Life at IIT is quite peculiar and you need to have a better time management to complete your assignments and enjoy your life. Below are few things that I learnt (experienced) during my first semester in IIT Bombay.
# `Early bird gets the worm, the second mouse gets the cheese’. Analyze the situation well, before you take the decision. A generic rule does not apply every where.
# Old ideas are in the books and the new ideas are in the environment. Be innovative. Better to start reading more books and other materials, so that you won’t waste your time in rediscovering the same information again.
# Success are expected, failures are unexpected. Better prepare for it.
# You should not loose your confidence at any point of time. If so, then you should have a technique, which should be independent of people, to boost your confidence back as soon as possible.
# The (technological) solutions that you provide, should not replace people, rather it should aid the people to work and scale better.
# You can visualize/model to a maximum of 3 dimension but, mathematics helps you to model upto ‘n’ dimensions to solve the problem easily.
# Everybody is intelligent in somethings and ignorant in some other things than you.
# Complex problems have simple solutions. Think it in simpler terms, before putting your technological fancy stuff.
# If you invent an electric bulb now, people will call you stupid instead of genius. So collect enough information on your domain before presenting your ideas.
# Today is not the toughest time, it’s tomorrow.
# There is no prefect solution. The solution for a problem depends on its context (type and environment).
# Don’t deliver a delicious pizza for the customer waiting with spoon. Understand and satisfy the user needs. Any good product, you develop without good user interface is a junk.
# Attitude is more important than facts. The fact may be, ‘you are not capable of doing’ but there is no harm in having the attitude, ‘you can do’.
# The knowledge that you can’t express or share is junk.
# Lack of capability is directly proportional to lack of confidence.
# Though you develop using machines, keep in mind that you are developing it for human beings.
# Don’t do minor mistakes, because it’s hard to find.
# ‘Money is everything’, when you don’t have it. And ‘Money is nothing’, when you have it. You should know how much you want and how much to spend and save.
# There is a reality. Don’t cry because the sky is blue.
# The world is round and things will change.
Prathab 