Indonesian
Being a student is a golden opportunity that must be used to gain more knowledge and experience. Students are also not infrequently named as agents of change or who are often known as carriers of change.
Therefore, as a student, students must get used to thinking critically in order to make wise decisions, have an open mind with arguments and ideas on an issue, and of course can develop literacy skills. One way to improve critical thinking skills is to participate in debate competitions.
One of the representative teams from Industrial Engineering Universitas Brawijaya, Vania Vashti (SRK 2020) and her colleagues managed to get 1st Place in the Selection of the Indonesian Student Debate Competition at Brawijaya University Level in 2022.
In the grand final stage, they discussed motions regarding political issues in Indonesia and the critical arguments that led them to win the competition. This debate competition is organized by Universitas Brawijaya as an internal selection to determine representatives who will represent Universitas Brawijaya in the National Level Indonesian Student Debate Competition.
This competition consists of a series of rounds consisting of a preliminary round and a grand final. In the preliminary round, the debate team was met with team representatives from different faculties and argued with each other regarding the motion given. After going through the elimination process, Vania and her teammates managed to advance to the grand final and get 1st place on May 22, 2022.
Of course, being the winner in the debate competition is supported by careful preparation. According to Vania’s explanation, the preparations made were to conduct reviews and practice expressing their opinions through motions at the 2021 national KDMI level as well as reading factual issues that became hot conversations in the community.
Vania’s motivation in participating in this competition is to improve her critical thinking skills and gain the confidence to represent the engineering faculty to compete at the University level.
“Obviously happy and very grateful to have won this competition and have improved from the previous year. Hopefully this will increase the enthusiasm of other friends to compete.” said Vania expressing her gratitude.
With this experience, it is hoped that it can increase the motivation of Industrial Engineering students at Brawijaya University, one of which is by channeling their arguments and thinking critically about the problems around them, one of which is by participating in debate competitions
