Alumni Achievement
Prof. Hardik Kothadia, Assistant Professor, IIT, Jodhpur, Alumni of Mechanical Engineering Department (M Tech Thermal Engineering 2011 batch pass out ) was awarded ?Teaching excellence award 2021? conferred by IIT, Jodhpur in August 2021.
Article by an Alumnus
Sharang Parnerkar, Email: parnerkarsharang@gmail.com
Short Bio: Currently, working as Development Engineer (Embedded Software) [ German – Entwicklungsingenieur Software] at ETO GRUPPE in Stockach, Germany. Completed B.Tech at Nirma University in 2013 followed by M.Eng at Hochschule Ravensburg-Weingarten (RWU) [Ravensburg Weingarten University of applied sciences] in 2017.
Professional Career- The Needs and Experiences
For a successful tenure at any position in a professional work environment, there are a myriad of qualities, which generally define a persistent path of growth and achievement. However, to attain these qualities, it is an uphill struggle and does somehow start right with the time you start working in the industry. But after magnifying and observing those qualities, I could say that at the core of it all there are no more than three distinct qualities which once attained would certainly lead to natural incubation of these famous traits, which you generally hear tossed around with hype.
Ownership
It is something which stimulates questions in your mind. Owning a project, owning a product, owning a company immediately brings us as an individual in direct attachment with our work. Ownership helps you understand the perspective of other departments and colleagues working with you. It helps you get insight into problems which you never knew of, but could occur. It extends beyond doing only what you are told. You empower yourself to take the reign of things in your own hands and think on how you would have done the job. Many times the thoughts are forced into action and you end up doing some of the best work of your lifetime. Ownership allows you to look beyond your daily tasks, it helps you gain insight with a holistic approach. It helps you iterate over your critical thinking. Most of the time, your opinions won’t be asked. Most of the time you won’t express your opinions, but there will be a time when your thoughts would be heard and whether it was the idea to introduce a coffee break in winters or to partner with a university for a product, people will realize one thing for certain. You own your work. And that imbibes trust in people around, above and below you. It will bring you many challenges and with it decision making responsibilities. Ownership does not need you to work sixteen hours a day. It certainly does not give you the right to scrutinize others’ work. In contradiction, it gives you a way to understand the work happening around you and how you could contribute.
Self-discipline
This is the one trait, which gives genesis to other traits, needed as per popular opinion for setting up a path to a successful career. Self-discipline starts with waking up on time and ends with going to bed on time. It encompasses punctuality, responsibility, accountability and target oriented work ethics. It helps you to work on-topic rather than wandering off topics in discussions. It helps bring calm to a heated argument, and it helps bring a moderation to a chaotic and unorganized team. The word ?organization? itself reeks of self-discipline. Without self-discipline there will not be an organization. The set of protocols keep everybody in check. Long you will realise that ?rules are meant to be broken? is in itself a broken statement. Without rules, you would not have been able to claim the numbers on your bank statement as your assets. However, it is exactly this self-discipline which leads to revolutionary changes. I would say, rules are meant to be re-written. Mr. Nakamoto did not agree with the bank rules. He did not just complain but took action on it. A decade later we still have rules of consensus, they are albeit different but not entirely missing. Self discipline helps manage the most scarce resource, time. Self-discipline grants you a sharpened Buriza-do Kyanon and teaches you how and when to swing it. Knowing our boundaries is exactly what empowers us to break them and expand our horizons.
Assimilation
Yes, you read it correctly. Eat all you want. Make gluttony even shy at your appetite. Not of food, but of knowledge. The assimilation of knowledge can only happen by reading and listening. These two activities are at the core of almost every individual in a professional environment. Some of them have more, some less, some learnt it right from the beginning, some learnt it the hard way, but everybody and mostly as people grow higher in position, they really like to listen. And they like to read. It just takes them a matter of seconds to separate the general crap thrown at them from game changing ideas. They listen to your voice and read your body language to process in a matter of minutes if not seconds if you are really talking about something that needs their time. They quickly decide if it is worth the time for both you and them. Generally speaking though, when you have time on your hands, listening and reading, foraging information, one way absorption of data is really what happens ninety percent of the time in a truly professional environment. Profound knowledge obtained via reading and listening in on a matter, be it a technical or a non-technical discussion helps facilitate concrete questions, which are not rhetorical and on the other hand does involve an actual exchange of knowledge. Thinking twice before asking is the last step. It is always better to listen twice and read about it twice even before one starts to think. Typically, assimilation of knowledge is the precursor to new innovations and great ideas.
Experience in The Professional Field:
It has been a roller coaster ride every day at work, since the beginning. Starting from part time writing jobs, a full time field job, a research assistant, a designer to a systems architect, each and every day is demanding. There have been hardly any work days where I would think about doing something else or engaging in my hobbies, and complementing that, there have been hardly any weekends or vacations where there was an urge to get up and work. It is a non-trivial or perhaps a long lost treasure to find the work life balance people so often discuss. But it does exist and the journey to that balance is equally rewarding as the experience itself when you achieve it. I have been able to work on things which I wanted. I have been and currently also am working on solving problems which I find challenging and want to solve. I have had the pleasure of working with some great colleagues, insightful mentors and larger than life leaders and it has brought me nothing but happiness and satisfaction that I am always working with such a tremendous team.
The assimilation is still ongoing and before a year I would have bet with anybody that I can remember everything that I have picked up or learnt. Unfortunately, since a year ago, I am experiencing incidents where I forgot something technical, where nobody could best me at, a few years back. Naturally, I have developed new skills which I thought I would never do. In the wake, I have forgotten a few concepts where I used to stand unbeaten. I have realized that my capacity of learning has reached a saturation and that I must let go of the tools and capabilities which I don?t need only in the hope that they come back to me at a later stage or stay with me as a hobby outside my work life. But that hasn’t set me back even a single byte when it comes to assimilating new information consistently. After all, I have realized that we as humans are only here to solve problems, with the best tools we have, while expanding our knowledge alongside. But as long as there is a job that can be done, I am alright with not knowing how to do it. As far as I have experienced, all of us are capable of learning and relearning a few tools, some skills, but above all many great things to achieve anything we want.
Alumni Interaction with the Institute