Jakarta

So after Singapore, I moved on to Jakarta, for the European Higher Education Fair (EHEF). I can’t say too much about Jakarta as I only spent two days there.

Being the naïve, ignorant European that I am, I had booked a hotel close to the event, so that I could walk there. Walk! I don’t think anyone else attending EHEF came on foot and I can tell you why: it is nearly impossible. Jakarta appears to mainly be one big pile of cars, trucks, busses and scooters, with a couple of mobile food stalls thrown in, pushed through the traffic by their suicidal sales men. 

My 15 minutes walks to the event and back (yes, I am that stubborn, I did walk!) probably cost me a fifth of my lung capacity (while the taxi would have cost me less than a Euro), but it was worth it, simply for the interaction with the very surprised locals, who didn’t understand what this crazy white woman was doing.

The fair turned out to be quite interesting: As we had not booked a booth (not worth it), I basically entered as student and walked around, targeting fit looking people and talking to them about ISMB, pushing brochures into their hands. As always, we were the only International Sport Management programme there, even though there were universities from all over Europe, with the Netherlands having the largest presence (in fact, it felt like every other university of the NL was there, except for us). To be able to combine your passion for sports with your urge to make money by studying business was quite interesting to the people I spoke to. We will see whether anything comes out of this little experiment, but for now, I will claim any Indonesian applicant as my own personal success ;)