How has the College experience shaped your personality?

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My metaphor for life would be that of a “journey”. A journey consists of a series of milestones that one passes by. We usually set these milestones and thus devote our energies in achieving them. The distance between two milestones can be looked at as an experience. This experience transforms the person by virtue of either reaching a milestone as well as the whole process of trying to cross it. Whether we achieve what we intend to do i.e. our immediate milestone is important but the process that we undergo in trying to reach it is more important. Experience becomes our teacher and helps us set new milestones. In that vein my experience at TASMAC has had a deep impact on me. I can safely say that spending nine months here has changed me as a person. I was a different person before joining TASMAC and now look at life in a completely different way. My childhood was in an environment of middle class values bound with high levels of discipline. The naval environment that I was brought up in shaped my personality with values such as tolerance, respect, humility and the importance of hard work. My next experience was in Scotland where I had gone for my studies to become a ships engineer. This experience at a young and impressionable age changed my whole perspective on life. The openness of Scottish culture was refreshing compared to my previous years. On completion of my studies I started working on merchant ships and started interacting with many nationalities. My upbringing was such that I could easily adapt to such a lifestyle. The next part of my journey was reaching TASMAC. My childhood and my experiences as an engineer made me a person who would accept facts as they were. I was told very early on not to question things but to accept them as they are. In my previous college we were always taught that an engineer never questions but applies what he has learnt. The past months in TASMAC I have evolved into a new person that questions everything. I now know that knowledge is not defined or static but very dynamic. The definition of knowledge that I have learnt here is that the more you know the more you realize how less you know. The most important thing that I have learnt is that there is fundamentally no right or wrong answer. It’s the context of the situation that dictates that whether something suitable or not. Previously I would have seen everything as either right or wrong. I realize that life cannot be black or white but rather grey at most times. TASMAC also has given me the scope to read and experience so much more. In my earlier days I limited myself to books that were needed for my engineering work. Here at TASMAC, activities such as the Book Review made me come across books with different ideas that stimulated my mind. I now realize that one must read more as there are lots of ideas out there that enrich our perspective. In my earlier days I was a very shy person, nervous and unsure of myself. Standing in front of an audience would scare the daylights out of me. My time in the merchant navy started to transform me by making me more confident and emotionally secure as a person. My experience here at TASMAC has just accelerated the process. I love the presentations and the habit of addressing the class. Now it comes so naturally to me that I have begun to enjoy it. I always wanted to be a leader but never had the communication skills to make it true. Now I find myself to be a confident communicator who can lead anyone to anywhere. Professor Nair has also contributed in this regard. Once in class, early in Semester I he told us that a good manager must have “lung power”. That thought has stayed with me ever since then and I still am in the process of developing that “lung power”. One of my other professors Dr Sheth has a favourite saying, which is “No man is an island onto himself”. This saying has had a deep impact on me. My upbringing and my time at sea made me a person who was a loner that never trusted anyone. I was emotionally insecure then and did not like meeting people. My time in TASMAC has changed all that by making me feel emotionally secure to share my feelings with others. Now I tend to be more receptive as well and find myself surer of my own personal emotions. Human Resource Management as a subject has taught me that in order to develop an individual one must not only look at his mind and body but also his spirit. This is something profound, which we can carry into the work place and also use it in our own personal lives. Feeding the inner spirit makes us a better person. My idea of business was that of a company winning at some one else expense. So I believed that all was fair in business and that ethics was something we talked about but never practiced. Coming to a business school and studying ethics has changed all of that. Sessions in thematic week have proved to me time and again that in order to win in today’s world, all must win and for that all have to be ethical. It does not pay to be unethical or to cheat. It might pay in the short term but in the long run ethics always counts and gives rewards. An ethical company can achieve the Shangri-La of “profitable growth” only when it believes in a positive sum approach. I also realize the importance of giving back to the community. It again comes back to the saying that no man is an island on to himself. Good corporate social responsibility is not about charity but building bridges, relationships that emphasize that we all can win at the same time. I realize that such an attitude can also be imbibed in our personal lives. We all can be more ethical and can give a lot back to our communities. Here I try my best to help people with their studies, which is giving back to my own immediate community. Overall my experience at TASMAC has moulded me into a better person, a confident young man who knows the importance of sharing and giving back. This experience of TASMAC makes me a better traveller in the overall journey of life. ps- TASMAC stands for Training and Advances Studies in Management and Communication, my college! What was your college experience like?