“Teaching what I learned to the students, has been truly a pleasant experience,” said Muhammad Rifqi, a professor of the Undergraduate English Major at Universitas Dian Nuswantoro (Udinus).

The professor known simply as ‘Rifqi’ had been teaching for Udinus since the year 2000. He had been going through many ups and downs in his life, but despite that, he remains passionate about his profession, stating that his knowledge would gradually grow as time went on.

Rifqi who just got his doctorate in the English Education Program admittedly claimed that learning English had always been his passion since his youth. However, he didn’t think that his hobby would be his profession at first.

“To be honest, I was intrigued by engineering science. Back in high school, I took a physics major. However, our lives work in mysterious ways and the future is not ours to see. As it turned out, my favorite subject of my childhood years finally became my profession,” he said.

Rifqi, born in Lombok, believed that languages bridge many cultures together. To understand any culture, we need to understand the language first. Moreover, English has become an international language. “That is why, we need to study foreign languages. Especially for the youths,” Rifqi continued.

He said that English was so close to the youths’ everyday life. For instance, video game narratives are usually in English. “With these circumstances, the youths are driven to learn English. This is arguably a nowadays demand,” revealed the man who was born on November 24th, 1968.

By becoming a professor in the English Major of Udinus, Rifqi hoped that the students could understand his lecture well. He wanted to encourage the students of English Major to create more English literary works, no matter how simple those works were.

“The point is that I want to contribute better as the institution hoped so that I could push Udinus towards its glory, especially the English Major,” he concluded.