INTERVIEW WITH CLAUDY & ALI
BEYOND THE CLASSROOM: ADVICE FROM CO-CURRICULAR CHALLENGERS

CLAUDY Putri Rusmawati

GHOZALY Ghiandi Amna

I. Please introduce yourself.
Claudy:My name is Claudy. I’m a 4th year, 1st semester,APM student, majoring in Accounting and
Finance. I’m Indonesian. In my free time, I usually
watch documentary movies.

Ali:

My name is Ghozaly - you can call me Ali. I’m a 4thyear, 1st semester, APS student, currently
majoring in International Relations and Peace
Studies. I’m also Indonesian and my hobby isplaying basketball.

II. Can you elaborate on yourexperiences with the co-curricular activities in which you
participated?
Ali:

In my 7th semester, as part of my seminar on
International Law, Professor Hirano gave us theoption to either write a thesis or participate incompetitions like the International Committee of
the Red Cross (ICRC)’s International HumanitarianRole-play/Moot Court Competition.

journalist, prisoner, detainee, or warden. The
competition is about using international
humanitarian law in practice, not just in theory.

Claudy:In APM, there is a template on the kinds ofcompetitions that students can join. Mostly thecompetitions involve business practices, however,
because I am majoring in Accounting and Finance,
I focused on joining competitions which involve
skills such as asset pricing and financial
evaluation.
Myexperiences

includejoiningthe

ESG

Bloomberg Investing Challenge, in which we wererequired to choose a specific list of stocks andthen perform an analysis on that list, ultimately
making our own investment portfolio. My secondcompetition was the CFA Research Challenge. In
this competition, we made a 10-page sell-side
report for a designated company. A sell-side
report is the most common type of equity research
reportinwhichanalysts
offer
their
recommendations of “buy,” “hold,” or “sell” tohelp clients make investment decisions.

For an overview, in the Role-play Competition acommittee provides a background scenario
relating to an international armed conflict andinstructions as to the roles we will be taking.
Participants then respond to it on a legal basis, forexample: discussing the issue with a ministry,

The team with the trophy at APU campus

internationallaw
conflictwas
very
eye-opening. That perspective is something I
think students like us should try to explore more.
Third, I would say it was encouraging. Fortunately,
the APU team for the second year in a row camefirst place in this competition. We were given theopportunity by ICRC to receive a fully funded
Final announcement of the competition where APU won
1st place; picture with the judges of the competition

III. How would you describe
your experience joining thesecompetitions in three words,
preferably adjectives? Why?
Ali:

First, I think that joining the competition was
exciting. Being able to visit Tokyo to do acompetition face-to-face and meet new people
was the exciting experience that I have beenlonging for and unfortunately did not get to have in
my second and third year.
Second, it was also eye-opening because up until

the competition, the team and I had always
understood international law theory throughin-school classes. We’ve always been thinking thisand that, but to put those theories into practiceand understand that there’s so many aspects tobe considered when acting in the field of

IV. How did you form a balance between joining competitions, studying, doing
part-time jobs, and having
other commitments?
Claudy:First and foremost, it's not easy. But it reallycomes down to priorities. There were times when

it seemed impossible to balance mycommitments. In that case what I did was try to list
my priorities and then let go of the commitmentsthat seemed unmanageable. For me, I listed
academic learning on campus as my priority, thenthe competition as my second priority, followed by

the rest of my extracurricular activities, my circle,
and my part-time job.

ticket to participate in a role-play competition in
Albania this March. For the three of us
participants, the results encouraged us to further
pursue knowledge and queries in the field ofinternational law.

Claudy:Joining the competition was stressful. I can’t lie
about that because there was a lot of primaryresearch and financial analyses that needed to becovered while trying to study at the same time.
However, my second word would be fulfilling. It’svery fulfilling to know that the competition ismuch more of a real-life application thanwhatever we do in school.
And my third word is memorable. I'd say theexperience was memorable in terms of the bonds
I was able to create throughout the competition
with the people that I interacted with, the skills I
gained throughout the competition as something
I can bring towards the future, and the chance totravel to Tokyo.

able to do the work. But yeah, I think the mostimportant sacrifice was sleep.

Ali:

Yes, sleep. Sleep and time. There were so manythings that needed to be done all at once so thecompetition became quite time-consuming. In
terms of money, we spent quite a lot on coffee,transportation, and accommodation during ourTokyo trip. However, these sacrifices andexpenses were incomparable to what we wereable to learn through all the experiences.

Claudy:I think when it comes to money,
manageable. Sleep also depends on

it's
the

individual. I have one question for Ali though: what
about emotional sacrifice?

