A little story from my KL trip last on last July.

After landing from Sibu to LCCT, I went to International arrival hall and waited for my Mum and brother. They came in a group along with other new students and the education agent (that handled their university registration). The immigration process took hours as they were new students. As I was waiting, I saw the university’s representative coming as well. In black attire, easy to reckon.

Thirty minutes after that, a few aunties went out with trolley fulls of huge luggage. Aha, must be the student’s parent. Two of them sat on each of my side, although auntie A can actually sit together with Auntie B. Then they started talking about catering, what to cook after the sons go overseas study, blablabla. And there I was, in the middle of them, like being forced to listen to aunties’ type of conversation.

Picture is for illustration purpose only

Once they paused, I quickly asked if their children are going to this {insert name} university, which is the same with my brother. The answer is yes, I learnt that their sons are going to take Graphic design course and they are from smaller town (same town with my good friend’s) and not Medan.

Auntie A says something like this : “We have our own shop and I actually asked him to take business management, but he didn’t want to. He has more interest in design. Forcing him to study what he doesn’t want will be useless.”

Auntie B with the one and only son also said something like that; of not pushing and forcing the kids to take what they don’t like or have no interest in it. If he want to take gmat prep, let him be, else take others.

It hits me, of how parent is quite open minded nowadays, as in 1) they let their children to choose and 2) can accept design as a reliable field.

I mean, back in 2003 when I wanted to take Graphic design, people’s mindset was like: “Oh, it’s not architecture building the house type of design right? Can you make a living from design? Seriously?”

Another thinking was: “Ain’t design is a course for people who can’t study?” You know, science class students will most probably take medical course, engineering, IT, architecture. Not graphic design, multimedia, game design, fashion, etc.

Up until now, there is still some parent who control their kids’ education and life. Like what happen to my relative recently, she wanted to take A course for like years ago. But her father pushed her to take B course and say something like: “You will most likely not gonna work in that A field after graduation. So just pick anything will do. Just like me, I took {insert name} but ended up I have to take care of the family business.” I’m speechless.

I’m not a parent yet and not in the right position to judge or advice them. But my brother and I are lucky enough cause the parent let us choose the path that we want. Of course they did insert advice here and there, but they never force. It’s the life that we are living after all, not them. And, they obviously want their children to be happy instead of being their robot and fulfill their dream.

One of the things that always raise and will never goes down is school fee. When I was in Primary school, I remember the school fee is at IDR.20.000 per month and it raise IDR.5.000 every year. That is more than 10 years ago. Nowadays I have to add another zero at the back of that numbers.

Yesterday I went to Yang Lim Plaza with mum and bro. There was an event held by Success English course. We asked about the Toefl (Test of English as a Foreign Language) course since my bro is planning to study overseas. To my surprise, 6 months of Toefl Basic course is at IDR.1.200.000, excluded books and registration fee. One year Toefl course is at IDR.2million++. While the fee for Toefl test is at USD150.

I think it is 2 times the price when I took the course 5 years ago. The Toefl fee is at USD100 if I not mistaken. I didn’t expect it to raise so fast. Gosh. Education is not cheap.