SHERYL GHEFIRA

Student

A psychology student with hands-on experience in project execution and HR development, involved in designing and running structured programs by setting clear objectives, building execution timelines, distributing tasks, and monitoring progress to ensure results meet expected outcomes. Strong exposure in Talent Acquisition, particularly in sourcing and screening candidates, preparing assessment flow, managing recruitment administration, and supporting job fair execution to accelerate hiring needs. Comfortable managing project workflows from planning to execution, maintaining documentation and schedules, coordinating stakeholders, and ensuring smooth operational delivery. Passionate about driving people development, strengthening HR operational systems, and supporting initiatives that elevate organizational capability and long-term effectiveness.

I’m passionate about mental health advocacy, youth empowerment, and creating spaces for meaningful dialogue. I care deeply about how young people navigate pressure, identity, and purpose, especially in educational and professional environments that often prioritize achievement over humanity. I’m also passionate about education as a transformative space, where learning goes beyond grades and prepares individuals to face uncertainty with resilience, empathy, and critical awareness. Through my involvement in social projects and research related to psychology and sustainable development, I aim to contribute to conversations that connect personal wellbeing with broader social impact. Ultimately, I’m driven by a belief that young people are not just future leaders, but present changemakers, and that supporting their mental and emotional wellbeing is essential to building a more humane and sustainable society.

I believe that many of the challenges faced by young people today such as anxiety, burnout, identity confusion, and uncertainty about the future are not simply personal failures, but signals of a world that is changing faster than our ability to adapt emotionally and socially. Through my academic journey and lived experiences, I have learned that being human today means constantly negotiating expectations: expectations to succeed, to be productive, to follow certain life paths, and to present a “perfect” version of ourselves in public and digital spaces. When these expectations are inherited rather than chosen, they often lead to silent struggles and mental distress. This idea is worth spreading because conversations about mental health, education, work, and identity are often separated, even though they are deeply interconnected. Anxiety cannot be understood without examining educational pressure. Career confusion cannot be separated from how we define success. Identity struggles cannot be detached from culture and the need to belong.

My TED story began not on a stage, but in the audience, sitting in a TEDx event at TEDx ITENAS. That day, I watched speakers bring together ideas that are often separated: psychology, technology, and culture. They spoke about how technology shapes human behavior, how cultural values influence mental health, and how psychological wellbeing cannot be understood without acknowledging the systems we live in. What struck me most was not just the sophistication of the ideas, but the courage to ask human questions in a highly modern world. For the first time, I realized that conversations about mental health do not have to stand alone. Anxiety, identity struggles, and emotional exhaustion are deeply connected to how we design technology, how we define success, and how culture teaches us to perform rather than to feel. That moment reshaped how I saw my own academic journey in psychology. As a psychology student, I had been trained to analyze individuals their thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. But at TEDx ITENAS, I learned to look outward as well. I began to see how systems, digital spaces, and cultural expectations quietly shape the inner lives of young people, often without being questioned.

People often see me as someone who is active, organized, and involved in many projects, but what they don’t always see is my ability to hold space for people and ideas. I’m good at listening beneath words recognizing unspoken emotions, subtle tensions, and the stories people struggle to articulate. This allows me to connect ideas across disciplines, translate complex emotions into structured discussions, and create environments where people feel safe enough to think, reflect, and speak honestly. I’m also good at navigating uncertainty. Whether in academic research, organizational work, or leadership settings, I’m comfortable working with ambiguity asking the right questions, identifying patterns, and turning confusion into clarity. This skill often goes unnoticed because it doesn’t always produce immediate or visible results, but it is essential in facilitating meaningful conversations and long-term impact. Most importantly, I’m good at bridging the personal and the systemic connecting individual experiences of anxiety, pressure, or identity confusion with the broader social, cultural, and institutional contexts that shape them.