Gauraw Kishore Tripathy, Online MCA AI

G: Hello, my name is Gaurav.

S: Hi, I’m Shweta.

G: And today, on this very important day, I’m here on the Amritapuri campus of Amrita University for my convocation.

S: And I decided to join him because it’s no less than a festival or a very important day for us, so we are here.

G: Right. And, you know, just to talk about this journey that I had with the Amrita HEAD program. This was a master’s in IML. I picked up this program a couple of years back, and it was just teamwork that Shweta and my family helped me to actually be able to complete this entire program.

S: So let me tell you, when the head of the family thinks of studying further, it’s not just him or her. The others also have to cooperate equally in that. You have to sacrifice your weekends, and especially when you’re a working professional and you want to continue with the same pace and acquire the same knowledge, you have to sacrifice.

S: And the atmosphere in the family also should be the same. Especially when you are in your early 40s and you want to study, you want to accomplish your work-life balance as well. The family balance is very important. We, together as a team, worked together and had to decide in phases.

S: Initially, a few months are very difficult.

G: You’re dealing with a lot of things, you are studying something new, there are a lot of new concepts that you have to learn, and your weekends are just gone in those. Then the week starts, and you know all the things that you have to do in the week: the school of the kids, your office, and all of the chores. It’s just difficult.

S: But with each passing semester, you feel so accomplished that you’ve done something nice and something great. So I would suggest to all the people who want to do online courses that the family atmosphere should be very lively. Lively in the sense that yes, you have to sacrifice a few things, but that doesn’t mean you sacrifice everything.

S: You can plan your things, like, “Okay, let’s do this this weekend,” and let your education be a part of your success story. When your kids see their parents studying so hard, it automatically brings a lively atmosphere. They become very motivated and inspired; they don’t have to find motivation from outside.

S: And as a young leader, what I feel in Gaurav is that when young leaders have that experience of leadership, what they often lack is upgrading their education. So upgrading education is very important because the combination of the two, being a good leader and being educated, along with openness to new ideas, makes all the difference.

G: Right. And anything new that you are doing, having an academia-driven qualification just makes a lot of difference. It fortifies your skills that you may have built yourself through an organic process of learning from the resources present wherever you work. But a qualification that is given by a pioneer academic institution makes it special.

S: Absolutely. I was going to discuss how difficult it is. The faculties and the teachers, I feel the same. It’s just a barrier of a visual screen in front of us, but the teachers are so dedicated. The kind of syllabus, curriculum, and approach—even I got inspired when I was looking through the syllabus, thinking about how I could acquire such knowledge and help myself in the future.

S: So I think, let’s not stop our education just because we are getting older or have a lot of responsibilities. Let’s enhance our education. This is what we feel, and we wanted to celebrate that. We are very enthusiastic about it.

G: And let me tell you, it’s worth your time and effort.

S: Absolutely.

G: It is wonderful.