Intro

As the sun set, I found myself staring at the end of 2025. Back in high school, I used to write reflections daily. There's a sense of nostalgia that makes me want to bring it back. It was a hobby, and maybe it will be a hobby again. Let's see if my writing still holds up ....

A New Path ?

I start this year with working on Machine Learning IDCamp program. I was exploring another possibilites beside Backend Developer, then I found AI Engineer as an good option. Through this program, I learn a lot about Machine Learning and Deep Learning basics, and how to make insights with it. There are 3 stage, each has own exams and projects, so it's a long journey, I need to work every of them ASAP to be selected and moving into next class, and finally completed them all. Despite being the youngest in this program, my mentors always support and let me know if there is anything I need to improve on my project. Shout out to Kak Roni and Kak Andrew! It is great to be able to learn from them, especially about discussing better approach and improving my submissions.

Core

Some Updates About Backend

I also learned some new concepts in Backend Development. Concurrency and parallelism is something I really into this year, particularly because it was also taught in uni. Those concept are useful, and also help me landed two interviews as Backend Developer. Didn't pass any of it though, but it was mind-opening experience. The feedback was helpful and there are some concepts that I've never heard of; another avenue to explore.

Learning More About AI

During my summer break, Universitas Indonesia opened its Data Science Academy (DSA) at COMPFEST, their annual event. The selection was mainly through Kaggle competition, and only ten teams that could advance to the academy. There were a lot of participants by the way (the biggest Kaggle competition I've ever been till now), so passing with 2nd place on Kaggle private is an achievement to me.

The camp was about 1 month, with weekend meetings. The subject was well structured, mostly covering data science and some data visualization. I didn't find it hard to learn, but it is kinda exhausting because the camp ran all day.

They also had projects ! There were two projects, each with a mentor. First one is about credit card reporting with Kak Fauzan, Data Scientist From NUS as our mentor 😮. Second was a collaborative project with other divisions in the academy (Software Engineering, Product Management, and User Experience), with Kak Majid as our mentor.

By far, this is the best academy I've ever into. We built things together, pointed out things that can be better, and learned how to see the problems from each other's persepective. Highly recommended for sure!

For Others

In my third semester, I took part in a Community Service program held by ITS Intelligent Information Management Lab. The program is to make websites for kindergartens, something that useful especially because these school need some promotion. My team were assigned to accompany TK Islam Nurul Quran. We contacted the school, did outreach, and communicated regularly to build their website. My teammates (Amar, Zaky, Ata) and I finished the project in three weeks and were really happy to receive words of gratitude when we presented the site to the school.

To me, being able to do something for others is fulfilling. Anyway, I also taught about how to develop the website and make their own from scratch. I need to simplify some terms for sure, because to make others understand, I had to understand it first.

Competitions

Knowledge is useful when you use it often, I guess. After learning about data science and machine learning, I spammed Kaggle competitions through the third semester and got some good results :

• 3rd Winner at Objective Quest Airnology 4.0 Universitas Airlangga
• Top 6 at Data Mining Intelecta Cup Telkom University Bandung
• Top 7 at Machine Learning Competition Data Slayer 3.0 Telkom University Purwokerto

Not only did I spam the competition, I also hosted one. I took part as a problem setter at Kaggle Competition Axion. This one was a 5-hour offline Kaggle competition organized by Avalon AI. My job was to research some good datasets and prepare the Kaggle platform. We tried to make a realistic competition, considering there are some competitions with odd problem formulations (like predicting rain from crop yield... wth). This was my first time hosting a competition, so I really learned a lot, and I know everything I needed in case there's another competition 😄.

 
(Too bad that there were urgent thing at that time, so I missed the photo session 😔)

Closing

I feel, this year is a really, really delightful journey. Even though there are many things happening, I find it joyful to be able to do all of it. I truly feels how others supported and helped me through my learning, encouraging me to take on more responsibility. I may never be able to say “thank you” enough to my parents, friends, and colleagues, but I will always remember their kindness forward.

sidenote :

I will be take part as head of Education in Avalon Community (it's already 2026 as I write this lol). There are 7 mentors directly under my supervision, and these mentors will teach 20 new mentees. Education is like "bootcamp" part in Community, so there will be courses, exam, and final project, which I am currently preparing. I'll review it next year for sure, and other things that will happen in 2026.