Ali:

Ali:

I agree entirely with Claudy. I think we should
prioritize. If I may add, because of the team effort

when doing such competitions, communication isessential for collaboration as each member has
different priorities. Therefore, it's important tocommunicate to each other what those goals andpriorities are and support each other asnecessary.

V. Were there any sacrifices
you made when joining
these competitions?
Claudy:My first sacrifice was sleep - then money becauseof the coffee that I bought from a fancy café to be

Yes, the mental health part. What factored in mostwas the pressure. I think that there is a lot ofpressure to do many things over a condensed
period of time mixed with the added pressureof having last year team’s win the same
competition. This pressure did influence ourmental health. I think the best way to deal with that
effect is to talk it out with teammates, friends, orthe professor mentoring the participants.

Claudy:I experienced that sense of pressure as well, but I
think it also become a source of motivation. At thesame time, I think all the sacrifices that it took tojoin the competition were worth the experience I
received. I would also feel the value even if we
didn’t win because of the knowledge gained in our
major and in teamwork and communication.

professors in general are very supportive. If we takethe initiative to join extracurricular activities, they

help us as much as they can. They can give good
feedback on our work or advice on how to begin in
the right way. They can guide us to use our time tolearn and explore about the competition as well as
about ourselves.
Simulation 1: Meeting with theprime minister and his
legal advisors as ICRC representatives

VI.How did the advising professors or competition mentors help you during thecompetition?
Ali:

I think “senpai” or “senior” advice can also be ahuge resource. Senior students often help as muchas possible because it enables them to act on theirexperiences and brings back good memories.

VII.What advice would you
give to APU faculty mentoring competitions?

I think we wouldn't be where we are without the
support of the faculty. Professor Hirano spent so

Claudy:immense, and I think he also sacrificed a lot of histime. The fact that he's busy with so many otherabout what we will need to do in the competition
and what key aspects we should know and receive
some tips on how to develop our knowledge basemuch time creating scenarios for us to practice andhelped us grasp unfamiliar terms used ininternational humanitarian law. His support wasSomething that I wished I received before I applied
was a mentoring or guidance session to learn

things as a professor yet still helped us shows his
dedication towards his students. We cannot
appreciate it enough.

before we apply.

When registering for the competition, my teamCurrently the process in APU is to inform students
that there's a competition and ask if they want toapply, but a guidance session would clarify thedetails of the competition and APU’s history in

lot of support from Professor Lee Geunhee and
Ura-san both in terms of knowledge and emotional

resources? What is the number of hours thatstudents need to invest? What skills are required? A
lot of people I've known tend to give up on thecompetition midway because they feel like they're

Claudy:received one mentor from the CFA Institute,
Ura-san, a CFA Charter holder who works with
Amundi Japan Co. Ltd., and one mentor from APU,
Professor Lee Geunhee. My team and I received ajoining it. For example, a session could answer
questions such as: What are the necessary

support. Many faculty members in APU also helped
us or sent words of encouragement. Our peers inclass also gave us lots of support when theylearned that we were joining the competition.

taking on too much of a burden. Therefore, having

But one thing that I would like to note for students

I wish there was a well-known platform for which

who are going to join competitions is that although
there is a support system, its benefit ultimately
comes down to whether you yourself make use ofit. During my first competition, I did not receive as
much support. I was able to get much more

support in my second competition because wereached out to our mentors. Professors may not beaware of everything we're doing, but they're always
available if you try to communicate. Just try to send

the necessary information prior to joining thecompetition would be very useful.

Ali:students interested in participating in a competition
can register. Because in my case, I wouldn't haveparticipated if not for my seminar. A platform wherestudents can receive mentoring and support fromthe professor after applying to the competition as
well would also encourage students to participate
more in these competitions.

an e-mail or ask their opinion. There is a lot of
support available but taking efforts to let the
supporters know that you want it is necessary.

Ali:

I think that's good advice. I feel like a lot of students
are nervous or scared to approach professors
because they are afraid that professors don't want
to help or assume that they are busy. I think APU

During the presentation

VIII.Please give us an example of how participating inthese competitions has
given you an advantage(such as in job-hunting, researching, writing a thesis,
etc.)
Claudy:You may add the experience to your CV, especially

if you win. Regardless of whether you win, I thinkthat joining such competitions provides

confidence through the knowledge that you have
solved issues in a real-life scenario and that you
can now apply textbook theories to real life. Thisconfidence boost will provide a huge advantage
when approaching the job market or when writing

your undergraduate thesis. The power of being
confident in yourself because you haveundertaken such a task is one of the mostsignificant rewards you can give yourself throughjoining extracurricular competitions.

Ali:

As for the participants in the ICRC competition,

during our reflection of the competition we notedthat we had become more interested in the topic
and realized what we could explore in our thesis
writing. The amount of research done prior to thecompetition helped us to become familiar withinternational law, which also made the steps todiscovering and writing a thesis clearer.

