Islamic Boarding School toward Students

            After graduating from Junior High School, I was sent by my parents to an Islamic boarding school to be the student there while I thought that home was the only place for me to live and grow. However, I couldn’t reject my parents’ want and I finally lived there. In that place, I had to obey several rules. There were some activities that had to be followed. Also, I had to live and share with 7 other students because we were placed in one room. At first, I went through hard time. Then after several years of living there, I got something that I never knew before. I found out that Living in an Islamic boarding school brings positive and negative effects toward students’ life

To start with, living in an Islamic boarding school can make students independent. When they stay at an Islamic boarding school, it means that they do not live with their parents. So, they do not depend on their parents and they will grow to be unspoiled students. Also, living without parents means that they have to take care of themselves and manage all their needs. They have to be wise in managing time because they not only need to fulfill their daily or private needs such as cooking food and washing clothes, but also have to deal with obliged activities in the Islamic boarding school such as pengajian (religion study), jama’ah (together) prayer, ro’an (cleaning together), and so on. They will be accustomed to organizing their lives and they are eventually good at managing their lives. In addition to being good at life management, they will be able to manage their financial well because they have to consider the income and the outcome so that they will make do with the money given by their parents.

Talking about living in an Islamic boarding school is also talking about living together with many friends from diverse backgrounds of custom, knowledge and personality. Therefore, the students will be able to socialize with friends of theirs for sure. Because they live with different people with different characteristics, it makes them understand differences among others. Likewise, living together makes them share and help each other. For instance, when one of them is visited and brought some food by his family, he cannot be stingy and he has to share the food with his friends. Furthermore, if they can socialize well with their friends, there can appear a good friendship among them for good.

            On the other hand, students can easily get stressed and frustrated when living in Islamic boarding school. There, several students are placed in one room in which they gather, do their activities together and share spaces with others so that their privacies are limited. Because of that condition, stress and frustration can be what they suffer from. Besides, living together definitely makes them lose their me-time. They cannot do everything they want because they do not live alone. In Islamic boarding school, moreover, there are some strict rules that must be obeyed.  If the students do not follow the rules, they will get a punishment. This can press and limit the students unless they can adapt with the rules.

Another negative effect of living in an Islamic boarding school is that the students are vulnerably fazed with bad things by other students. Bad behaviors easily spread from one student to others because they interact and communicate every day so that they will influence each other. For example, if one student often curses or says impolite words, others will tend to do the same because they often hear the curse, get used to it and think that it is okay to do the same. Also, diseases are the things that can easily spread from one to another because they live in the same place and use the same bathroom. They both are the media which spreads germs and viruses among the students. Another thing that can spread among the students is a hedonist lifestyle. This can occur because they live together and there is usually a trending stuff. If some students have the same or similar stuff, other ones will feel that they have to posses that stuff as well. They will do anything to afford the stuff. They might lie to their parents that they need additional money for their studies or, moreover, steal their friends’ money to buy the trending stuff.

Living in an Islamic boarding school can really affect students’ lives. It can be in forms of either positive or negative effects. Therefore, students who are going to stay at an Islamic boarding school should consider both positive and negative effects and be ready to undergo life changes.
                                                                                          
                                                                 (written together with Luluk Khoiriyah)