of the time, because we are just starting the case study and we’re now developing the instruments and IRB protocols.

What are your hours?

I work two days in a week, eight hours to sixteen hours a week.

Wow, so two full days?

Yeah, but it’s fun. And it’s my fault, I’m taking three classes this semester. I shouldn’t have. I didn’t know that thesis would be so hard. I didn’t think, because this is the first semester, that it would be as hard as now. I thought it was gonna be heavy on the second semester, but I think it’s heavier this semester.

How do you balance work and school?

I don’t think I do a lot of balancing. I feel l just, like you say, my life is just school, and then work, and then I sleep when I have time. So yeah, but I don’t know, I’m not good at time-management but I just stick to my plan.

Do you have any free time for yourself?

I do. I exercise a lot, so I actually plan my week according to my workout plan. So if I have free time, then I have dinner with my friends. But if I don’t, it’s workout and then classes, and then the rest is for, I schedule my thesis. I sacrifice like two hours for my thesis a day, but mostly I just stare down at my laptop and wonder what I’m gonna plan.

Why did you choose to do an internship?

First, I’m an international student, so it’s harder for me to get a job outside of school. So that’s why I wanted to do an internship through NYU. Second, I’m very new to the education field, and I wanna get more real hands-on experience in the education field, so that’s why I wanted to do an internship.

And how did you find this internship?

Through Maaike. She emailed me the job site, and about EDC, and then I did two rounds of interviews and I got it.

Please tell me something you wish you knew before beginning the program. If you were to tell someone who’s beginning the program now, what would you tell them.

I think I would tell them to be more organized on the first semester because all the theories, everything that they teach you in Cognitive Science, Foundation of Learning Theories, and UX Design class are gonna be the foundation of the rest of your program. Just organize your classes, download the readings, make really good notes so that you can take a look when you’re doing your thesis, because that’s what I wish I had done.

Do you wish that you did it in a different order? Because you said it was hard at the beginning.

Yeah, I think I would probably split up Foundations of Learning Theories and Cognitive Science because they are, to me, they are very similar, but they’re actually different, but I couldn’t really tell that they were different, so it was just confusing to me. But if I were ever to do it again, I would just split those classes into different semesters.

Do you have any other thoughts you’d like to share with people about the program? Or about your experiences?

I think I just wanna say that I love the culture and our program. It’s a small program but everybody sees everybody and we’re all very supportive of each other, because I’ve heard people who are taking classes outside of the program, and I’m taking a class at Stern too this semester, maybe because there are more, I don’t know, it’s just the culture is-- I don’t feel like the culture is as warm as DMDL or Steinhardt. It’s just a nice environment to be in for people who want to be in the education field or an internship.