Tag Archives: Learning

Semester Moments Assorted

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Phew! As I solve the eleventh hour queries of students troubled with what is gobbled up through the course of a semester, I found few challenging ones that observed my attention. Curse or thank the mediocrity of those instant guides that are popularly used every examination season; I have learnt a point or two more within my subject, not because they had better lessons, but they had problems confounded in such manner that they forced me to explore more. So, here we go with the three questions:

Question One: Why do we select the point of intersection that is closest to the horizontal axis when we solve games using graphical method?

Question Two: In a transportation problem, why do we form a circuit when we want to identify how much the allocation should be modified and where?

Question Three: If we talk of Six sigma, is it really about accommodating six standard deviations in the process or should it be about reducing the absolute standard deviation?

Goodness me, there is some talent out there.

That is not all I had this semester. There were a couple of embarrassing moments that is attributed to the efforts to try and over teach (not so desirable) and to the efforts of trying to explain the fundamentals more than required (no so needed, I find now). The first moment, I missed computing the standard deviation and got the problem wrong, and it took me a second after stepping out of the class to identify what mistake I committed. But the twenty minutes I struggled in the class remains an experience. On the second moment, I explained game theory very convincingly through out only spoiling one last procedure. I had forgotten substituting calculated values in the original equations to find out the whole range of values required.

If you think these were silly, I am assuming (actually I shouldn’t hope) the students caught more than what I had known myself committing in lectures.

If I were to mention one significant learning from this semester of teaching, I would say it, but it would not be ground-breaking. I figured out that supplying material to students prior to the class is as effective as supplying no material. The later can at least save me some time and energy.

What would I be doing next semester? I am eagerly planning things.

A day well-planned

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Early in the morning today marked the official beginning of a week full of holidays. And the first activity–you may have already guessed it–I made a list of to-do’s for the day and for the week ahead. Broadly, the idea was to get the house reasonably organized, so that I could focus on my thesis write up and finish a meaty chunk of it. It was a well-crafted plan with details of what should be done, precisely.

As it turns out, I wake up late because it is a rare and long holiday I get. And then I realize there are too many things that make me want to go to work instead of staying home. After paying due respects to mutilated clothes that rested in the bin for a week, we moved out to a buggy hotel for our breakfast. Our journalist uncle meets us there. On the way back to our house, he joins us–and what pleasure in learning Adobe Photoshop when he teaches. I picked up a couple of points about how to work on black and white pictures without losing much detail. That was fun, but it was already past lunch time by then!

After a very delayed lunch (or perhaps an evening snack), I take my soulmate for a style check at Jawed Habib’s in Vizag. Twenty minutes after we entered there, we walked out, and I had a gorgeous young lady by my side–a completely refreshing look of my soulmate. And then, my crazy brain needed some food for thought, and we walked into a book exhibition. I bought four books: one, that is entertaining for a read, two, that is useful to improve my writing skills, three, which can satiate my research interests, and four, which I should be reading in my newly wed life. Carrying those books and walking into a theater expecting to have tickets available for ‘Bodyguard’ ended as an effort in vain; for the theater was not screening the movie. A brief stint on the side of the beach road was a reasonable substitute to the movie plan, and then… here I am, back to blogging.

Well! As you can see, my day was rather well-planned. I planned, but it did not work. Someone else (perhaps God!) had different plans for making my day entertaining, and that might have worked (There are other ways I could have explained why my planning did not work, but I am happy for now with this ‘God’s Plan’ option.

Let me guess! That is how your day has also been. Right?

How I learnt Communication

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Over the course of my lunch today, one of our students struck a discussion with me. He was from the outgoing batch, and had some feedback about the college. Suddenly he made a reference me as someone who he thought had really good communication skills. Though he refers to communication, I think his reference is limited to what he saw in his class and the interactions he had with faculty. It was nice to have a heart-to-heart discussion with students anytime, and feels even better to find yourself on the good side of students. Amidst the discussion, and all action around, what hit my mind was a question ‘How did I get this communication skill?’.

Generally, I tend to attribute all learning to two factors: parenting and schooling. In my case, I have not been to school as much. Either have I not gone at all, or I did not attend so much. Reasons were plenty. Some times it was my father’s transferable job, sometimes it was because I did not like the school, and few other times it was because I could not speak English.

Yes! I recall I was against use of English because ‘I‘ could not use it. Acting as if I were rational, the kid me threw tantrums and gave all kinds of reasons why not to learn English. I recall all kinds of efforts my parents had put in to bring a change in my perspective. I don’t recall what worked. But the communication abilities I have today are largely attributed to them. May be I should take this line to say again; Who I am on all good sides is largely attributed to them.

There is another dimension to this which is common to everybody. I have learnt more making mistakes, getting embarrassed, becoming a joke, and standing corrected. Feels funny, but that is the way I improved the use of my words at least. For example, I was once corrected by Peter Cherian, Head HR at Integraph, when I used the word ‘manipulation‘ in a wrong context. I was cautioned by Vandana V, Senior HR at Intergraph, when I was talking without the knowledge of who was listening. I was criticized strongly and sharply for mistakes I made in Dr. Narendranath’s class. Chandu, my ex-boss at ATGOCS, has always maintained that good writers are those who use short sentences. Ashish Pant at Tata Chemicals showed me how to make professional reports. Ravi Meduri at Satyam was an example of how to think ahead and talk proactively. Sharmista Dash at Satyam was an example of caring communication even while she was generally thought of as dominant. Dr. Nalini, my supervisor at GITAM, is a symbol of serenity amidst all tension. There was an instance when Kshema prakash settled an issue on facebook that was triggered due to my incomplete communication. Dr. Krishna Kumar has corrected me for my improper mail communication yesterday. He is perhaps the nicest guy who clearly showed me the difference between good communication and good language. ajaY vegeSna, the name itself shows he brings in a difference in his communication; it is simple, simple and simple. I wish I can be so.

There are so many souls which have taught me how to talk, and there are many others which have shown me how not to be. There are so many I am unable to recall just now (‘recall just now‘ is a phrase I picked up from Dr. Sonali).

All this makes me answer a question that has haunted me for a while, ‘should we always think before we talk?’. Now, I think the answer is ‘Yes, if you can, but no worries if you can’t. There is always a lesson to take away and life always gives you a second chance‘. Incidentally, as I was concluding the post, another student sent a g-talk message saying my blog is her source for learning new words. :D

Life is fascinating. I think I have to add to it and say, learning is fascinating too.