What makes a good student great? Perseverance, the will to prove oneself or plain old burning the midnight oil? A student needs to persevere when the going gets tough. The will to prove oneself makes perseverance possible and burning the midnight oil is the process that makes it all possible. In a world of million aspirations and dreams along with countless opportunities it’s easy to get lost in the crowd. Who then is the component or catalyst that creates a student who can tough it out in the real world and be ready to face its challenges head on? It’s a teacher who determines the true worth of a student. They do so by making the students self – sufficient enough to realize their own worth. Being a student is not easy, being a teacher is harder. There’s a lot our teacher’s contribute when they shape us from imperfect clay to a perfect work of art. How they do it is what decides what shape the student takes. First day for a student at HMMRA is like first day at any institute or university. We’re all hopeful eyed, optimistic and enthusiastic minds ready to explore the new environment and make it our own. It’s what happens after that point is what sets HMMRA apart from the rest, once you meet the teachers. Right from the first lecture it’s pretty clear that none of us are here to learn the subject, we’re here to experience the subject so that we may apply it in the real world everyday for the rest of our lives. Our teachers don’t sell optimism to us neither do they tell us we’re going to rule the world. They teach us to understand the world before we may aspire to rule it. They show us the path to being real and give us the tools and favours in form of skill that they impart from their own experience and learning. They don’t call themselves teachers when teaching, they’re students who know better. Now a days even internet can teach you a subject and its application. Google your queries and questions and out comes volumes of information beyond your comprehension. A patient mind can sift its way through that and figure out the essence of the subject. Which is what we need our teachers for, right from childhood, so that we grasp what the subject is trying to tell us. To make a curious young mind question the subject beyond what it’s all about creates minds that cannot be caged by the rules set by the world. It creates not leaders but pioneers, who look at the world from an angle that simplifies it rather than overwhelm. In HMMRA we students learn this lesson right from the very first interaction with our teachers. It not only changes the way we view the world but makes us wonder what more could we do with it. “Be me or better than me”, says Mrs Runa Bhutra, a faculty member. Maybe it’s time the world views academics with such attitude that not only requires a teacher to be generous when imparting knowledge and wisdom but also inspires a student to be generous when trying to take in the core essence of what a subject tries to tell us. They teach us not how to view the world around us, but how we view ourselves in it. When we look at ourselves differently the world automatically looks and feels different. The teachers in HMMRA don’t distinguish themselves from learners, they believe in honing their learning skills each and everday. There hardly may have been any faculty who did not tell us on our first day that they’re here to learn from us as much as they’re here to guide us. They learn while they guide us and we learn as we grow under their guidance. A new and real world awaits us as students. It beckons us, challenges us, calls out to us. To explore it, revel in it, learn from it and change it. To do all that and to be all that we need people who’ve done it and been it. HMMRA offers us its teachers who in their time as a student and newbie out in the real world have made it come true. It is true for every student in the present as it is for the one’s in the past and for the one’s to come in the future, to prove to be tougher than the challenge you face. To be wiser each time you come out of it, no matter what the outcome.
Harkisan Mehta Institute: Student Gazette 