There are very few moments that will be in one’s heart till you die and one definitely would be my role as the Chairman of Students Union of PSG College of Technology. It is a very big blog but believe it or not I condensed it much from the original stuff.
The whole story rooted when I entered PSG and heard the then Chairman giving a speech in our Q-angle. I had a very great wish that I should also talk after three years but never thought in my first year that would really happen in my life. I probably had regretted so many times of not taking CS in College of engineering-Guindy during my second year when I found the course so tough and all the computer sience guys were enjoying much (relatively) and I was highly envious about them. But definitely not after I got much interest in Students Union and most of the clubs in my college.
The main thing that boosted my probability of me becoming the chairman in the final year was when my friend and I organized a video conference with Dr.Richard Stallman during my 3rd year for our college technical symposium KRIYA. (I remember that day when I slept @ 06:30am and woke up @ 07:15am) .
Then after that I should say the air started blowing my side and then on I got more accolades and appreciations from almost all and no doubt I was being selected as the Chairman in the final year.
From the very first day when the results had been announced I had a great desire to do something great for the college during my period.
My twin brother came for the Students Union Inauguration and on seeing him students’ union faculty advisors started scolding him as he was not wearing suits and the function was about to start in 30 mins. Later after getting scoldings my twin explained ..(Dalton sorry yar)..
During my speech (chairman is supposed to read the proposed activities for the academic year) my friends bursted crackers.. wow.. I thought is that was the sign of success r machi everyone is gonna burst crackers on u ??..
Then we had students activities regularly and I was very keen there should be atleast two activities organized by SU every month. Though Students union activities were going on successfully on one side regularly I earned dissatisfaction towards my dep staffs for not attending class regularly. I was placed in TCS but I have not got dual job for a long period. My parents were also pestering me to concentrate in studies and keep SU works by the side for few days. (I tried but couldn’t)
Then came our Intra college cultural festival Intrams- intra college cultural festival. I was sure that intrams should be renovate in all forms. We had the most no. of teams participating in Intrams than any other year. And moreover I wanted a very smooth Intrams without any disputes or problems as the future activities are highly dependent o this factor. But after the successful first day , on the second day towards the end there was a big problem. (oh .. god)
But somehow we managed to explain, the problems were not mainly due to Students union. The management was convinced and I came back to the normal stage.
For the first time in my life I faced much stress and had more sleepless nights. Adding fuel to the fire are my internal exams for which I have not prepared even 1%. Then I got placed in a business analytics company(Mu Sigma) and I was highly relieved. I learnt to work under heavy stress and then on I took things easily and started finding a solution rather than thinking about the source of the problem. A Great learning experience.
After my semester exams we started our preparation for our technical symposium KRIYA. I wanted to set a great standard for KRIYA and started thinking big. Actually when I was working for Kriya I was able to understand if equal amount of hardwork is put in, no task is difficult. We got a great workforce for Kriya. We had many spotlights including guest lecture by Mr.Jimmy Wales, Founder Wikipedia, Dr.Annadurai, Project Director, Chandrayaan ISRO and Video Conference with Dr.John C Mather , Chief Astro Physicist NASA and we managed to collect nearly 15 lakhs worth of sponsorship amount.
We had put many meetings as for the first time such a huge function is being organized by the students Union. I wanted everything to be perfect and each team to do its job meticulously. We had our technical symposium for three days and the main thing that I suffered with were the speeches I need to prepare. I didn’t have much time to think and type a word document and take a print out of it. I learnt time management a lot and be punctual for all the meetings we had. And for the third day (that too on Sunday when we had guest lecture by jimmy wales) the crowd was relatively low and I need to get to much crowd as he is one of the world’s greatest icons. Somehow through the juniors we got a decent crowd and the q-angle was filled with 1000 students. And as per the dean’s word we gave the certificates only on the final day and having not yet prepared my valedictory speech and not signed the certificates and calls every 30 seconds , god please give me some rest!!(I prayed)
There were many problems amongst various verticals but somehow solved most of the problems and were not exposed and the fuction was a very..great success.
And one of my finest experiences was when we had a dinner sponsored by the Hotel Residency for team KRIYA with Jimmy Wales . It was time for me to thank all teams who worked for KRIYA(but thanks a very small word to express my gratitude). People Management – a great quality of how to talk and deal with different types of people, I learnt from Kriya.
We completely focused on technical symposium and had less focus on our cultural fest Renaissance. That was the greatest blunder I did of not allotting a separate team for renaissance and constantly monitoring it. But I got much help from my class mates and SU well wishers and publicized well and got tremendous response for Renaissance too. But the transition time was too low from Kriya to Renaissance and we were not mentally ready to again start the work for renaissance from the scratch. But that costed much in our sponsorship amount and we were not able to get much sponsor for renaissance as we did for Kriya. But the expectations staffs had was very high as we gave a very successful Kriya.
I felt much for it when I called airtel and the sales manager told “If u had approached us before three weeks we would have definitely sponsored” . Procrastination .. no.. 1 main quality A leader should not have more affinity towards (completely realized) . then we managed to get main sponsor from Vodafone under extreme conditions. I accepted as I want Renaissance to be associated with a big brand. But the commitment of seling 1000 sim cards turned out to be very crucial and definitely I couldn’t do that inspite of heavy marketing. We conducted the function successfully. It was like a great comeback and thanks to my classmates and all su wishers who worked very hard during the function.
The main lesson I learnt is “Never over commit; But always under commit and over deliver” .
I always thank GOD for giving me the golden opportunity of being the chairman of such a prestigious institution. All the treats , small fights , great enjoyments will be in my mind for eternity. Thank you PSG!!!
