One Hundred Credit Units/Semester, Attend Lectures from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.



Please count how many titles behind your name? One, two, or three? For Welin Kusuma, his titles are not enough to be counted with ten fingers. In fact, he has 18 academic and professional degrees. It took him 13 years to collect the titles from various campuses in Surabaya.

WELIN Kusuma, 31, took out his certificates one by one from his backpack. When laid out on the table, a tall stack of his certificates was almost an inch. Understandably, the man from Kendari had 18 academic and professional degrees. In detail, he holds eight bachelor degrees, three master degrees, and seven professional titles.



“This is a copy of the MURI (Indonesian World Record Museum) certificate I received on April 2012,” said Welin at the Hotel Mercure Surabaya, yesterday (12/10). In the MURI Certificate, the name says Welin Kusuma ST, SE, SSos, SH, SKom, SS, SAP, SStat, MT, MSM, MKn, RFP-I, CPBD, CPPM, CFP, AffWM, BKP, QWP. Due to the length of his title, his complete name is written in three lines.

Welin has sorted his titles according to the education period which he passed from 1999-2012. After graduating from SMAN 1 Kendari, he immediately studied at Ubaya Industrial Engineering Department in 1999. Five years later, he earned a Bachelor of Engineering (ST) in 2004.



On his fifth semester in Ubaya Industrial Engineering Department or in 2001, Welin took Management Economics major at STIE Urip Sumoharjo. In 2002, he also studied Law at Unair and Public Administration at Universitas Terbuka (UT). He was in fact very thirsty upon the education and on the same year, he took Informatics Engineering at Sekolah Tinggi Teknik Surabaya (STTS).



“In 2003, I studied English literature at UK Petra,” said the man who was born in Makassar. He also studied Bachelor degree Public Administration and Statistics at UT. In 2004, Welin studied Master of Industrial Engineering at ITS. Later, he studied Master of Science Management and Master of Notary at Universitas Airlangga (Unair). This 31 years old man deliberately took public universities for his master degree in an effort to get a better quality education.



Want to Be an Integrated Consultant



His Professional Degrees were Registered Financial Planner Indonesia (RFP-I), Certified Professional in Brand Development (CPBD), Certified Professional in Product Management (CPPM), Certified Financial Planner (CFP), Affiliate Wealth Manager (AffWM), Certified Taxation Consultant (BKP), Qualified Wealth Planner (QWP), and Certified Professional Human Resource (CPHR). “My Professional Degrees are related to the management, finance, and taxation,” he explained.

During his study, almost every year, he took up to one hundred Credit Units (SKS) per week. In fact, he took 111 credits in one semester on February to August 2003. At that time, Welin studied 5 Bachelor degrees in parallel. They are Industrial Engineering at Ubaya (9 Subjects (MK) - 24 SKS), Management Economics at STIE Urip Sumoharjo (4 MK - 11 SKS), Public Administration at UT (10 MK - 28 SKS), Informatics Engineering at STTS (9 MK-25 SKS), and Law at Unair (7 MK-23 SKS).



Welin received his second Muri Record for the 111 SKS he studied in one semester. The award was given last August. He said that every day he attended the lectures started from 07.00 and finish at 22.00. In fact, he also attended lectures on Saturday and Sunday. For example, he took extension class for his Bachelor of Law at Unair. The tight lecture schedules made him very busy and mobile from one campus to another campus. In fact, he has to be smart in managing the lecture schedule aims not to collide with another lecture schedules at another university. “I dedicated a special book to carefully record my class schedule,” said the bespectacled man.



However, even though he has properly managed the schedule, the second child among three brothers often met with really tight schedule. For instance, in 2003, he took English Literature at UK Petra and Informatics Engineering at STTS. His English Literature class started at 13:30 to 15:30. On the same day, his Informatics class began 15:00 to 18:00.



Thereby, Welin was forced to ask permission to get out from his English class at 15:00. He then immediately raced his vehicle from UK Petra at Jalan Siwalankerto to STTS at Jalan Ngagel Jaya Tengah. Hence, he was only able to get into the class at 15:35. As the late tolerance is only 30 minutes, he was not allowed to enter the classroom. “For one semester, I was late four times. Fortunately, there are still below the late tolerance,” he said.

Since studying at several universities, Welin often met similar lecturers. The lecturers were teaching at two different universities. “It makes them always remember and notice me,” he said with laugh.



The son of Onny Kusuma-Sisilia Chandra pair has completed all of the degrees. The most recent, he just finished Informatics Engineering STTS in 2012. It was the longest education period for him, i.e. ten years. He said it is quite difficult to graduate from STTS as he should be able to make a good and well tested application. “I did not want to mess with my final project. It must be perfect,” he said.

He once received a Drop out Warning Letter from STTS due to the long study period. At the beginning of 2011, he also received the same letter from Unair Master of Science Management. However, Welin eventually completed The Master of Science Management on September 2011. In STTS, he was graduated in February. “When I received the Warning letter, I was down and depressed,” he said.



Welin revealed his interest to pursue various titles was driven by a wish to be a consultant. “That was my dream since childhood. What kind of consultant? Hmmm, an integrated consultant,” he described.

In his opinion, an integrated consultant can provide comments and opinions from many perspectives, ranging from law, economics, to finance. Currently, he is a tax consultant because of a BKP degree.



However, his official occupation is on the Information Systems field at a company located at the Rungkut industry area. Welin also claimed to have worked in the property and banking. “From my work, I fully paid my education,” he said. He paid his education since 2004.



After 13 years, he got 18 degrees. To date, Welin plans to take another course of Doctoral Degree. However, similar to his Master and Bachelor Degrees, Welin does not want to mess when selecting the university. “Want to find a public or good university. Yet, I have to adjust it with my working schedule,” he added.

In fact, he had just received his CPHR Degree (Certified Professional Human Resource). So, we could say that Welin titles are now 19. “I want to share with others. Maybe some kind of motivating,” he concluded. (*/c8/tia)



Source: Jawa Pos, 13 October 2012