Year in Review: 2023
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2023 was a fresh-start year. New city, new degree, new field, new friends — most of what was familiar in 2022 got swapped out. Somehow it felt more calm than chaotic. Here’s the year.
School
I got accepted to Telkom University for my master’s, and that decision rearranged everything. My undergrad was software engineering; my S2 is data science — so a big part of the year was un-learning old instincts and picking up statistics, modeling, and a whole new way of thinking about problems.
The rhythm of grad school suited me. I made it through the final terms and tests, took the semester break, and slowly stopped feeling like a tourist in my own program.
Work & programs
Two big ones outside of coursework:
- GIGIH 3.0 (Generasi GIGIH) — applied, got in, and spent six months in the program. Graduation was held at the Gojek office, which felt like a proper milestone.
- FGA Google IT Support — a three-month course I applied to and finished.
Between the two, 2023 quietly became the year I collected the credentials and habits that made the data-science switch feel real instead of theoretical.
Life
The move itself was the story: Surabaya to Bandung. New apartment, new routines, new everything. Bandung turned out to be an easy city to land in — cooler weather, good coffee, an unhurried pace. I made a solid group of grad-school friends, which makes any new city feel like home faster than anything else.
For Lebaran I went back to Sorong for about ten days, then straight back to Bandung for final-term tests. Later, another break home. The Bandung–Sorong shuttle was becoming a fixture of my life.
Travel
Mostly this was the year of exploring Bandung and around it:
- Gedung Sate, Lapangan Gasibu, Kiara Artha Park
- Lembang — the Orchid Forest
- The cafés up in Dago Atas (worth the drive for the view alone)
- Kota Baru Parahyangan
- A villa in Lembang with friends to celebrate surviving the semester
Hobbies & games
Still on Valorant — climbed to Plat 2, which I’ll take. Read Clean Code (Robert C. Martin, with a foreword by James O. Coplien), which genuinely changed how I look at my own code; some of its lines live in my head now. I also went to my first Google DevFest (GDG Bandung 2023) — being in a room full of people who build things is its own kind of fuel. The Steam year in review has the hours.
Gear
One purchase to rule them all: a MacBook Air M2. I still catch myself just looking at it. Beyond the vanity, it made moving between coursework, GIGIH, and side projects genuinely frictionless.
Carrying into 2024
- Go deeper on data science — this year was the on-ramp, not the destination.
- Keep the DevFest energy: show up where builders are.
- Start the thesis before it starts me.
I ended the year the way I like to — makan-makan with friends on New Year’s, in a city that stopped feeling new. 2023 was a reset, and it took.
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