MAXIMIZING LEARNING

It's really amazing to see the talent in this campus. Everybody I meet here is talented in one way or the other. Some people are really good in academics but some people are good in other activities. Yet, I see people making some stupid mistakes. I am one of them. "Here is a good sample of a very obvious mistake"

Before coming to ISB, I was a very confident, go-getter kind of person. I am proud to claim that I gained lot of respect where ever I worked. But, with in the first week of coming here, my confidence hit a nose dive. I did not really know what I was really good at. Being a decent programmer, I thought I was good at “quants”. Very soon, I realized that I was at the bottom of the period in this area at ISB. I also used to think that I was very good in business lingo, presentations and business writing. Again I proved myself that I was terribly wrong.

I did not know where and what I am any good for. I worked very hard to makeup for the difference but wasn't even close to where I wanted to be. I attended almost every class, sacrificed my personal life to a very large extent just to keep running. I was doing all the right things but was getting continuously frustrated. My performance was seriously affected. After a lot of prognosis, I came to a conclusion that the real reason was I was benchmarking myself with other students where as real bench mark should have been with myself. When I looked back, I did learn a number of new things. I realized this late in the game but when I did, things were very clear to me.

Here are a few other lessons I follow which helped me a lot:

1. Bench mark with yourself. If you are not learning anything new, the bottle neck is most likely yourself. Think of ways to remove those bottlenecks.
Attend all the classes. You will learn more by listening and discussing than reading a book.
2. Read the case. I spend no more than 5 min. per page. If I cannot read the case, which is very rare, I will try to get the summary of the case from a friend so that I follow at least some discussion in the class.
3. Try to question every new idea discussed. I always look for relevance of the idea with my previous experience.
4. According to me, the best place to minimize distractions is to study at the library. It’s also the most resourceful place not only with books but also with people.
5. Learning never stops. Once you start thinking that there are no new things to learn then your downfall is guaranteed.

Following Chinese proverb kind of summarizes what I mean: In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities, in the experts mind, there are none.