Saturday, 2 December 2017

GIBS Dream Ending 2017 with the Convocation and Student of the Year Grand Functions!


Gearing up for another academic year would probably witness similar concluding events in the year 2018. So it has been for ages in society as in nature with repetitions like the seasons that come and go. Yet, the present moment is always of superior importance and the GIBS students and staff can very well celebrate the hard labor across the weeks and months that seemed to never end.
Both the occasions, the Convocation and Student of the Year, did motivate with the presence of august personalities from a broad spectrum of academics, industry and corporates. Inspiration is so much in short supply these days with the media constantly repeating stories of wrongdoing. It becomes so difficult to uphold values and traditions and convince the world that life is worth living in such conditions. Perhaps it would be worthy to emulate the lotus that is intimately tied up with Indian spiritual traditions. The lotus may grow in muddy water but keeps itself proudly aloft above the water surface in resplendent beauty.

Enormous organizational challenges
Those who see only the external manifestations are probably making a mistake. The difference lies between being the passenger and the driver of a bus. Putting together events of such magnitude presents a serious challenge not only in terms of monetary resources, creativity and materials like furniture but also the logistics and the conception. Can it all be left in the hands of professional event managers? Partly, yes, but the students need to learn and experience is always the best teacher.
Starting with the cleaning and the furniture arrangements, the stage arrangements, the program being drawn up and the formalities observed, it was a long, long journey of practice and more practice. As management students, it was all excellent rehearsing for future roles. Feeling involved and dedicated, participating with feelings and emotions, since the date soon approaches to say goodbye to pursue individual careers. Keeping in touch has never been easier than nowadays with all the technology and the social media, but the face to face companionship in the GIBS campus must now come to an end.

The Convocation Fulfillment
The graduation moment and ecstasy comes but rarely to most people. Life does sometimes appear like a race for degrees in the belief that the higher qualifications would ensure better professional positions, success in society and dazzling reputations. Yet, too many degrees may only encourage theoretical thinking and a divorce from the realities of life. Practical approaches apply more passionately to professional courses like the management studies at GIBS. Many dreams came true on that Convocation date when the deserving girls and boys were officially blessed with the degrees that would usher them through many professional peaks. The world beckons with open arms and the luckiest ones would reach very far in the management race.

You get to wear that ceremonial convocation dress perhaps only once but it is a charmed occasion! Those few minutes represent the culmination of intense dreams built up over the years. Yet, the students have reached nowhere professionally so far, though they contain enormous potential, like the little seed that will grow into a towering colossus in good time. Some of them do possess excellent work experience before they entered the management college but a fresh start begins with the added feathers after the management degree.

And then came the Student of the Year grand occasion
An ocean of talent does exist within the GIBS campus! Among the best minds, probably most of the dedicated brains are concerned with management careers. Management of money, HR, materials, manufacture and services lies certainly above every other career. Management is truly universal like the sun and shines upon every sector and profession, from the teeming cities full of corporate mega-giants and the remotest areas in forests and deserts. Management is truly the yardstick by means of which an organization may be judged.

The trophies and the medals, the mementos and the flowers did speak many intimate languages of grand achievements and promises of splendid futures. Savor the moment since the togetherness of the last two years is now ending. Reunions may come later in life but those will be in changed circumstances, perhaps as managers or sales executives. The innocence of the present moment may soon be lost amidst the complexities of jobs and life, duties and responsibility.
The speeches and the dances continue to reverberate in the mind. Recordings do remain in the form of images and videos to be uploaded to GIBS websites to become a part of the institutional history. Students particularly would remember the events through many decades. They would frame the pictures and display them online and even in their home drawing rooms and office chambers. The atmosphere and the recognitions would remain in the memory to tell stories of achievement across a lifetime.






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