Participants of Thematic Service Learning Program 2019 during the commencement ceremony

ITS Campus, ITS News – As an implementation of the Higher Education Tri Darma, which is public service, ITS sent its students to participate in thematic service learning on Monday (22/4). This program aims to have the students learn how to implement the knowledge they get in the class to the community.

ITS Rector Prof Dr. Ir Mochamad Ashari MEng stated that the thematic service learning trains the students’ ability to work in groups and sharpen their social awareness to the community. “ During the Service Learning program, you will carry ITS name so do your best to help the community,” he stated.

The professor of Electrical engineering further explained, since the re-establishment of service learning curriculum in 2018, the learning outcomes is more emphasized on capacity building. This outcome is to support the students to improve the targeted community knowledge and skill. For example, ITS helps the elementary students by creating supportive applications meanwhile it is used to be emphasized on physical constructions. “Show that you are the best students of ITS,” he encouraged.

Meanwhile the Vice Rector of Academic and Student Affairs, Prof Dr. Ir Heru Setyawan MEng explained that the thematic service learning is a part of Technology Insights and Applications course. This course is currently joined by 745 students from diploma and bachelor degree that distributed in 90 groups.

ITS Rector Prof Mochamad Ashari when giving the token of participation to the students during the commencement ceremony

According to Heru, each group is taken care of by a supervising lecturer. “The lectures are already experienced in regions targeted for development,” he explained.

Heru stated that the thematic service learning program requires the students to identify the problem and potential in the targeted region, also create and plan a project that will be developed for that region. This data research can be later used for a service learning program that will be held in some regions in Surabaya for 3 – 5 days. “So during that period of time the students will be focused to develop the community,” Heru further explained.

Heru, The professor of Chemical Engineering, hopes that this program will be beneficial to Surabaya community and solutional programs created by the students can minimize the problems that exist in the targeted regions.

The enthusiasm of this program clearly can be seen in the participated students. One of the students from Civil Infrastructure Engineering, Hermawan Chairul Alim claimed the briefing for the thematic service learning program is important for the execution of the program itself. “This commencement is to make us more prepared to undergo the program,” he stated. (yuliawati/ITS Public Relation Officer)

ITS Rector Prof Mochamad Ashari during the briefing for Thematic Service Learning 2019