IPB University’s Students joined IDC to Develop Debating Skills
IPB Debating Community (IDC) is a system provided for IPB University’s students to explore their debating skills. There are two category of debate team: Bahasa Indonesia team and English team. Ardella Maharani, the president of IDC (2018/2019), stated that IDC opened registration for new members every year. “We open recruitment for all IPB University’s students every year. These last 3 years, the registrants reached hundreds in number and once was up to two hundreds registrants.”
She explained that the registrants are mostly students who already had experience in debates in High School. Yet, there are still many registrants who joined IDC through online and offline promotions. By joining IDC, IPB university’s students are able to learn the ethics of debate.
Nabil Muhammad Mukhlis, the Head of Training and Development Division, stated that good debate capability helps students to negotiate well. “The ability to listen and understand others’ arguments is crucial to trigger students to think rationally in debates or discussions”, Nabil revealed.
Nabil admitted IDC helps him digging his ability to analyse arguments critically and dispassionately. This ability must be owned by students to build advanced debates or discussions.
Ardella held up the statements by stating the privilege of joining IDC, which is being able to increase each members’ soft skills. One of the essential soft skills is critical thinking. Critical thinking needed well-structured thoughts, then processed those systematically with valid data and informations.
“Members of IDC are encouraged to read and verify all information from any media. Those increased the awareness of each members regarding any changes in Indonesia or the world.” Ardella stated.
Yet, no pain no gain! All IDC’s members are prompted to practice and participate in any debate competitions. Those helped members sharpen their public speaking skill, which is required in debates.
“Public speaking skill is highly required as well as critical thinking skill. By participating in any debate competitions and practicing regularly, members will find a place to develop their capability. Attending public speaking seminars wouldn’t be as effective as regular practices, as it only happened once or twice,” Ardella explained.
Up to this date, IDC team had participated in many debate competitions, both in Bahasa Indonesia and English. During English debates, the points of arguments had greater score than either grammar or accents.
IDC had engraved many archievements, from national to international scale. In 2019, IDC had archieve many archievements in the name of IPB University. Those are 1st Place of West Java Regional Kompetisi Debat Mahasiswa Indonesia (KDMI) LLDIKTI, 1st Place National KDMI LLDIKTI, 1st Place National Debating Championship LLDIKTI, and 2nd Runner Up Debate Category of Asian English Olympics.
It didn’t stop there! Members of IDC has also participated in Model United Nations (MUN) events. From Geneva International MUN, Hardvard MUN Hongkong, San Agustin MUN, and many more. (Dn/RA) (IAAS/AKD)
Keyword: IDC, debate competition, critical thinking, public speaking, IPB university students
