People listen to a lot of pep talks, motivational speeches etc.. Does that really help? Yes, to some extent! But interacting with people who have lived through that journey perhaps helps more. At Atmiya Vidya Mandir, we listen to, discuss with and question our school alumni. They often visit the school and share their experiences, insights into their careers and the importance of studying at Atmiya Vidya Mandir.
We had an amazing alumni interaction session by Tanmaybhai Patel (Class of 2015) currently studying at IIM-Indore. Commencing the session by what he wrote as “’tis just the start”, he explained that the 11th and 12th are the base of our career. So, to climb up the tall and arduous buildings of our dreams, we first need to make this base very strong. He explained the importance of all the co-curricular activities organised at Atmiya Vidya Mandir. In addition, he frequently linked progress in everything with reading of books. He advised us to form the habit of reading books and do a lot of hard work. He shared with us how the habits that he developed here at AVM helped him to succeed at IIM. Most importantly, he told us to keep friendship with students who are better than us and can guide us.
Talking about his life at IIM-Indore, he mentioned that he was the last person to get admitted into IIM-Indore in the IPM programme. Despite this, he eventually became one of the top-3 scorers of his batch. Sharing the experience, he said the reason behind this was the work ethic and values developed at Atmiya Vidya Mandir, and friendship with teachers. Further, he told that he had the opportunity to do many internships, one of which was organised by United Nations. He was the only person from India selected for this internship in Egypt. Moving forward, he told us to break our prejudice about management as a small stream in Commerce. He made us aware of the various options in management field and a number of integrated programmes with management studies. Through this session we not only got an insight about management as an option but also learnt that with values, work ethics and determination we can definitely achieve success beyond our imagination.
During the question-answer session, Harshitbhai Aggarwal (who completed his BSc Finance) and Akashbhai Singhal (pursuing his BBA LLB at GNLU), both from the same Class of 2015 as Tanmaybhai, also joined in and collectively the awesome trio answered our questions related to the fields of management, law and finance.
This small interaction with Tanmaybhai, Harshitbhai and Akashbhai helped us learn new things and gain more knowledge. We understood the gravity of small things like conversing in English on a daily basis and reading books, which our teachers frequently emphasize upon. Last, but not the least, like dawn comes after every dusk, opportunity comes after every failure. So be nice, work hard! It was an insightful, inspiring and superb session!
Written by: Madhuraj Modi, Smit Padmani (Class 11 Commerce)
