To accommodate students’ aspiration and to provide forums of students’ activities, Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY) has a number of Student Activity Units (UKM) and Student Executive Boards (BEM) so that students can enhance their abilities in non-academic fields by joining the units or boards. Acquainting them to freshmen, UMY conducted Student Fair 2015 raising a theme of “Indonesian Culture” on 10-12 September 2015 at Plaza Bintang of UMY.
The event was officially opened by Rector of UMY Prof. Dr. Bambang Cipto, M.A on Tuesday (10/9). He uttered that the third Student Fair is expected to be beneficial for freshmen. For one reason, student activity is essentially not only learning at class but also joining organizations so that they can foster their skills.
“I wish that students may engage in organizations or student units because they can evolve their leadership and communication skills,” he hoped. He added that students may prepare themselves to confront challenges at workplace by actively involve in organizations since they will learn time management. “Being students is not only studying at class and then going back to dormitory, but kindly try to join an organization as preparation at workplace can be trained by involving in the organization,” he inserted.
Elevating students’ integrity and soft skills, student fair was considered necessary to be organized as the stepping stone of students to face university life. President of BEM UMY Zainuddin Arsyad stated, “We will confront free trade of ASEAN Community. One of the benefits of joining organizations is that we can gain new knowledge which we may not obtain from learning activities at class.”
Schedules of the student fair are performance of UKM, BEM, and several clubs at UMY, the announcement of the winner of Putra Putri UMY, and Annual BEM Award 2015. “There are 45 stands of UKM, BEM, and Clubs at UMY while the announcement of Putra Putri UMY and Annual BEM Award will be held on the awarding night on 12 September along with the closing of the Student Fair,” he informed.
