Learnt Forever, I Shall Forget Never…!!

God gives us so many opportunities to learn something new every day. I’m glad to have got a very good opportunity in the form of internship at Microsoft, that too away from Bangalore, to learn lots and lots. Some lessons very deep, some I already knew but never applied, some totally new and some out of the blue! I’m listing down all that I could come up with in the past one and a half month.

-> Just go out of your way to explore!

This was the first time I was staying away from family and home for such a long period of time. Initially was really excited. I clearly refused my parents from coming along with me till Hyderabad. Everything went so smooth for two weeks in this new place. Soon after that I started facing many challenges regarding health, food, climate, self-confidence, loneliness and so on… Didn’t know I was so resistant to change. Things went worse, I went crazy! All I wanted to do was to go back home!! But now I thank God for not letting that happen. Slowly some things changed… Situations were almost the same as before. But it was my mindset, my attitude, my perception that changed. I became stronger and much more confident of facing anything that came my way. Started loving myself more! And now, I’m no more hesitant of exploring any other place… Things do fall into place after a while, believe it or not.

-> Make mistakes when you can still afford to!

The best part was that, this was still my internship, couldn’t get fired or something in any way! So could make as many mistakes as I wished because failures are the best teachers. It’s never too late to make mistakes and learn, but of course, the cost you need to pay for it increases with time. So be very quick! I’ve got this all new confidence in me to jump into the corporate pool and learn to swim with the experts because I anyway have a life jacket. This is not just the case with me. Each and every person gets such a chance in life. All you need to do is recognize it!

-> Strengthen your strengths even more and weaken your weaknesses!

I learnt this, the technical way during my project, but can be applied everywhere in life. I knew my programming skills and concepts were very good but wasn’t strong in few operating system concepts. Coincidentally the project required a lot of programming to do which helped me go deeper into C++ and easily learnt new languages like C#, XML and ASP.net. And there came a day when I had to implement few things which I was weak at. Ended up learning them also, and after all, wasn’t as tough as I’d assumed. So it is indeed easy to strengthen your strengths and reduce your weaknesses once you’ve recognized them.

-> Sharpen your axe more often than you think is necessary!

It so happened that we had only one programming language in the syllabus of 3^rd year, that also with very less number of programs. (Needless to mention the reason for it being out beautiful education system!) Hence I didn’t get a chance to put my skills into practice. During my project it took a very long time for me get back into the groove. I learnt that I need to keep practicing something I’m good at, something that’s my passion.

There were many more small realizations and lessons which are etched in my brain now and forever. This duration of just one a half month has brought a lot of changes in me. This will be a memorable time for me in my future for sure.

This post cannot end without taking the names of people who were in one or the other way responsible for the circumstances, realizations and for me writing this article. I thank my parents the most, then my mentor Adarshji, my best friend Sandhya, my sweet little cousin Meghashree and a sister-like room-mate Madhuri akka.

Do pour in your valuable comments :)