Tuesday, December 12, 2006

MCA, 2001

This is one incident that has left some impression on me; I have been carrying it from few years now and probably will do it for my whole life.

It happened on my first day of MCA class in 2001. Being the first day the whole atmosphere was buzzing and exciting. Laughing, meeting new friends, introducing each other it was going on as one fun day. Already down 2 lectures by some very senior professors’ things were looking good and set for next 6 months.
Now, third lecture was of Digital Engineering. As the second lecture got over, we all waited for the third professor to come in, imagining who and how he or she would be. Every one waited with one eye on the door, also making sure sitting at their places, not to send a bad impression at least on the first day of the session.
And he entered. A guy in his late twenties, surely not more than 30. Now if he had not been wearing so boring clothes (blue pleated trousers, light grayish shirt) we could have easily mistaken him to be another one of us. Anyways he entered, went straight in front, and kept his stuff on the table. Now at this moment class was silent, looking at each other’s faces and trying to understand what’s going on. I kind of felt offended seeing such a young lecturer in a post graduation class, trying to teach students some of whom were probably just year or 2 younger to him. And I was not alone, soon there was sound of murmuring allover, is it a joke that some senior is trying to play or what?

But overlooking the murmur and staring eyes he started:

“There are 3 kinds of people in this world.
One who do things, fail, may try again, fail again and leave the show. They don’t bother to learn from their mistakes.
Second, who do things, fail, learn from their experience, try again and succeed. These kind of people keep falling, get up, understand where they fell, don’t repeat the same mistake and keep moving.
Third, who do things that they have learned from other people’s experience. These are the smartest kind of people, who want to move fast, rather than always looking inwards they look outward and learn from other people mistakes and success. Watch other people carefully; find their motivation and understanding from them.
That’s what I want you to be, the third kind, learn from your professors experience, learn from your friends, you learn from your own mistakes, but also make sure you learn from your friend's and other people's mistakes, you would never know where and how it might help.”

No need to mention class was still silent, still trying to understand what just happened...

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