A student of English Department of State Islamic University of Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta once again made achievements in the national competition. This time, the student was Fachri Hamzah Pangestu who won first place in the 2019 English Literature Festival (ELF) held by HMJ English Literature of State Islamic University of Sunan Gunung Djati Bandung on Monday-Wednesday, 18th to 20th March of 2019.

The English Literature Festival (ELF) was the first competition hosted by English Literature of State Islamic University of Sunan Gunung Djati Bandung and was quite successful because it was successfully joined by various universities from various regions in Indonesia.

Fachri explained that to take part in this national speech competition, he prepared various things. The material and arguments presented in the speech contest were achieved by learning from various sources; from lectures in the English Department, Foreign Languages Study and Development ​​Organization (SPBA), as well as self-teaching through YouTube. Not much was prepared to take part in this competition because the theme that would be presented was given on the day of the competition. The competition was impromptu because the participants were given a theme on the very day of the event and were given 30 minutes to compile the speech and practice. When the 30 minutes had passed, all participants performed the speeches they had made in sequential order based on their number that was drawn at the time of re-registration.

With all the efforts and the blessing given by Allah SWT, Fachri managed to win the first place in this prestigious competition. He also said that his intention to take part in the Speech competition was to perform his devotion towards God, to study, and to keep on studying. He believed that if his intention was merely to win, he would be very disappointed if he could not win this competition.

"The lessons I learned from yesterday's competition made me realize that there is still sky above the sky. There are still many people out there who are better than him, the only difference between me and them is mere luck. They are all great participants. The difference is only luck and no luck. I learned a lot from it, I always remember one of the sentences that always motivates me,experience is the best teacher, win or lose, it is the experience that is expensive, it teaches us a lot. "said Fachri.

Fachri, one of the students of English Department of chapter 2017, advised that all students must always have an optimistic nature and must always be brave to try. He believed that the person who fails is not he who always tries but always fails, but he who never wants to try.