Stuff on skills

If I ask you the question, "What do you think is the real job of your school or college?" , your immediate answer would probably be, "Prepare me for the future." But, have you ever wondered what your job is as a student? Well... "getting a good score?", "developing good habits?" Yeah thats probably true. But, there is one more important aspect that most of you forget as students, and most of them regret as grownups. That is "Boosting your skills." The aim of this article is to change the way, students see their curriculum in India.

There are two types of skills.
1. The ones that take a relatively shorter duration of time to develop.
And that can be improved quickly by training. For Example, skills such
as reading, writing, speaking, and problem-solving.
2. Those that take more time to develop. And can not be developed
purely by training. Most of these skills get imbibed through observation
and will power. They are teamwork, Decision making skills (especially
when you are under stress), Taking Initiatives, Time management,
Maintaining honesty and integrity under challenging situations.

Let us begin with the skills of the first type.

Most of these skills are tested in almost every competitive exam such as IIT JEE, CAT, GMAT, GRE etc.
But did you know that your school prepares you for developing most of these skills?
Solving comprehension passages improve your reading skills.
Writing essays and assignments sharpen your writing skills.
Giving presentations for your projects improve your speaking skills. Yes, the projects that you would probably dismiss as something that is not important.
Many grownups lack problem-solving skills. This is mainly due to their negligence during schooling to solve assignments on their own. Many of them would have referred to guides or asked their siblings for help. If you want to be an excellent problem solver in future, I suggest you to attempt doing your own home work. This would prepare you to evaluate all possible solutions to a problem and carefully select the solution that you think is the best.

It is equally important for you to sharpen these skills by solving puzzles, preparing and taking up competitive exams & reading extra material that will give you tips for improving these skills. This will prepare you better for CAT, IIT JEE, GMAT, GRE and other such exams in future.

You must have realized by this time, that the skills of the first type are mostly developed as a part of you curriculum. But what about the skills of the second type? How do you develop them?After all those are the skills that would help you stand out of the crowd. We will talk about that in the next session.

Skills - 2
These are the skills that will make you stand out of the crowd at every stage of your life.

Team Work :
Success in today's world is almost directly proportional to a person's ability to work in a team. If you analyze the qualities of the most successful people of the last 10 years, team work would be a common quality. How do you develop teamwork when at school or college? Mostly by working on projects, doing community service, playing in team sports (ex. cricket, football..)

Decision Making skills:
Again the most common quality found among successsful people is high efficiency in taking decisions when under stress. You can sharpen this by solving puzzles, attempting to solve math problems on your own, reading and analyzing the latest in news (politics, sports, business etc), participating in team activities and other extra curricular activities.

Taking initiatives:
Do you want to join Harvard after growing up? Then you HAVE TO START TAKING INITIATIVES from school level itself or atleast when in college. Most of the b-schools like harvard specifically look for this quality. While it is not a must to do so, it will definitely be an added advantage to you over other applicants to harvard. Why? Thats because when you take an initiative many skills of yours are shaped such as leadership, team skills etc. Also you would have learnt a lot and that is considered valuable. What kind of initiatives? It can be anything from starting a new club (for ex: Chess club) in your school to community service (ex. teaching other children, driving a program to clean your school etc).

Time management:
A skill that will be sharpened by managing your studies and extra initiatives successfully.

Maintaining honesty and integrity:
Being honest is something thats boring to hear again and again. But do you know that some universities for higher education in India and USA ask you to quote instances where you had a chance for being dishonest, but you chose to maintain your honesty? Being honest and ethical at all times is really important for your personal integrity. So next time you have a choice for being dishonest think for a while, ask friends or family for help / opinion or simply mail bluminuts. We will be glad to help you out.