Between Wages and Experience

I am currently working with my professor as a project assistant.

I chose this job because I want to learn from him and learn how to do a simple and small project. And yes, I did learn many things. In fact, I experienced various stuffs. For instance, travelling, site visiting, meeting with manager and team leaders, chatting with workers, administrations, and more. I also experience fun things such as culinary, real travelling, hotels, and I also have good accommodations.

And if you are asking about the wage, it's not much. I could not afford my current lifestyle without the help of my father. But then, my wage is actually higher than the other project assistants (from another professor). It might be because there are only 2-3 assistants work with my prof. However, the experiences and the lessons are more valuable than the wage.

And I applied to my prof without questioning about the wage. I was fine with any amount. Liar. I was fine if it was at least 2 mil/month. And I actually got more than that. I was so happy when I received my first wage (because it was worth one and a half  month). Then, I also should mentioned that I got per diem for travelling and it was paid daily.


I just really love this occupation. Not to mention the privileges that I got, I learnt many things and feel needed.




Then, 

I joined the Womeng Unilever Leadership Program on last November. It is an amazing and inspiring program about woman engineer. You, my fellow woman engineer (limited to students tho), should join this program. Let me talk about this program in another post.

But here is a pic of mine.

Well, it doesn't look good enough, let me show you another one.

Anyway, I got an opportunities to apply to Unilever Leadership Internships Programme (ULIP).

In fact, I got contacted on earlier this December to work in the planning division. The program will start on next early January and will last for 6 months. I really want this. I want to experience new things and explore what kind of work really suits me. When I did the interview, I asked them about the jobdesk and it intrigues me so much.

If you are asking about the wage, it's not much higher than what I got from my current occupation. And if I do proper calculation, I will earn more money if I stay in Bandung. I've got more sidejobs such as teaching here in Bandung. And the sacrifice I have to make if I were to move from Bandung to BSD is considerable either.

This will be a good article if I ended it with saying "But I still choose ULIP because I want to get out of my comfort zone and learn more things in an extensive company such Unilever".

However, life is not as easy and predictable as we want.

I failed to calculated the working hours that I need to fulfilled to applied to Swedish Institute Scholarship (SISS). I failed to consider the trust that I should have build if I want to ask a reference or recommendation letter from my current prof. I actually failed to tell him that I applied to another job.

So, I have lingering feelings and feel too pressured to move out soon. So, I just emailed the HR team that I could not join the program from early January but February. Well, I am ready to withdraw my application because the mistake was on me.

What do you think?