2012 Spring EducationUSA Fair in Indonesia
Jakarta
Around 3,016 prospective students accompanied by their parents attended the EducationUSA Fair in Jakarta. It was held on Sunday, March 25 at the Ballroom, Shangri-La Hotel with 58 U.S. institutions participating.
Several university representatives were engaged in a live interactive Radio Talk Show at the popular amongst youngsters OZ Radio Jakarta 90.8 FM on Saturday and Sunday morning prior to the Fair. During the Radio Talk Show, the university representatives provided a lot of information related to studying in the US such as the environment, daily living, specific activities in learning and teaching, their strong majors offered, and why Indonesian students should study in the U.S. Enthusiastic radio listeners also asked questions via text messages and twitter.
Before the Fair was opened, several workshops were presented beginning at 10 a.m. for the prospective students who did not mind standing up in the unbelivably packed room with some 1000 students attending in order to get useful and important information about studying in the US. Martha Crunkleton from the US Embassy made a presentation on the American Education System and Liberal Art College. U.S. Embassy Consular Officer took the turn to explain about the Student Visa Processing. Closing the workshops, Casey Jackson, a College Counselor made two presentations: one on Scholarships and Financial Aid, and the other one on Tips on Writing a Successful Essay.
The Fair was officially opened at 2 p.m. with a cultural performance by students of Senior High School SMK 17 Jakarta playing the angklung traditional bamboo instruments. After Scott Marciel, the US Ambassador to Indonesia, delivered his welcoming remarks and opened the Fair, the Ballroom was flooded with students and their accompanying parents. It’s very clear that they would like to get as much information as they could get about the available programs, courses, degrees and scholarship opportunities from the participating universities. With the help of the EducationUSA English speaking volunteers, students who were not yet proficient in English were assisted in their consultation with the university representatives.
The Fair closed at 6 p.m. and the university representatives along with the EducationUSA Team were invited for dinner at the Residence of the US Ambassador.
Following the Fair, on the following day the university representatives visited some schools with potential students, Surya Institute and BAPPENAS (the National Development Planning Board). Since the Fair coincided with the school and national examinations so no students were available for the meeting, the university representatives were welcomed by the school principals and administrators and had some time in promoting US Higher Education Institutions. At BAPPENAS (National Development Planning Board) the representatives got many questions from the BAPPENAS’ scholarship recipients about educational opportunities for the in the U.S. They were all encouraged to continue their studies in the US.
In promoting the 2012 Spring EducationUSA Fair, advertisements were much ahead of time published in the various social and mass media. One of them was a series of ads in Kompas, the widely read national daily newspaper. In Jakarta, Oz Radio 90.8 FM Jakarta and Smart 95.9 FM Jakarta also promoted the EducationUSA Fair using spot and adlib advertisements. Flyers and posters were also sent to schools, English language learning centers, book stores and other relevant educational institutions. Updates on EducationUSA Fair Spring 2012 posted on Facebook Fan Page EducationUSA Indonesia and Twitter @educationusaind were also used to inform the social media platform users/followers. Furthermore, with mailing lists and student database, the power of mouth-to-mouth in disseminating the information played a very important role. As a result of our aggressive promotion, the number of visitors has significantly increased by 97 per cent in comparison to the previous year’s Spring EducationUSA Fair.
Surabaya
The EducationUSA Spring 2012 Fair in Surabaya was held on Tuesday, March 27 at the Ballroom of Sheraton Hotel Surabaya participated by 38 U.S. institutions.
A few months prior to the Fair, AMINEF/EducationUSA along with the U.S. Consulate General in Surabaya had sounded out the information about the event to all their contacts. Everybody was pretty excited as this would be the biggest EducationUSA Fair for Surabaya ever. As the date of the Fair approached, they intensified the promotional effort by sending out posters and flyers to high schools, universities and other institutions of higher learning, English language learning centers, bookstores and other places frequented by students. We placed announcements on local major newspaper starting five days before, and a big ad one day before the Fair. Fair information was also announced on three local radios since a week before the event through adlibs and radio talk shows. E-announcements on our social media and that of the U.S. Consulate were on all the time. Hundreds of text messages were sent out to contacts. In addition to that, two weeks before the Fair we intensified out promotion by visiting a total of 28 institutions (high schools, universities, language schools, etc).
On the day of the Fair, at around 11 a.m., the U.S. university representatives arrived at the hotel and were briefed directly by Ms. Kristen Bauer, the U.S. Consul General in Surabaya. Ms Bauer gave a warm welcoming remark and an overview of Surabaya, local student mobility and potentials.
