Yesterday, I had an opportunity to meet with the graduating students (about 250 of them) at SJB Institute of Technology. The college has a lovely campus. Principal Dr Putaaraju has a PhD from IIT Kanpur. The Swamiji who runs this Institute (and several Institutes in Karnataka including a fine ultra-modern hospital in the same campus) His Holiness Sri Sri Balagangadhara Swamiji is a source of inspiration. The occassion was a “Farewell” function to the 4th year B Tech students (of CSE, IT, ECE, EE departments), where Prof Khincha, Vice Chancellor of VTU and I were asked to speak to the students.
Instead of focusing on IT (that I normally do), I decided to remind them of just five simple words
Read
Write
See
Listen
and
Enjoy.
I wanted them to remember that “browsing” that has become part of everyone’s life after Google is no substitute for “reading”; they should develop a habit of reading at least for 1 or 2 hours everyday
Just as reading is important, “writing” is important too. I was exhorting the students to go beyond SMS & e-mail to get to the habit of writing full words, full sentences, full paragraphs and full chapters. It is best to read and write a summary of what you read; in the process, cultivate the habit of good writing.
Next is to “see” the beautiful physical world by travelling; looking through the windows and not looking at “Microsoft Windows”. India is a beautiful country endowed with hills, rivers, beaches and forests; other countries are there to see too. Students should develop a knack of travelling to beautiful places and appreciating natural beauty
“Listening” is the next important thing; listening to MP3 music is fine, but one should listen to the “chirping” of the birds too; nature has so many things to teach us including the “sound of silence” and the “inner voice”. Swamiji is more eqipped to talk about the art of listening to the inner voice.
Finally, it is important to “enjoy”, but far more important is to go beyond “physical enjoyment”; more importantly, one should cultivate the habit of learning to enjoy the “joy of giving” that is far more joyful than the joy of consuming.
“Read”, “write”, “see”, “listen” and “enjoy” are “simple”, but not “easy” though.
Interestingly Professor Khincha, Vice Chancellor, VTU, who followed me added “attitude” as another imprtant thing; I learnt the simple truth; “attitiude” is one English word that adds to 100 (1+20 +20+ 9+20+21+4+5) if we map letter “a” to 1 and “z” to 26 and map other letters in between!
Tags: advice to students, Farewell function, SJB Institute of Technology