The three of us are currently interested in applying
for graduate school. I think that this experience
affected the kind of academic goal we want toachieve and the country we want to study in(Geneva) as it gave us opportunities to learn aboutthat major and about ourselves. In my case, I hopeto specialize in international refugee law andinternational environment law. The ICRC
competition has enabled me to see where I am
heading, what changes I want to make, and meet
people that are passionate in those fields.

IX . W h a t w e re s o m e f u nmemories you made while
participating in these competitions?
Ali:

In the competition, there were two specific things
that we had to practice: legal knowledge andacting skills. You are asked to role play. During ourpractice for the competition, it was funny because
one of us had to act as a military man and one ofus had to act as a prime minister. That interaction
was enjoyable overall. During the actual

competition, the committee acted as military
members. Because they wouldn’t have an actual
gun, they used this pink gun. As soon as they
entered the room, you were supposed to beserious, but the three of us were suddenly
smirking. Overall, the acting part was a very
memorable experience which revealed
unexpected fun of the competition.

the

Claudy:My memorable experience is not related toacademics at all. For me, the most memorable(and painful) part was during the final round, which
was a full day event from 9:00 a.m. all the way until
9:00 p.m. From 6:00 p.m., there was a networking
session. I don’t often wear formal shoes andit was my first time in two years to wear them. I
had to stand there for three hours in my heels. At
some point I went to the toilet, sat down on thefloor, and gave myself fifteen minutes. I was too

Simulation 3: Meeting with the opposing team as
National Red Cross representatives

tired and when I went back, I told my teammates,“You know what guys? I don't care if you'reashamed of me, but I'm going to walk barefoot.”
My teammate kindly exchanged shoes for me, so I
still owe her my legs now.

X.What is one piece ofadvice you have for otherstudents who are interested
in entering these competitions?
Ali:

Although this advice may seem cliché, be sure to
put yourself out there and don't be afraid to try out
different competitions, even if you're unfamiliar
with the topic or competition. Whatever it entails,

there's lots of support available and you can learn
a lot. At school, you learn lots of theories. But when

you participate in a competition, you will see themapplied to real life which will benefit you in the longrun whether you are job hunting, working, or
pursuing further studies.

The team together with academic advisor Professor Lee
Geunhee from APU (left) and mentor Ura Shohei from
Amundi Japan Ltd (right)

wanting to join competitions is to know that there
is nothing to lose. The worst-case scenario is not

winning, but regardless of that you will havelearned something. Therefore, I think it's

important to approach the competition as a way
to learn something rather than win something.
Having that mindset will allow you to challengeyourself and explore what you want to focus on.
In other words, there's lots of ways to win, even if

Claudy:One tip that I would like to give to everyone

you don't receive a trophy.

AUTHOR’S IMPRESSION
I became highly inspired during the conversation with
Claudy and Ali. They were humble, respectful, andknowledgeable about what they were saying. I hopethat readers can also feel the same when reading thisarticle. Claudy and Ali are two of the mosthardworking and clever people I have ever met at
APU. Through this article, I am striving to craft a story
about their experiences and expertise that caninspire more people to participate in competitions,putting themselves out there and making the most of
their university time.

The Project Q Team with Claudy and Ali

INTERVIEWER and AUTHOR
Name: NGUYEN Kieu Chi
College: APM, Accounting & FinanceCountry: Vietnam
Message: Greetings! I'm Chi, an APM third-year student
majoring in Accounting and Finance. I'm thrilled to havefruitful discussions with Professors and like-minded peers
at APU. I hope someone somewhere can get inspired by
my writing and make a positive change in their life. ThroughProject Q, I'm eager to make APU a better academic
environment where students are free to express
themselves and reach their full potential.

INTERVIEWER
Name: LORENNIJ Kelly
College: APS (ED)Country: Marshall Islands
Message: Iakwe (hello)!I am Kelly, a 3rd year Environmentand Development major. I enjoy traveling and taking myukulele to play wherever I visit. As a member of the Project
Q team under the Academic Office’ s ALCRS, I have beenable to get an inside look at the goals and expectations of
APU faculty. Through these articles detailing the methods
and motivations of each respective professor, I sincerely
wish each reader takes away a nugget of wisdom.

What is [Q]?
At APU there are many professors who put together wonderful classes, and if we could get to know how theseclasses are planned, it would contribute to the improvement of other professors’ classes. For that purpose,
we have begun doing interviews in order to learn about class planning. These articles have been entitled [Q],comprising a variety of meanings such as: increasing the [Q]uality of classes, answering [Q]uestions toincrease quality, and forming a [Q]ueue, or line, of class improvements. We would be very happy if thesearticles could contribute to the [Q]uest of APU professors’ class quality improvement.