Then two groups of representatives went to do the Radio Talk Shows. Emily Norris, Public Affairs Officer in Surabaya, led one group consisting of Cascadia Community College, College Board, Webster University, University of Northern Arizona, and San Mateo Community College to JJ FM. Ambarizky Trinugraheni, EducationUSA advisor, led another group: Old Dominion University, Portland State University, Savannah College of Arts and Design, Stony Brook University, to Hard Rock FM radio station. During the Radio Talk Shows, the representatives talked about their respective institution, answered questions from callers, and encouraged listeners to come to the Fair.
The Fair started with a series of sharing, presentations and workshop. The first session was by US alumni: Ferry Sangeroki, businessman - alumnus of Iowa State University; Yurike, student at Airlangga University- alumnus of YES program and recent returnee of U.N. Model program; and Caitlin B. Huynh, current student of George Washington University, sharing their experience while studying in the US. The session was followed by ‘Scholarships and Financial Aids’ by Ratna Widjaja, EducationUSA advisor, then a session on ‘Visa Matters’ by Tabita Anggarina, from the U.S. Consulate General Consular section. The last session was a workshop on ‘Writing an Effective Statement of Objective’ facilitated by Ms. Anne Weeks, a volunteer advisor at EducationUSA. Around 350 attended these presentations/workshop sessions.
At 3:45 p.m. Ms. Kristen Bauer, the U.S. Consul General in Surabaya, and Mr. Gatot Gunarso, Head of East Java Senior Vocational Education, Ministry of Education and Culture, officially opened the Fair to public. The Fair was well attended by more than 925 visitors.
Medan
The EducationUSA Spring 2012 Fair in Medan was held on Thursday, March 29 at the Florida, Maryland and Oregon Rooms of the JW Marriott Hotel with 28 U.S. institutions participating.
The Fair started with a series of school visits, dialogs, presentations, workshops, and Radio Talk Shows. Early in the morning, the University Representatives did some school visits. The representatives were divided into four different groups and each group went to three different schools. The schools were very enthusiastic to receive the US University representatives in their schools. Approximately, there were about 1000 students and teachers attending the presentations given by the US university representatives and EducationUSA volunteers.
The first session of the Fair beginning at 10 a.m. was by US alumni sharing their experience while studying in the US. The session included US Consul for Sumatra, Ms. Kathryn A. Crockart and was moderated by Parlin Siahaan, U.S. Embassy EducationUSA Country Coordinator. About 75 people attended the session. Next were the workshop sessions starting at 1.30 p.m. on “Tips on How to Write a Good Statement of Purpose” led by two Fulbright English Teaching Assistants, i.e. Richard Shafranek and Shilpa Boppana and then a session on ‘Visa Matters’ by U.S. Consul Kathryn A. Crockart. The two workshops were prior to the opening ceremony where more than 500 people attended the sessions.
The opening of the Fair started at 3.30 p.m. when students of the HKBP Nommensen University Faculty of Arts did the cultural performance of the tortor welcoming dance with real live gondang music. The Fair was officially opened by the US Consul Kathryn A. Crockart. During the exhibition of the 28 U.S. universities and others, there were three more workshop and presentation sessions at the adjacent room on “Community College” (by Ms. Rismawaty Situmorang and Ibu Iriance Siahaan, AMINEF Community College Faculty and Administrators program alumni and Ms. Tiara Kristina Pasaribu), “Study in the USA” (by Donna Ria Pasaribu, EducationUSA Center Coordinator/ Adviser), and “Fulbright Scholarship” (by Ms. Nurhayati Purba, Fulbright Student Program Alumna). The sessions were also well attended by enthusiastic students.
Two radio stations popular among the youngsters, the target of the event, i.e., Mutiara, and Prambors covered live the Fair. At the end of the day, the statistics showed that there were 1683 students accompanied by their parents coming to the Fair this year; this is a 461% increase in comparison to the number of visitors coming to the Fair last year. We actually expected more people but unfortunately, there was a big anti fuel price-hike demonstration in Medan
Before the day of the Fair, we had adlibs and talk shows at six different radio stations. The Consul and EducationUSA adviser as well as some U.S. unversity alumni did two talk shows at Sindo and City Radio. U.S. university representatives also had the opportunity to meet and talk live with listeners for the popular radios, i.e., KISSFM and Mutiara FM. To promote the event, EducationUSA Medan Center mailed e-posters electronically to more than 1000 contacts, sent letters and posters to almost all schools and higher education institutions in Medan, and placed a relatively big advertisements in the best local daily newspaper Analisa. There was also the press conference on the March 27. Journalists from newspapers and radios in the Medan area came for the press conference.
