An ITHB Alumnus Received a Prestigious Scholarship to Scotland

There is much more to teaching at ITHB than just delivering a lecture in a classroom. An ITHB lecturer is expected to inspire the students. The late Mr. Edward Purba, former chair of the Informatics Engineering Study Program at ITHB, once reminded Ferdinand Andre Ginting Munthe, a former student who was at the time working for a government institution, “If we criticize the bureaucracy as an outsider, we won’t change anything. Change must take place from the inside.” That inspired Ferdinand to plan for a career in government, which he believes need a lot of improvements.

Earlier, before graduating in 2006, Munthe had had a discussion with his thesis adviser Ms. Ria Moedomo about his wish to pursue a Master’s degree. She supported his idea and gave him a lot of information about various scholarship schemes he should consider. It was such a warm lecturer-student relationship that contributed significantly to Munthe’s life. Munthe said that had he not met Mr. Edward and Ms. Ria, he would have stepped a different path. Today, Munthe is working for the Directorate General of Tax and is finishing his Master degree from University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

Munthe started his career as a freelance programmer for projects with BP Migas, Pertamina, Telkom, Maras, and Bandung PLN DJBB. In 2009, he was recruited by the Directorate General of Tax, after a tight selection from tens of thousands of applicants from all over Indonesia.

“The various career skill taught at ITHB Career Resource Center helped in the recruitment process and more importantly, afterward. The soft skills and professional attitude prove to be very important at my work. The communication skills help me tremendously in my professional interactions. I can now express my opinion effectively to other people.” Munthe also thanks ITHB for teaching the importance of honesty and dedication. Because of Munthe’s performance excellence and high integrity, he was awarded as Directorate General of Tax’s Best Performing Employee in 2012.

In 2013, Munthe and 44 other people were selected as awardees of the prestigious SPIRIT (Scholarship Program for Strengthening the Reforming Institutions) scholarship schemes out of about 1500 candidates from The Ministry of Finance and The National Planning Board (Bappenas). Munthe chose to study Advanced Design Informatics at the University of Edinburgh, one of the world’s top-19 campuses according to topuniversities.com. “Studying in a foreign country was a valuable experience for me. Apart from the highly demanding process of studying, I was able to interact with people of different cultural backgrounds. I learned a lot about studying from them.”

Munthe will soon finish his study. He expects to have returned to work in Indonesia by mid 2017. He hopes to be able to apply the new IT skills and knowledge he has learned in Edinburgh and contribute to the improvement of tax services at the Directorate General of Tax for the benefits of all the people of his country, just like what his lecturers at ITHB expected him to do.

Ferdinand Andre Ginting Munthe
Staff at Directorate General of Tax, The Finance Ministry
Informatics Engineering graduate 2006.