I have taken birth in this world to learn and grow which is also my reason to live. My view of learning is a bit different from everyone else. Everyone believes learning takes place when you finish your assignments on time, finish the readings assigned on time and when you score good grades. In my opinion learning takes place when you know how to apply the knowledge that you have learned, Learning comes through critical thinking; when you start questioning what is applied. Learning does not have to come only through books. People have learned in life and succeeded without books also, a good example would be Albert Einstein here. He always used to question his professors and they used to reply back by saying learn what is written in the books. If he would have done that, he would not have come up with so many inventions. In my opinion, Practical knowledge is more important than the knowledge gained from the books. I like reading books but I do it to question that idea and not just follow that idea. Last night I questioned the idea of flying; I was wondering if our airplanes can go above the skies and stay there and the earth will move around its axis and then you can land the airplane at another place, wouldn’t it save more fuel? I am not saying that my idea was correct, but if somebody thinks over it deeply then it can be possible. For innovations to happen you first needs idea and therefore I feel that Imagination is more or less equal to knowledge. I consider imagination as a part of learning. To conclude, my academic goal is to learn the way I explained above and challenge the system. I am also starting a global journal where I will be involving as many people as I can to challenge the system, to challenge the applied knowledge. Knowledge will soon have a new name.
Academic goals lead to professional goals in life. My professional goal is to be a venture capitalist in life. I want to get associated with the ideas that challenge our system. I understand the fact that it requires a lot of capital, and I won’t hesitate to take risk and take a loan to be what I want. My aim is to be a venture capitalist later in life, currently I will look for a job where I will be free to challenge the system and learn. Money does not matter much to me and it won’t be a factor for me in deciding my job. I know that our current situation has hurt the job situation in the country, but I’m not afraid because if I don’t get a job I will be taking the risk of taking a loan and starting my venture capitalist firm. I wish to support environmental friendly companies through my venture capitalist firm. If someday I get successful in life, I wish to own a non-profit organization to save our nature and environment. To conclude, my professional goal is to be a venture capitalist and take part in changing the way our system works and make it better.
Extra Curricular and leadership involvement
I have a lot of extracurricular activities, but I will only list two important ones. First is to take part in sports. I am very fond of sports and keeping myself fit. I have taken part and won a lot of sports competition, most of them were team sports. I do not enjoy playing sports alone and that’s the reason why I take part in team sports. My favorite sport is Cricket. It is a team sport and is not played in this country, it is similar to baseball. I feel in this sport, an individual can make a difference but a team will always overcome that individual difference. I have enhanced my team skills tenfold by playing and loving this sport. My second extracurricular activity is photography. Photography is not my hobby, it is my passion. Even after a hectic and tiring day, I get the inspiration to look over my photos or someone else and criticize them. When something is your passion, you don’t require outside motivation, your inner self inspires you itself. I have taken part in a lot of photography competitions, but not have won a single one. In my case, losing gives me more inspiration than winning and it drives me to do better every time.
Although I have not held any leadership positions in IU, I have learned the leadership skills through team work. The best thing I like about IU is team work; team assignments have enhanced my leadership skills and learning skills. We get a lot of team assignments in IU which has enhanced my overall leadership skills. I had some leadership skills before coming to IU also; I was the captain of our high school’s cricket team. To conclude, I had some leadership skills before coming to IU, but I have enhanced those skills tenfold after coming here.
Volunteerism
To start writing about my volunteering activities, I would like to write the quote I love. It’s a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “If I can help somebody as I pass along,
if I can cheer somebody with a word or song,
if I can show somebody he's traveling wrong,
then my living will not be in vain.”
I love this quote and follow it also. My soul gets satisfaction when I get involved in volunteer work. I have taken active part in volunteer work. I will list down my two recent volunteer works here at IU. Firstly I took part in the Red Cross blood donation program. I donated my blood in that program. Secondly, I took part in the international buddy program in Kelley business school. I was assigned to be friend with a Korean student named Minsuk Kim and help him get adjusted to IU. My goal for this work is to enhance his experience here at IU. I am an international student also and I remember the difficult times faced by me when I came here. I wish to make his time here at IU fun and enjoyable, which he will cherish all his life. To conclude, I love getting involved in volunteer work.
Financial Need
Being an international student, I pay ten times the amount what other students pay. I don’t regret this because my experience here at IU is more valuable than the price I pay for it. I wish to get this scholarship to make my task of paying a huge amount a bit easier.
Qualities that distinguish you
There are some qualities which every individual have, but there are few characteristics which distinguish me from others. First of those qualities is that I consider myself as a critical thinker. I have also mentioned a lot about this in my academic and professional goals also. I always question the applied knowledge. I like to challenge the system, the way things work. I have mentioned an example of this in my academic and professional goals.
I feel the second quality that distinguishes me from others is that I am always relaxed and cool in tough situations also. People get tensed when they face tough times and eventually they take a wrong decision. I feel that if people can remain cool and think over the problems in all situations, then people won’t face tough times anytime in their life. Those people will know how to make their tough situations easy. I consider myself as one of those people.
Nobody is perfect in this world and neither am I; I have a lot of weaknesses. I feel my third quality that distinguishes me is that I always try to convert my weakness into my strengths. In my opinion, a smart person learns from his mistakes or weakness and tries to avoid it in future, but a wise person tries to convert his weakness into strengths. A lot of people have told me that this statement looks good in words only and it is very tough to follow. But people always criticize good thoughts, and it gives me motivation to follow that statement. I would like to give one example to prove that I possess this quality; when I came here at IU I was not so good at speaking English. I considered my communication skills as my weakness. But after going through so many presentation classes here at IU, I feel I have converted that weakness into my strength. In my both presentation class, I received compliments from my professors. This was just one of the many examples.
To conclude, I believe that every person in this world is different and have different abilities. These were some abilities that I possess which makes me different from others.
