The rendezvous with Shinu, Praise and Pappie gave the
audience three perspectives - one of dedication, hard work and transformation;
a second, of learning from down-to-earth life experience; and a third, of
opportunities and avenues with IT interface.Anish Pappachan (MSW 2013) fondly
christened
Pappie conversed on the broad
prospects for Social Work being an inclusive discipline.
He highlighted the wisdom of the host of task, challenges and programs
envisioned on the campus; the most endearing being the compulsive “PIME”
approach to everything ‘overdid’ in and out of campus. Praveen V Thomas (research
scholar) qualified this as a ‘pipeline’
something you go through, without any options,
but ultimately push you into a new phase in life.
Anish opened up the immense possibilities
offered by IT in the form of Moodle and more recently MOOC which provides access to innumerable course materials offered by
overseas Universities. These platforms put you
in better stead for employment especially with international agencies such as
the UN, UNICEF. He also stressed on the importance
of inculcating the confidence in ‘cracking the interview’ by presenting one’s self effectively.
Praise (MSW 2013) confessed
of his loyalty to the Loyola, having made it on campus at a crucial juncture of
his career; he had to take leave on the third day of his new assignment with Ikiya
International, which was into capacity development and skill training of BPL candidates.
He stressed on the importance of learning from on hands and from ground
realities. He posed that may be he have done ‘very little,’ but whatever little
he did, he did it
consciously and from the heart; that taught him a lot. He punctuated on the
importance of going out of campus to learn about diverse cultures and languages
which would add both to the personality as well as perspectives.
Shinu who was keen on cracking the civil services stressed
on the need for determination, dedication and hard work as key to success. He
recall of how quiet he was in the initial days, and how a request to cut out a
violin by a senior ‘chechi’ helped discover his flair for arts. This artist in
him was instrumental in designing and decorating at least four college days and
Christmas celebrations and further the Golden Jubilee as well as two NAAC
reaccreditation visits.
All of the presenters stress on the need of gaining
familiarity with computers and higher order applications of Microsoft Excel,
which was a versatile tool of database management. Dr.Sonny mentioned about how
this was important, Excel being compatible with most soft wares such as R,
SPSS, to name a few. They were also unanimous of the need of documentation
skills that one develops through report writing. They stressed on the need to ‘stand
out’ during the recruitment process by working right from the beginning with
definite plans to a career, designing appropriate resumes and become adept in
cracking the interview with suitable illustrations from their experience to
establish their credibility in staking claim to the post. They poked Sonny recalling
the abundant ‘red notations’ on all their reports as part of travelling through
the pipeline. There was an apprehension about the stress owing to workload which
Pappie and Praise laughed off in a quick reply “… stress is what you make of
things… stress …at Loyola…” They recalled the long hours they slogged in the
run up to the golden jubilee and the occasional visits to the beach to get
their minds off stressors if any. Viswathi and Aswathy appreciated the speakers
regarding the perspectives.
Complied by Viswathi, Sherin and Sonny ... Published by Praveen
