ITB Protocol: A Way to Improve Your Soft Skills
By Nida Nurul Huda
Editor Nida Nurul Huda
In the interview session with Dhyan Kusuma Ayuningtyas, alumnus of the School of Pharmacy (SF) ITB, she said that after she joined the protocol team, she felt easier and more comfortable when she is having a conversation with another person. "Now, when you do a conversation with a lecturer, it feels like a usual thing", said Dhyan. In another side, she also get various of valuable and interesting experiences such as handling a lot of people with different characters and conditions. " I have met a lot of very important people such as ministers, president director of PT. Freeport, Roy Suryo, vice president of the Republic of Indonesia, Boediono, and many others. Now, meeting a person like a minister is like meeting an ordinary person", said Dhyan with a smile. After joining the ITB's protocol team, she had gotten a big chance to be a master of ceremony not only in formal judicial such as studium generale and international conference, but also in non formal agenda.
As a protocol, confidence and communication skill both in English and Bahasa are highly needed. Hospitable, good manners, and empathy are also important and must be present in every protocol job. This condition can improve a protocol soft skills. Beside doing a protocol job, the protocol team becomes an information desk officer in the information center, where a guest can ask all about campus information. The information center also becomes the source of information about ITB for senior high school students who wants continue his/her study in ITB in the future.
A Glance about ITB's Protocol
ITB's protocol is a unit under the Direktorat Humas dan Alumni, which is an organization controlled by the vice chancellor of Bidang Komunikasi, Kemitraan, dan Alumni. The ITB's protocol team was first created and became legitimate in 2005. To become the part of the protocol team, the candidates must fulfill several prerequirements such as passed the first year in ITB (TPB), have a good GPA, and also doesn't have any academic issues. After fulfilling those conditions, candidate must collect their CV. Afterwards, the candidate have to do a psychological test and interview both in English and Bahasa. Those tests are done to know the interest, personality, experience in organization, and also the time management of each candidate. After finished all the tests, the candidate have a big chance to join the protocol training. In the training, the candidate will be taught about the basic rule and basic things a protocol needs, public speaking sesion, and also character building, which can improve the candidate's mentality and soft skills. Those trainings are held so the candidates will be ready to do a protocol job in various conditions.
By : Adhitia Gesar Hanafi (IJA 2013)