UNAIR NEWS – Universitas Airlangga (UNAIR) Psychology alumnus Wahyu Cahyono Putro has graduated without writing a thesis. The success of the Probolinggo native was the result of his participation and success in obtaining funding at the Student Creativity Week (PKM) organized by the Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher Education.

Initially, Wahyu said that he was enthusiastic about PKM in 2021. He admitted that some of his seniors had also graduated from college without writing a thesis, which inspired him to follow in their footsteps.

“At PKM, at that time, the program was opened in full swing, so I was just enthusiastic about joining and taking part in the activities,” said Wahyu in his interview session on Thursday, September 7, 2023.

He never thought this decision would change his path in college much. He managed to pass the PKM funding and his wish of getting a ‘golden ticket’ to graduate without writing a thesis was granted. Thus, he graduated successfully in 2023.

Write replacement article for thesis
Even though he managed to graduate without writing a thesis, that does not mean he can be one without producing any work. As a substitute for the thesis, he wrote a scientific article.

“More precisely, my thesis is based on the research and scientific work results based on the PKM-KC (Karsa Cipta, ed) competition in 2021, which I participated in with my team. So, with scientific work that I presented at PKM, I made it a thesis,” he explained.

He compiled the scientific article titled EMOSIA: Emotional Education Media for Children with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder). He, his team, and in collaboration with one of the vendors, produced an application he used as an umbrella to compile scientific articles from that work.

For additional information, EMOSIA is an application they created for children with ASD. They can use this application to recognize and develop their emotions.

Comparison of thesis and its replacement
For Wahyu, graduating with a thesis or a replacement article is not easy. Participating in a PKM event takes a long time, and the process was not easy to go through.

“If I’m not mistaken, it (the PKM journey, ed) lasted approximately eleven months from the beginning until the day the PIMNAS graduation was determined. We had to be good at time management because we had to go to our lectures and our schedules,” he said.

Wahyu, as a team leader then, had to organize a lot during the competition. According to him, it was more difficult because there was an outbreak of COVID-19 at that time, and every job had to be based at home.

He expressed his thanks to everyone who contributed to his success. He also specifically mentioned his supervisor and teammates Arya, Yoga, Nidya, and Ice, who had accompanied him as fellow PKM fighters. (*)

Author : Muhammad Badrul Anwar

Editor : Nuri Hermawan

Source : unair.ac.id/en/unair-psychology-alumnus-graduated-without-writing-thesis