My message to engineering graduates during the convocation ceremony

My message to engineering graduates during the convocation ceremony of SVPM’s College of Engineering Malegaon (Bk), Baramati on 8^th Feb 2020.

Principal of SVPS's COE, Dr. Mukane, CEO, of SVPM, Mr. Patil, dignitaries of the dais, on the dais, professors and dear students,

This day is important day in your life. You are going to start the new chapter. On the occasion, I congratulate you all. I would like to share few tips based on my experience to make the life better. 

(following is the excerpt from the speech)
  
Create Knowledge: You learnt the knowledge during your education. You learnt fundamental concepts, Principles and theories. Time has come to apply that, but most importantly before application, comes creation. Based on the fundamental knowledge, you should learn to create different concepts, models. You need to create the knowledge for the society, industries and ecosystem where you are living. Learn, Create and apply is the right sequence in knowledge management.

You are unique: Be the best you. Be confident and think that nobody is better than you. Your competition is not with others, it is with you. Always try to be better every day. Be open and always learn.    

Break invisible fences: You must have read the story of elephants. When they are very young and much smaller mahout uses the same size rope to tie them and, at that age, it’s enough to hold them. As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free. These animals could at any time break free from their bonds but because they believed they couldn’t, they were stuck right where they were. We also have conditioned our mind to play safe and we create invisible fences and strong chains which we don’t want to cross or break. That fences are like ‘I can’t do this, it is difficult, I have never done this, etc etc. All these are excuses we give for not doing something. This mindset is dangerous. We need to break those fences and remove negative beliefs, false assumptions and unnecessary fear.        

Success will come from simplicity: You are now engineers and understand complex theories and concepts, doesn’t mean you make life complicated. Engineers have the tendency to make things more complicated. Make things simple and the life of others. Your success will come from simplicity. Complex problems don’t mean that you have the complex solution. Find out simple solutions for complex problems.     

Life is always fair: Believe that life is always fair. There will be a lot of struggle, failures, frustrations but trust that every situation has some remedy. People around you may be unfair but life will always be fair for you. Something better will always be there.

Be a leader: Leadership doesn’t mean that you should have followers. Be the leader of yourself. Leadership comes through position and power which is not long lasting. But leadership which comes through your credibility, knowledge, wisdom is always long lasting. Create that credibility by your expertise, knowledge and wisdom.

You can curse the darkness, or you can light the candle, choose right option.

Don’t scare to do mistakes and failures: If you have the fear of doing mistakes, you will not do anything. Don’t be scared what will happen. Failures and mistakes will teach you lot of lessons. If you don’t try, you will never know what you can do. You are amazing person and you can do anything. Go ahead.

It must be a proud moment for all of you but don’t forget your parents. They must be prouder on your success. Recognize their contribution in your successes. I congratulate you and wish you all the best luck. I am sure you will rock going forward.

At the end, I would like to say that keep alive your dreams and aspirations. Don’t let it go away. I would like to recite my poem here…